Pitt's Offense Showcases Growth in Spring Game

The Pitt Panthers have made the necessary improvements on offense.

Oct 8, 2022; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Pittsburgh Panthers tight end Gavin Bartholomew (86) / Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

PITTSBURGH -- Typically, spring games - especially ones designed how the Pitt Panthers did theirs - don’t provide much insight into how a team will look when they finally take the field for the regular season opener and beyond. But even in adverse circumstances, one unit of Pitt's 2024 squad showed dramatic improvements and plenty of reasons for optimism.

The rosters were split up and mixed up between first, second and third teammers but one thing was clear as the Panthers played their 2024 Blue-Gold game on the painted turf at Acrisure Stadium - this offense, led by new offensive coordinator Kade Bell, is dramatically better than it's 2023 self. Whether the players can execute it on a consistent basis during the regular season remains to be seen but for whatever struggles the offensive units went through during the spring game, it wasn't because the scheme is ineffective and that's a massively encouraging sign for this team heading into the summer.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign of progress from this unit was the clean play of starting quarterback Nate Yarnell. Despite working with an offensive line comprised of second and third teamers and a group of wideouts that included just one starter, the Panthers’ top signal caller led both scoring drives, completing 12 of 16 passes for 108 yards and 1 touchdown to 0 interceptions. It was a clean day at the office for the Panthers' most sure-handed signal-caller and for the most part, his job was relatively easy because his receivers had plenty of wide-open chances to make plays.

Gavin Bartholomew and Kenny Johnson were competing against Yarnell as members of the Gold team but didn't miss a beat and they even looked markedly improved from their 2023 selves. Johnson led the game in receptions (6) and receiving yards (77) and caught a touchdown pass on a screen play. Bartholomew, meanwhile, was targeted three times and caught two of those passes for 45 yards in just one half of football, which was shortened to 20 minutes instead of the regulation 30 minutes.

To add some context to those numbers - Barthlomew's season-high for receptions in 2023 was three and his high watermark for yards was 80. He caught one touchdown all season long. Johnson's season highs stood at four receptions and 49 yards last season. It's abundantly clear that, even with a disadvantage in terms of experience and knowledge, Bell was able to scheme his playmakers open against a defense that, for lack of a better term, knew what it was doing in a familiar system.

Bell’s offense checked a lot of boxes that it needed to this weekend. Based on correspondence from behind closed doors, it seemed like the offense was behind the curve and playing disjointed football. The offense went 0-3 in jersey scrimmages thanks in large part to nagging turnover issues, but those didn’t appear in the first public viewing of this offensive system at Acrisure Stadium - both the Blue and Gold offenses combined to commit just one turnover in 40 minutes of action.

Whatever hiccups there were - penalties and drops, mostly - came down to execution and discipline from the players and not necessarily schematic failures from the coaches. The mistakes are fixable, not foundational like they seemed to be at times in 2022 and 2023 when scoring droughts hit the Panthers.

Make no mistake, both defenses looked like the stronger of the two units during the Blue-Gold game but the offense still showed encouraging signs and provide a reason for optimism about this squad heading into the dog days of the offseason.

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