Three Takeaways: Pitt Facing Turnover Issues?

The Pitt Panthers are facing some big questions heading into this weekend's spring game.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers are close to wrapping up spring ball, with one more normal practice and the Spring Game all that remains in between them and the long dead period of the summer.

As the Panthers prepare for one final live scrimmage at Acrisure Stadium, they're facing potential turnover issues, a major adjustment on defense and questions of toughness. Here are three takeaways on those topics after practice No. 13 of the spring.

Pitt Feeling Turnover Issues?
The Pitt defense will emerge from Spring Ball with a sparking 3-0 record in the team's semi-weekly jersey scrimmages. The reasons why the defense has been so successful in these scrimmages is plain to see if you ask head coach Pat Narduzzi about it and then stroll around practice to see the team. Plastered across the helmets of just about every Pitt defender are "TAKEAWAY" stickers, indicating the player forced a turnover in 11-on-11 drills.

Pitt's defense is forcing a lot of turnovers this spring. Cruce Brookins has upwards of seven stickers on his helmet, P.J. O'Brien and Rasheem Biles have four or more each and Donovan McMillon, Brandon George, Braylan Lovelace, Jesse Anderson, Ryland Gandy, Kyle Louis and others each have multiple. There's even a handful of defensive linemen who have come up with turnover. Chris Peak of Panther Lair, the Pitt Rivals site, counted more than 40 "TAKEAWAY" stickers on the helmets of Pitt defenders this week.

It's great for Pitt that the defense is forcing so many turnovers in practices but this is a double-edged sword because Panthers have also been the ones committing turnovers by the very nature of their practices. Narduzzi said this isn't an abnormal amount of turnovers as far as he can remember - "Maybe a couple more, but not that many more [than last year]," he said - but the frequency is hard to ignore. That said, without knowing the exact nature of the give or takeaways, it's hard to say anything definitive about what the root cause is and how much the newness of the offensive system has played a role.

Is the defense that good? Is the offense that bad? We're probably going to have to wait to find out.

New Focus On Defense
The 2023 version of the Pitt defense was almost unrecognizable from it's peers of the past four years. The Panthers were unable to create big plays like sacks, tackles for loss and turnovers and it cost them, resulting in longer drives, managable third downs for opponents and, ultimately, more points allowed. In the middle of last season's struggles, the lack of sacks and tackles for loss was apparent but the players and coaches felt like they were constantly on the verge of a breakthrough that never came. This year, they have narrowed their focus on one of the building blocks of their defensive system to get to those big plays.

“First we talked about stopping the run," transfer defensive end Nate Matlack said. "We are still trying to take it upon ourselves to figure out what we can do better and we realized that we were giving up tons of rushing yards every game. So even though we’re not getting pass attempts, the reason that’s happening is because we’re not stopping the run. So [getting more sacks] is a goal of ours, but we want to take it in steps and it starts with stopping the run.”

For three straight seasons from 2020 to 2022, the Panthers held opponents under 100 yards per game on the ground and they ranked among the top-10 nationally in that category for each of those three seasons. 2023 broke that streak and it's easy to see the residual affect it had on other parts of the defense, from the sack-starving defensive line to the turnover-adverse secondary. It's not enough to bltiz a lot and hope the odds play in your favor - the Panthers have to put opponents in unfavorable situations if they're going to wreak the kind of havoc that Narduzzi defenses thrive on.

Narduzzi Talks Toughness
Pat Narduzzi mentioned one buzz word in particular eight times during the first roughly eight minutes of a 15 minute session with the media and that word was "tough" or "toughness." Narduzzi said he believes he and the coaching staff have helped instilled some renewed toughness in the players, who have responded in kind and embraced physicality. Narduzzi admitted that his team isn't as healthy as he might like but that is in part because he has tried to get his players to be more physical and aggressive in practices.

"We can avoid stuff and try to - sometimes you worry about staying healthy. Like, we have to play football, and we have to play football the way it’s supposed to be played," Narduzzi said. "We’ve go too try to do it as smart as we possibly can, but you have to play the game, and that was obviously a goal coming in - to be even tougher than we’ve been. Because I think you have to be to win this conference."

It's hard to read this as anything much more than a stark criticism of the 2023 Panthers. Watching from the press box, I never believed toughness, buy-in or physicality was a problem for that team. On the whole, they weren't as talented as they've been in recent years, at least on offense, the coaching wasn't good enough to win consistently. But more than anything, I think this reflects further urgency from Narduzzi. He survived one 3-9 year but still probably knows another subpar year like that makes his seat warm. Narduzzi and this program need more, so they're demanding it.

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