#H2P... PITT IS IT! - A Pitt Panthers Dynasty (NCAA 14)

[moose141]

Four Downs: Training Camp Tales
Report by Matt Schmidlin | August 13, 2021

First and 10: 'New' Hampshire as Quel makes move from FS to OLB

Redshirt senior Quel Hampshire made it known that he would do whatever it took to get on the field, both to help the team and to show that he has the ability to play at the next level. Pitt HC Pat Narduzzi obliged.

"Quel is a tremendous athlete," Narduzzi said. "He's a guy who can get after the ball, has incredible speed, and is a rangy guy who can get from Point A to Point B in a hurry. We really like the looks that he gives us playing closer to the line of scrimmage and think that he can make a big impact."

After struggling to see the field early in his Pitt career, Hampshire featured primarily as a reserve safety last season, seeing significant time when spelling FS Jakob Lochlan or SS Avery Heller. Hampshire also played in Dollar defenses when the Panthers brought a third safety onto the field. However, with the departure of their entire starting linebacker corps, Hampshire took advantage of the opportunity and starting seeing snaps at outside linebacker, where his excellent speed, pursuit, and tackling look to make him a top candidate to take over for former starter Barry Jenkins II.

Hampshire's versatility and athleticism will allow the Panthers to be very resilient defensively, even when stuck in their 'base' 4-3 defense, as they would effectively still be able to be playing a 4-2-5, with Hampshire functioning as a combo DB/LB.

2nd and Long: Musical chairs as Panthers look to replace all 3 starting LBs

With Hampshire's emergence, senior Calvin Carlson was able to move back to MLB, where he has risen up as the likely winner of the starting role over fellow senior Phil Moore. Carlson came to the Panthers via the JuCo route, after the undersized MLB spent a season at ASA Miami looking to improve his stock after not receiving any significant D1 attention. He joined the Panthers as a MLB, but shifted to OLB to provide cover for Jenkins over the past two seasons. With the graduation of both Chase Pine and Jay Menefee, the MLB position was wide open, and Carlson has seized the role.

The Florida native has looked to have had a sensational summer, returning to Pittsburgh as arguably the most improved returning Panther. Carlson has been flying around the Panthers' South Side practice complex, looking extremely comfortable both in run support as well as in pass coverage.

The biggest question mark for the Panthers looks to be at the Sam linebacker position, where former 4-star recruit A'Darrion Mitchell has seen the majority of the snaps after backing up captain Jason Jordan the past two seasons. The junior has underwhelmed during his time with the Panthers, with questions arising about his desire and compete level as he seems to have stagnated in his development since his arrival on campus. Hopefully, the return to game action and new starting role will spur Mitchell to reach the heights expected of him when signing with the Panthers.

Should Mitchell struggle, sophomore Talik Bridges will be waiting in the wings to take over. Bridges, who played at Mississippi Gulf Coast (JuCo) last season, has been even better than advertised in camp so far, showing tremendous tackling fundamentals coupled with a wallop of a hit stick.

3rd and Short: Bordeaux shuffles inside, takes over at DL

After the departure of 2020 NCAA sack leader Darren Toth, Pat Narduzzi chose to look internally to find his successor at defensive tackle. Duzz looked no further than Malachi Bordeaux, shifting the redshirt junior pass rusher inside from defensive end to bolster the interior of the line.

"Malachi has some experience at the position," Narduzzi said. "He played there in our dime package last year when we were looking to get after the quarterback, so being able to use that ability on every down is going to give our opponents nightmares."

Bordeaux's size and speed will make him tough for interior lineman to deal with, as he will be the lightning to pair with sophomore Ryan Jacobs, the thunder who provides the prototypical DT size after starting alongside Toth as a freshman.

Senior Ronnie Baker will certainly be one starting edge rusher for the Panthers after tallying 6 sacks and 13 TFLs in his first campaign as a starter last year. Three players will be vying for time opposite Baker to round out the line, with sophomores Mac McAleavey and Jalen Hills competing with freshman Marcus Lanier to see significant reps.

4th and Inches: Reese picking up pieces, holding off Kirk so far

Acey Reese's relief performance in the national championship loss to Alabama left no shortage of offseason talking points. Could Reese be the guy to succeed Kenny Pickett under center? Would he ever even get the chance or could true freshman CJ Kirk come in and usurp him? So far, Reese has held serve and swatted away the naysayers.

