Three Things to Watch As Pitt Football Opens Training Camp
PITTSBURGH -- The calendar flips from July to August today and with the final month of summer comes the promise of fall and football season. The Pitt Panthers are exactly 31 days away from a season-opening bout with rival West Virginia at Acrisure Stadium.
All that is left standing between the first Backyard Brawl between Panthers and Mountaineers since 2011 is three weeks of training camp, during which depth charts are drafted, suspense for the coming season grows and football season begins in earnest.
Here's three things to follow as Pitt opens training camp and begins its ACC title defense.
Kedon Slovis vs. Nick Patti
The success Pitt had in 2021 demonstrated just how strong the correlation is between quarterback play and wins. Kenny Pickett, the reigning ACC Player of the Year turned first round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, led the record-setting offense which drove the Panthers to 11 wins and a conference championship. Replacing him is an almost impossible challenge that will fall on either senior Nick Patti or USC transfer Kedon Slovis.
Narduzzi said at ACC Media Days that the pair has been battling for the starting spot throughout the spring and that will continue throughout training camp. Expect this to be a competition kept largely under wraps until the season opener approaches
Slovis' talent and pedigree will be put to the test against Patti's savy style of play and experience with the program in Pitt's first preseason starting quarterback competition since another USC transfer, Max Browne, beat out Ben DiNucci in 2017.
New Crop Of Backers Replacing Long-Time Starters
The Pitt linebackers room was devastated by Father Time this offseason. The Panthers lost four veteran players - three to graduation and one to the transfer portal - and their combined for 217 total tackles, 24.5 stops for a loss and 13 sacks last season.
The centerpiece of last year's corps, 2021 Second Team All-ACC honoree SirVocea Dennis, is back, but will be surrounded by a motley new faces. Talented junior Bangally Kamara, Notre Dame transfer Shayne Simon, former FCS All-American and Missouri State transfer Tylar Wiltz, and returning reserve Brandon George will all be in the mix for the two starting spots on opposite sides of Dennis as well as rotation snaps.
The Panthers will not only hope to shake out their linebacker depth chart, but keep this especially thin group healthy during the grind of late summer training camp.
Unfamiliar Hype Awaits the 2022 Panthers
Pitt is in an unfamiliar position, having to balance confidence with the precious tenacity that great teams waiting to prove themselves have. It returns 74% of their snaps from a team that won 11 games and an ACC title and many preseason evaluations reflect that.
While ACC media picked the Panthers as Coastal runner-up and awarded them the fifth-most championship votes, they are firmly in the top 25 of ESPN's Football Power Index ratings and their SP+ ratings - predictive analytics of a team's performance against their schedule - favors them to emerge as the ACC's last Coastal Division Champion.
The losses of Pickett and his top target, Jordan Addison loom large but these Panthers feel they still have all the makings of another special season. But 2022 presents a new kind of challenge - the maintenance of success as opposed to its creation. How Pitt handles the lofty expectations of this season will be indicative of if the Panthers are a growing force or one-hit wonders.
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