UCLA Football Preview: Pitt's Offense Has a New Look
The Panthers will look like a different team because they will be with their starting QB and running back from the regular season not playing against the Bruins.
Bowl season. It’s the most wonderful time of the year in college football where teams who played well during the regular season get the chance to continue practicing in preparation to play one more game. The reality is that it gives teams extra reps and extra practices in advance of Spring Practice. In some cases, it affords seniors a chance to put on their uniforms one final time. That was more the case in years past.
Now, we are seeing players entering the Transfer Portal as soon as possible with the intention of finding a new home for next season. In some cases, those players may still play a final game at their old school. We’ll see that when Nicholas Barr-Mira suits up for UCLA before leaving via the portal.
But in the case of the Pittsburgh Panthers, quarterback Kedon Slovis — yes, that Kedon Slovis who used to play across town for the hated Trojans of Southern Cal — has gone into the void leaving Pitt without their starting quarterback all while Slovis heads off as a grad transfer to BYU where he will be on his third school in three years.
As a result, the Pitt offense may not look like the offense that got them to the Sun Bowl in the first place, but I’m going to do my best to preview what our regular readers should expect from the Panthers on the offensive side of the ball.
Quarterback
Pat Narduzzi and offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, Jr. will hand the keys to the offense to backup quarterback Nick Patti.
Patti arrived at Pitt back in 2018 after playing his high school football at St. Joseph Regional High School, aka SJR, in Montvale, NJ. Regular readers of The Mighty Bruin (and Bruins Nation) may recall that SJR is the high school where I played my high school football as well many years ago. So, the Green Knight in me is hoping that Patti has a good game. Of course, the Bruin in me hopes it isn’t that good of a game.
Patti was a high school teammate of former Bruin Matt Alaimo who transferred out of the program after one season and now plays at Rutgers. After redshirting his true freshman season, he hasn’t seen as much playing time as I’m sure he would have hoped. As a redshirt freshman, he was the backup to starting QB Kenny Pickett and played in six games and even started a game against Delaware.
Patti saw the field less as a redshirt sophomore. He only got into games against Notre Dame and Florida State, but he did manage to score twice against the Seminoles.
Last season, Patti played in nine of the Panthers’ fourteen games. He even started the Peach Bowl last season after Pickett opted out of playing in the game in order to prepare for the NFL Draft. It may have been a good decision by Pickett because Patti actually left the Peach Bowl game with an injury.
The good news for Bruin fans is that in four seasons with Pitt, Patti has completed a grand total of 51 passes on just 87 attempts. The bad news is that only one of those attempts resulted in an interception.
But the bottom line here is that Patti is pretty much an unknown quantity. He was never able to get much playing time while Pickett, the Steelers’ first round draft choice, was at Pitt and the coaching staff brought in Slovis, who got the starting job this season ahead of Patti. So, it may be tough for the Bruin defense to be know what to expect outside of little snippets of film on Patti.
Now, that may not matter a whole lot though because the Panthers tend to run the ball nearly 58% of the time, which brings us to the Panther running game.
Running Game
During a regular week, this is where I might normally talk about Israel Abanikanda. North Carolina head coach Mack Brown called Abanikanda “the best running back in the country.” While I’m sure Zach Charbonnet would have something to say about that, it won’t matter come Friday because Abanikanda has opted out of playing in the game to protect himself for the NFL Draft. So, Charbonnet will definitely be the best running back on the field in El Paso.
Of course, that begs the question as to who will run the ball for the Panthers.
That task looks like it will fall to sophomore Rodney Hammond, Jr., but expect there to be a big drop off in offensive production for the Panthers.
That’s because Abanikanda carried the ball 239 times during the regular season for more than 1,400 yards while Hammond carried 84 times for just 366 yards. Abanikanda scored 20 of the Panthers’ 28 rushing touchdowns this season while Hammond accounted for just three touchdowns on the ground.
If the Bruins can stop Hammond on the ground, it will likely put more pressure on Patti to throw the ball, potentially leading to a mistake by the mostly untested quarterback.
The absence of Abanikanda could also result in more carries by the other Panther running backs Vincent Davis and C’Bo Flemister. Davis and Flemister each average 5.5 yards per carry, but these guys only got half the carries that Hammond had over the course of the season. It will be interesting to see whether Pitt works these guys in more to help make up for the production loss caused by the loss of Abanikianda.
Passing Game
When discussing the Pitt receivers, it’s important to note that almost all of the stats for their receivers came with Kedon Slovis at quarterback. So, while Jared Wayne has been the Panthers’ top receiving target this season, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Wayne will be Patti’s primary target on Friday.
But there is no doubt that Wayne has been the biggest playmaker at receiver for Pittsburgh this season. Wayne has caught 55 passes for 1,012 yards and five touchdowns. No other Pittsburgh receiver comes close to that.
The Panthers’ second-best receiver this season has been sophomore Konata Mumpfield, who has caught 51 passes for 473 yards. Mumpfield’s average per reception is half of Wayne’s, though, meaning that Mumpfield is likely the checkdown receiver if Wayne isn’t open.
Even though Patti hasn’t started this season, he and Wayne seem to have a connection together, according to TribLive.com. In that article, Wayne said, “It didn’t take too much to get on the same page, and we kind of know each other’s tendencies. I know what type of ball he likes to throw, and (he knows) how I run my routes.” So, look for the seniors to try to carry the Panthers.
The Panthers’ third starting receiver is Bub Means, who has averaged 13.8 yards per reception this season while starting tight end Gavin Bartholomew has averaged 14.2 yards per reception. While there are five other Panthers who have averaged more than 10 yards per catch, one of them is Abanikanda and another is Jaden Bradley who has entered the Transfer Portal.
Analysis
With so many personnel changes going on due to injuries, opt-outs and the transfer portal, it’s hard to assess what the Pitt offense is going to look like come game time on Friday. With that in mind, the only way UCLA can prepare is to expect Pitt to follow their usual tendencies and following the old “next man up” mantra.
Assuming that holds, expect the Panthers to try to run the ball more than they pass, at least until they fall far enough behind that they have to start throwing the ball more to try to catch up.
The Bruins will need to stop Hammond from gaining yardage on the ground and they will need to get pressure on Patti to keep him from getting the ball to Wayne through the air. If they can accomplish this, it could be a big win for the Bruins.
Go Bruins!!!
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What does it say about him as a person that the best running back in the country will be suiting up for the Bruins in a bowl game? Thank you, Zach.
I deeply appreciate Zach choosing to play. That said, the way the NFL now thinks of running backs, I pretty much never begrudge any running back who opts out these days...