Reese has seen the majority of snaps with the first team offense, showing off his polished throwing ability, which has seemed to give him the upper hand over the immensely talented Kirk. The Panthers have even added some new wrinkles into their playbook, with the appearance of some Pistol looks in order to allow Reese and Kirk to both use their athleticism to make plays with their legs as well as their arms.

Author's Note: This offseason performance was influenced by my manual progression/regression method, by which 10 players are randomly selected by number to regress in rating and 4 players are randomly selected to progress. The results of the random progression can be found in the table below.

[young22]

Big gains from those 2 backers, should be a big help. Sutton at corner looked promising but now will probably just be depth. Really rooting for my guy Reese to prove all the doubters wrong! Also, I've gotta get into renaming my recruits, you've always got such interesting names haha. I've done it for a few, but I really should do them all.

[Deuce2223]

I get the feeling Quel is going to show up with his face painted on gameday.. Ready to make his mark. Hopefully he bulks up the right way in his move to LB.


Bummer to see Sutton take a hit on the Overall. How does my guy look for playing time. Will I be returning kicks this year?

[Careless Whisper]

I remember really wanting Kirk to take the job from day one and as well as Reynolds at tailback to really kick off a new era, but Reese's performance in the championship game has me excited to see how he fares as the starter. Replacing all three starters at linebacker was definitely one of your biggest tasks heading into the year, but I think you made it so there won't be a huge drop-off by shifting some bodies around, as well as the gains made by Bridges and Carlson.

[Tyro11]

Love moving guys around on different sides. In my dynasty on here, I had to move my 3rd string senior FS to fullback because he was a 65 overall (better than anyone else I had by 10 overalls) lol. But, your guy makes a good transition.

Those -7 and -9 sophomores is ballbusting but love the realism because players definitely do randomly regress.

[moose141]

Quote: Originally Posted by young22

Big gains from those 2 backers, should be a big help. Sutton at corner looked promising but now will probably just be depth. Really rooting for my guy Reese to prove all the doubters wrong! Also, I've gotta get into renaming my recruits, you've always got such interesting names haha. I've done it for a few, but I really should do them all.

Definitely was a huge roll of the dice to get some development from Carlson to offset the fact that Mitchell had another brutal offseason. Pretty sure that he has only had +3 growth each offseason, which is truly rare to see in NCAA, haha. Just wasn't blessed with the motivation trait I guess, which makes for a good storyline at least!

Reese will definitely get a shot to prove himself! As much as I like Kirk coming in, Reese just has too good of an arm to not start first and see how things go at least. He's got the tools to be a stud QB, just hasn't seemed to put things together yet, so have to see if he can show the poise needed to win us big games!

Yeah, the names are great! I usually leave OL line names as is for the most part, but the rest of them are either changed by people's suggestions when I do the become a recruit videos, or a couple have been ones generated by me. Definitely adds some spice to be reporting on what seems like 21st century names, as opposed to like James James or whatever cookie cutter names that NCAA manages to come up with, haha. Every once in a while they will have a few gems though, like TC Colvin and Kenton Hill in this recruiting class.

Quote: Originally Posted by Tyro11

Love moving guys around on different sides. In my dynasty on here, I had to move my 3rd string senior FS to fullback because he was a 65 overall (better than anyone else I had by 10 overalls) lol. But, your guy makes a good transition. Those -7 and -9 sophomores is ballbusting but love the realism because players definitely do randomly regress.

Yeah, it was fun to be able to see players being able to excel in new spots, especially because that seems to occur much more frequently these days! I know Pitt has had a couple guys in recent years even vacillate between safety and linebacker, and heck UNC has a converted QB as an All-ACC LB!

The regression was tough on a few guys for sure, but thankfully didn't crush anyone who will play a huge role. Godfrey was BURIED on the depth chart at HB, so he will probably just be a depth guy forever, or maybe make a move to FB just for the numbers.

