As a redshirt senior preparing for his fifth and final season at Pitt, Ryan Baer can attest to the overall performance of the offensive line over the years.
Baer first started for Pitt in 2023 and, next fall, is the bettor’s choice to be Pitt’s primary right tackle, a position where he started all 13 games in 2025.
Reflecting on the play of his position group last season and over the past few years, Baer was blunt.
“As an o-line, I think it’s still the same,” he said. “We just haven’t stepped up to the standard. Every year, the last couple years, I’ve come up here and talked about how it has to be better, and it hasn’t been. At this point, talk is cheap. We’ve got to show up on Saturdays and prove that we’ve gotten better. So we’re just going to work throughout the spring, throughout the summer in camp and on gameday, we’ve got to show up.”
Pitt’s ability to protect the quarterback was substandard last year, as the Panthers allowed 44 sacks, which ranked 128th in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
That total also ranked dead last in the ACC, as Pitt’s quarterbacks, primarily Mason Heintschel when he took over under center in Week 5, were regularly harassed.
In lamenting the overall performance of Pitt’s offensive line, Baer didn’t shy away from looking in the mirror.
“I feel like my biggest downfall has been pass protection,” the 6-foot-7, 325-pound Baer said. “I think I’m good for three-fourths of the game. I feel like I’ve started slow in the first half and in the second half, I usually pick it up. I think I’m really good for most of the game and then five plays when I mess up, it’s really bad mess-ups.
“You’re not going to be perfect, but after a pressure or a sack, it needs to be like, you need to fix yourself after you get beat. You can’t get beat and turn it into a really bad play.”
Baer is a rarity these days in having spent his entire five-year collegiate career with one program.
Originally from Eastlake, Ohio, Baer joined Pitt in January of 2022 before redshirting that fall.
In 2023, after Matt Goncalves suffered a season-ending injury in September, Baer entered the starting lineup.
Since then, he’s started 35 games up front for the Panthers.
“Five years definitely went by fast, having five springs,” Baer said. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
The exact make-up of Pitt’s season-opening offensive line won’t be known for some time.
But along with Baer, starting right guard B.J. Williams returns, as does Ryan Carretta, who’s moved to center following the transfer of Lyndon Cooper to Vanderbilt.
Kendall Stanley, who started at both right and left tackle for Pitt last fall, also returns, while guard Keith Gouveia received another year of eligibility after his season ended prematurely after four games due to injury.
Together, they’ll look to form the nucleus of Pitt’s offensive line, which added reinforcements via the portal in Penn’s Netinho Olivieri and Keylen Davis from Akron.
Fellow returning players looking to take the next steps in terms of contributing more include Shep Turk (Thomas Jefferson), Jiavani Cooley, Mason Lindsay and Torian Chester.
Baer has seen a wide array of team results while at Pitt.
His freshman year, the Panthers followed up their ACC championship with a win in the Sun Bowl, while 2023 proved to be the worst campaign in a quarter century.
Baer navigated the electric 7-0 start and crushing 0-6 finish by the 2024 squad, while last fall, the Panthers finished 8-5 but lost in the Military Bowl to East Carolina, leaving much to be desired.
Now, Baer looks to be a catalyst of improved play by his group while also setting himself up for the next level.
“I wanted to finish what I started,” Baer said. “I committed here to be a leader of this team, to do my four or five years — however long it took. I had thoughts of maybe leaving last year, not to transfer, but hoping for the (NFL) Draft but I didn’t play as good as I wanted to. I’m back, and I want to finish what I started here when I initially committed out of high school. I really wanted to be here.”