Pitt Take 5: Playing clean game just as important for Panthers as scoring lots of points

At the end of Pitt’s opener Saturday against Kent State at Acrisure Stadium, the statistic that will matter most will be points scored.

But unless the Panthers beat the 55 1/2 over/under by themselves — 50 is offensive coordinator Kade Bell’s goal, anyway — it might be more instructive to check the first down and offensive penalties column. Bell and Pat Narduzzi want to move the chains and see a clean, machine-like offense.

Meanwhile, Pitt’s run defense must get its muscle back after finishing eighth in the ACC last season (150.2 yards per game). Don’t embarrass your coach like that again, guys.

“We did not do that last year,” Narduzzi said. “The year before we did, the year before we did, the year before we did, the year before we did. I want to get back to doing that.”

Yet in one evident way, the outcome and stats that accompany it may not tell us anything. Kent State (1-11 last year) hasn’t had a winning record in a full season since 2019 and never defeated Pitt in seven tries.

Pitt has lost to a Mid-American Conference team five times in 38 games, including Western Michigan at home when Pitt went on to win the ACC championship. But another loss is difficult to imagine.

Pitt is a 24 1/2-point favorite, and the Panthers need to make a statement. A victory margin of less than three touchdowns just won’t do it.

1. Run the ball, too

What you need to know about Pitt’s offense is that it’s intended to be more than just the quarterback throwing the football left, right and down the middle. A good run attack makes the pass game go, and let’s see if Pitt can manufacture one this season after finishing last in the ACC in 2023 (101.9).

Desmond Reid will start over Rodney Hammond Jr. at running back, but Narduzzi suggested the workload split might be one-third for those two, plus another third for Gateway graduate Derrick Davis Jr.

Will there be enough snaps to satisfy all three?

Also, look for a rotation at wide receiver featuring Konata Mumpfield, Poppi Williams, Daejon Reynolds and Kenny Johnson.

2. Watch those procedure penalties

A significant area of interest in the opener will be the number of procedure penalties Pitt might commit while going fast. After all, many players on the roster were recruited into a different style of offense.

“Our operation right now with guys who haven’t been in this system and didn’t get recruited into this system is so much better than it was when we ended spring ball,” Narduzzi said. “Is it good enough? We’ll find out. (If) guys are moving and not set and the quarterback (calls for the snap) and we have illegal procedure, that’s going to annoy the heck out of me.”

He said most players were exposed to similar offenses in high school. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”

3. Too much information

Bell wants his offense to go fast, but the idea isn’t to see how many times center Lyndon Cooper can snap the ball.

“I’m not one of these guys (who says) we have to get 90 snaps a game,” Bell said. “I want to be a guy (who says), ‘Hey, what do we have to do to put players in position that week to win the game and score points?’ That’s something I’ve always built on and I make sure I’m game-planning the right way to do that.”

During practices, he has staff members keep track of the percentage of times the ball is snapped in seven, 12 and 23 seconds or less.

When a reporter asked him to reveal those percentages (a question no coach ever would answer), he was as vague as you might imagine.

“I don’t want to say that,” he said with the smile that seldom leaves his face when talking ball. “Some games we’ll play really, really fast. Some games we’ll play fast. Some games we’ll play medium and some games we might do more different stuff. It all depends on how we can score points.”

Where will he set the engine Saturday? Who knows? Reporters weren’t allowed in the game-plan meetings this week.

Still, it will be faster than Pitt fans are accustomed to seeing. Old-school coach Narduzzi might even be shocked.

4. What about the Golden Flashes?

• Football coaches come in several varieties of attitude, experience, success and failure. Yet many of them sound alike when talking to the media.

Kent State coach Kenni Burns was asked this week about training camp. You can guess what he said.

“It went great. Our guys have worked extremely hard. We got bigger, faster, stronger. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but it gives us a chance.”

You’ve never heard that before, right?

• Burns received bad news this week when junior backup running back Gavin Garcia, who rushed for 544 yards in 2023, was lost for the season with a knee injury. “This creates opportunity (for others),” Burns said, predictably.

Burns plucked Garcia from Pennsylvania powerhouse Southern Columbia where he scored 130 touchdowns, second-most in state history, and ran for more than 4,000 yards in his final two seasons. Writers for Lindy’s Sports magazine listed 10 Mid-American players they believe have NFL talent. Garcia is No. 9.

• Losing Garcia hurts the Golden Flashes, but Ky Thomas is their star running back. When Burns was his position coach at Minnesota, Thomas was Offensive MVP of the 2021 Guaranteed Rate Bowl, rushing for 144 yards in an 18-6 victory against West Virginia.

• After West Virginia and Akron, Kent State is the third-closest Division I school to Pitt’s campus. Burns deploys two of his coaches to recruit Pennsylvania, and he has three former WPIAL players on the roster — wide receiver Lesae Lacks of Bishop Canevin, safety Clinton Robinson of Keystone Oaks and tight end Peyton Faulker of Avonworth.

“I’d like to play this game every couple years,” Burns said, “just because it will get our colors down there.”

5. Remember when

Pitt defensive coordinator Randy Bates was Kent State’s linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator in 1998 and 1999, long enough to know, coach and befriend Steelers five-time Pro Bowler James Harrison.

“He drove me crazy every day for as long as I was with him, but he made a lot of plays,” Bates said. “Sometimes, he would just go make a play, not necessarily within the defense. It would be one of those, ‘Oh, no, good play’ type things.

“As a sophomore, he looked the same as he does now. He’s just probably a little stronger now. He was fast and physical and he had a mean streak in him for sure. He and I still have a very good relationship, although I wouldn’t give him tickets for the game Saturday. He’d have to go buy his own.”