As for Sutton, I was planning on redshirting him this year and coupled with the regression it does make a lot of sense, as he did miss most of his freshman season with a fractured vertebra. An injury like that would be one to put your career in jeopardy, so having a regression will make sense for sure. He's redshirting this year as part of his "recovery," with the plan to be a coin flip or something at the end of the season to determine if he ever makes it back on the field or not.

Quote: Originally Posted by Careless Whisper

I remember really wanting Kirk to take the job from day one and as well as Reynolds at tailback to really kick off a new era, but Reese's performance in the championship game has me excited to see how he fares as the starter. Replacing all three starters at linebacker was definitely one of your biggest tasks heading into the year, but I think you made it so there won't be a huge drop-off by shifting some bodies around, as well as the gains made by Bridges and Carlson.

Agreed, haha, when I signed Kirk I had it set in my head that he would have a real spot as the starter at QB, but he's just probably not polished enough yet. That said, he's right in the mix and will get some chances to see the field for sure, and I wouldn't hesitate to put him in if we need a spark. Reynolds, though, will be on the field from Day One and will get a lot of action all over the field. His skill set is just too good to keep out of there!

Like I said to Young, we got really lucky with the LB growth in the offseason. Carlson should be really solid in the middle, while Bridges is looking like a potential stud in a year or so. Hampshire should be good, with that speed making him great on the edge and then he has the coverage ability to stay with TEs and HBs. Mitchell will be the X-factor, he's been fairly invisible for his first two years so hopefully this year he can finally start making an impact, or we could be forced into a lot of 4-2-5 and other 5 DB sets to keep him off the field.

Quote: Originally Posted by Deuce2223

I get the feeling Quel is going to show up with his face painted on gameday.. Ready to make his mark. Hopefully he bulks up the right way in his move to LB. Bummer to see Sutton take a hit on the Overall. How does my guy look for playing time. Will I be returning kicks this year?

Quel definitely is a guy that I just have a good feeling about, for sure. I think he will make a really big impact for us. I could see him with a 5+ sack, 2 INT, 2+ FF season from that OLB slot.

Like I said above, the Sutton regression stinks, but at least seems to fit in with the timeline of everything that the kid has gone through. We'll see how his injury recovery goes this season, but thankfully we are fairly deep in the secondary at least. A bit part of that will be your guy for sure. Jungling looks likely to slot in as our nickel corner, hoping his speed will let him stay with anyone he's lined up against. I have Reynolds in as the primary return man right now, but you're the #2 both on kicks and punts, so you may get some chances there depending on how things shake out.

Thanks for all of the comments everyone!

[moose141]

Temple to Replace WMU on Pitt Schedule
Report by Matt Schmidlin | August 15, 2021

Pitt has inked a last-minute matchup with Temple for their 2021 non-conference slate, replacing what was supposed to be a home contest with Western Michigan.

Scheduling conflicts caused the Broncos to be forced to drop their matchup with the Panthers, who were left to scramble for a fourth non-conference opponent. Thankfully for Pitt AD Heather Lyke, Temple was left in a similar situation, owing to the extra non-conference slot caused by the departures of Houston and SMU from the American conference.

"It just happened to fall into place," Lyke said. "Being forced to find an opponent in a matter of weeks is tough, but thankfully Temple ended up in a similar situation with their conference shakeup, and so we were able to make something work. Not only that, but being able to play a former conference rival and in-state opponent will add that much more excitement to the game."

The two schools were both members of the Big East conference from 1991-2004 and then again in 2012, and as such have met 35 times in their history, though not since 2012. The Panthers currently hold a decisive edge in the all-time series, with a 27-7-1 record. Pitt has not lost to Temple since 1998, winning 7 straight matchups from 1999-2012.

The Owls finished the 2020 season with a 6-7 record, falling by a 38-17 score to Western Kentucky in the Beef O'Brady's Bowl.

The game with Temple will be the second of four non-conference contests on the schedule for the Panthers. They will open the season in Knoxville taking on Tennessee, before returning home to host the Owls. They will follow that up with a trip to Byrd Stadium in College Park to face off with Maryland, before closing out non-conference play a few weeks later by hosting UCLA at Heinz Field.

[Its2Eazy17]

Loving everything about the franchise as usual! Great work with the renaming of the "old Big 12." I like the training camp articles quite a bit, it feels like I am reading a real-life ESPN or local news article covering the team.