The Pitt Offense: A Guessing Game For Mendenhall And Staff

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Bronco Mendenhall and his defensive staff aren’t quite sure what to expect from the Pitt offense in this Saturday night’s season opener for both teams, so they’re preparing for anything and everything.

The $64,000 question is, will Pitt stick to its traditional, physical running game even though it has four new starters on the offensive line and lost a pair of 1,000-yard rushers from last season? Or, will the Panthers open it up because new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple is regarded as one of the top OC’s in the business and has a reputation for putting the ball in the air.

“I don’t know,” Mendenhall said when asked what he’s expecting from Whipple. “This will be I think the third offensive coordinator we’ve faced against Pitt.

“I’m not sure what we’ll see. What I do know is the offensive coordinator that’s coming in [Whipple], they are certainly capable of points. The system he’s run in the past is explosive and very difficult to stop.”

The Virginia coach said it is impossible to estimate how Whipple’s addition has tilted Pitt toward the passing game as opposed to the Panthers’ past identity of running the football.

“We have to prepare for it all,” Mendenhall said. “Their ability to run the ball, we have to be prepared for that. We’ll have to prepare for it all. We’ll have to be prepared for all the other things that their coach has done in the past if given the free rein for him to do that, so we don’t know.”

Gone from Pitt’s dominating run attack are Qadree Ollison (1,245 yards) and Darrin Hall (1,177) and four of the five starting offensive linemen that punched open holes for the duo. They represented 74 percent of the Panthers’ offense last season.

The two new backs are juniors A.J. Davis (32 carries, 142 yards last season) and Todd Sibley (one rush for no yards).

Of the four new offensive linemen, two of them are redshirt sophomores and have never played in a college football game: left tackle Carter Warren (6-5, 320) and right guard Gabe Houy (6-6, 310).

Pitt offensive line coach Dave Borbely, who had two coaching stints at Virginia under Al Groh and Mike London, was asked if either of the two come to him with nerves, what would his response be.

In typical Borbs’ fashion, he answered, “I’ll just probably rip their ass.”

Borbely said it’s a concern for him, or at least in the back in his mind, wondering how those two might perform under the Saturday night lights in a major stadium with opponents trash-talking and trying to get into their heads.

Because Pitt has been so effective running the football against Virginia the past few years, particularly last season with the Coastal Division lead on the line, the Panthers are likely confident that they can just beat up the Cavaliers’ defense once again.

Virginia, with more depth on its defensive line, may not agree with that theory, but the Cavaliers will have to prove it. Stopping the run and meeting Pitt’s physicality has been a major point of emphasis in UVA’s training camp. Mendenhall knows that his defense, ranked 20th in the nation last season in total defense, must win the battle on the line of scrimmage and must control Pitt’s running attack to end a four-game losing streak to the Panthers.

The offensive weapon that does return for Pitt is second-year starting quarterback Kenny Pickett, a junior who started all 14 games for the Panthers last season and threw for 1,969 yards with 12 TDs, six interceptions, while completing 58 percent of his 310 pass attempts. He also can rush the ball (220 yards, 3 TDs).

Pickett’s first start was late in the 2017 season when he led an improbable upset of No. 2 Miami, and has started every game since.

Pickett also has some of his favorite targets returning in seniors Maurice Ffrench and Tre Tipton, along with junior Taysir Mack.

The reason Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi brought in Whipple was to put some life into the offense, particularly the passing game. That doesn’t mean that Narduzzi is selling out.

“We’re going to be able to run the football, I guarantee that,” Narduzzi said this week. “That line is going to be key to doing that regardless of who is in the backfield.”

Not long ago, Pittsburgh media quizzed the coach about the need to add a more dynamic passing game to the offense, and reminded him of that fact on Monday.

“We do,” Narduzzi answered. “It’s going to be [more dynamic]. Our passing game has to be dynamic, too. When we throw it, let’s complete it, you know? I guess we find out Saturday night.

“We’re going to throw the ball better, too, throw it more often. We’re still going to be able to run the football. It starts there. Your passing game won’t be worth a darn if you can’t run the football. We don’t want to be one-dimensional coming out of the game saying we ran the ball 80 percent of the time. I’d like to say its 60/40 run. 50/50 would be nice. It’s an opener. We have to be able to run the football.”

Narduzzi, who came to Pitt from the Big 10, believes in physical football, a power running game.

“It’s who we are,” he said in July at the ACC Kickoff.

He reiterated that point on Monday in Pittsburgh.

“The one thing I know we’re going to do well is run the football,” Narduzzi said. “Whether it’s four different schemes you’re going to run, you’re going to see a power scheme. I can tell you that.

“We can throw a bunch of stuff in, see what they got. We can be vanilla in the opener, whatever it may be. It can be because we held stuff back, it could be because that’s all we wanted to do or could do at that point. If you recall a year ago, we had a young offensive line, too, right?”

Narduzzi said with four new linemen up front the easiest thing to do is to run the football, eat up the clock.

“Do what a a tough Pittsburgh football team does,” he said.

Perhaps that takes a little bit of the guessing game out of it for Mendenhall and his defensive staff. Sounds like Pitt plans to try and steamroll the Virginia defense yet again.

Can the Cavaliers stop it?