Pitt Football Practice Takeaways: An Easy Friday Morning

PITTSBURGH -- It was a quintessential Friday afternoon for the Pitt Panthers, with everything underscored by the promise of the weekend. Practice was relatively casual and ended about 15 minutes earlier than normal.

But Pitt is still in the thick of training camp and this is a working weekend. They will scrimmage on Saturday for the first time this season. They'll run live plays, compete for points and hope that contact doesn't yield injuries.

"Number one thing is that, anytime you go live, you want to come out of there healthy," head coach Pat Narduzzi said. "I'll say my prayers walking over from the hotel in the morning."

Weather: 69 degrees, 64% humidity and uninterrupted sunshine graced the South Side on Friday morning, making it by far the most pleasant day of camp to date.

Dress: It was a "spider day", in head coach Pat Narduzzi's own words. Everyone was in helmets and shorts with some players sporting smaller-than-normal pairs of shoulder pads.

Soundtrack: IM DAT N**** by Future and From the Cradle by Kodak Black.

Further notes from Pitt's final practice of the week are below.

Dennis Finding Leadership Style

SirVocea Dennis was the leading tackler on Pitt's defense last year - the stalwart centerpiece of of a unit that got better and better as the season wore on. He's bringing some added pressure with him to 2022.

Four heavily-used linebackers departed this past offseason, leaving him as the lone returning starter. He's expected to be a leader and while many of his teammates have praised his knowledge and serenity in the midst of mid-game chaos, Dennis deferred the praise and said he's not trying to be anything he's not.

"There's a lot of guys who have been here for a while," Dennis said. "But me and Brandon [George] are the only ones who have a lot of in-game experience and we both play Mike, so we get most of the questions but I try to leave it to [Coach Manalac]. I just try to be everyone's teammate. I don't want to be everyone's coach and try to overwhelm them with information or stuff to do."

Narduzzi Seeking 'Clean' Scrimmage

When pitting your own team against one another, the hard results can make for murky conclusions. Whether a turnover is a sign of great defense or bad offense is really in the eye of the beholder. The same goes for a touchdown - did the defense lapse or is the offense overpowering?

As a result, Narduzzi said he's simply not concerned about who wins or loses. It's all about execution.

"I want to see a crisp scrimmage," he said. "I don't care who wins - offense or defense. ... I want to see our defense turn the ball over, but I don't want to see turnovers, make sure we protect it. ... I don't want to see a lot of unforced errors."

Narduzzi Has Bold Claims About Specialists

It's not unusual for Narduzzi to be brimming with confidence about his players, but he was practically giddy talking about his placekickers on Friday. He noted that Ben Sauls and Sam Scarton are competing for the chance to kick field goals this season and added a new name to the mix - redshirt freshman Caleb Junko. He even went as far as to proclaim that his Panthers have the best trio of kickers in the country.

"Caleb Junko is kicking really well. He got a coach over the offseason. He played soccer in high school. I would put my money on this - I think we have the three best kickers in the country. ... Caleb Junko, he'll hit it from 55 [yards]. He was inaccurate in the spring and now I think he's close to 100%."

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