Pitt Wanted to Keep Kedon Slovis in QB Competition
PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers' starting quarterback job changed hands quickly this offseason. Less than a full day after Kedon Slovis announced that he intended to leave Pittsburgh, Boston College tranfer Phil Jurkovec made public his decision to leave the Eagles and become a Panther.
Pitt's coaching staff had hoped to keep both Slovis and Jurkovec around to compete with one another but it takes two to tango and one dancing partner wanted out.
"We were actually bringing in Phil before Kedon left," offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti said. "We wanted Kedon to compete with Phil and obviously, he didn’t want to."
Slovis' rocky 2022 campaign ended with a final line of 2,397 yards, 10 touchdowns and nine interceptions on a 58.4% completion rate over 11 games, a farcry from his gaudy freshman year numbers Pitt had hoped to replicate. He is now expected to start for BYU during their first year in the Big 12 after he joined their program in January.
Cignetti says the Panthers will be a bit more mobile in the pocket this year and some bigger arms - combined with better familiarity in the system and improvements from the skill positions - have opened up the vertical passing game for Pitt so far in summer training camp.
He went on to praise the quarterback room as a whole and gush about it's depth behind Jurkovec. There is both talent in the short term and room to grow in the long-term, with each of his backups - Christian Veilleux, Nate Yatnell and Ty Dieffenbach - still holding three or more years of eligibility.
"Christian is doing a great job. I love where he is. He’s very talented. He’s getting better every day," Cignetti said. "He has three years of eligibility which is so exciting for the program and Nate Yarnell is in the same situation. Nate won a football game for us last year. He’s had a really good offseason for us and camp and he’s improving every day. … And you can see we have a young freshman in Ty that has upside that’s really nice to have and he’s only getting better.”
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