Week Two of training camp 2017 got started in the South Side Monday morning, with the team forced into the indoor practice facility due to rain showers.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the facility was that the defense was wearing blue jerseys, which means that side of the ball won Saturday’s scrimmage. Pat Narduzzi wasn’t giving up too many other details beyond being “happy with the effort” and that the team “stayed pretty healthy.”
- Still, it seems notable that the defense won the scrimmage. There’s the age-old adage that defense starts faster than offense, so perhaps that’s at play here. There are so many questions on that side of the ball - Who will generate a pass rush? How fast can the linebackers settle in? Can the secondary make even modest improvements? - that any indication of positive play is a good sign, even if it means the offense is still coming around.
- Narduzzi did single out a couple players on defense, and the first one he mentioned was redshirt senior defensive end Allen Edwards.
“The guy that’s been as consistent as you can ask for is Allen Edwards,” Narduzzi said. “That guy has been really good and you want your seniors playing their best football, and he really is. He’s been consistent every day.”
That is a positive development, obviously. The biggest expectations have been on Dewayne Hendrix, and Narduzzi said Hendrix “has been really good,” but as we saw last year, one pass-rusher isn’t enough; they need multiple threats. That’s where a guy like Edwards comes in. Hendrix has to live up to expectations, but someone else needs to step up from the group of Edwards, James Folston and Rashad Weaver (with guys like Kaezon Pugh and Patrick Jones behind them).
Edwards has looked the part since he arrived two years ago; now he needs to do it on the field.
- One physical observation on the defensive linemen: redshirt freshman Rashad Wheeler looks like he has really slimmed down - or, at the very least, he looks leaner. He’s still listed at 290 pounds and he might be carrying that weight, but he doesn’t look as, um, “round” as he did a year ago.
- Speaking of linemen, we got our first look at Brandon Hodges in full pads on Monday. The grad transfer offensive lineman from Texas was working with John Peterson and his group in practice, and Narduzzi said he was looking forward to seeing what Hodges can bring to the mix.
“We’ll find out. We’ll find out after today a little bit more and the next day a little bit more and the next day a little bit more. It helps us. It’s a quality guy that’s played some good football and we expect to get even better football out of him.”
Narduzzi said that Hodges will start off practicing right tackle, which is where he started nine games for Texas in 2016. I still think there’s a chance he could play guard, especially in the season opener while Alex Bookser is suspended.
But there are a lot of moving parts on offense. The coaches are still getting redshirt senior Jaryd Jones-Smith work at left tackle while they are cautious with redshirt junior Brian O’Neill. So as that process continues, they’ll probably be motivated to use Hodges more at right tackle.
We all saw the tweet from Peterson Sunday night that showed the offensive line group - including redshirt junior Mike Herndon wearing a walking boot. Herndon had been working at right guard in place of Bookser, seemingly to get ready for that Youngstown State game. But as he rehabs whatever he’s got going on, redshirt freshman Justin Morgan is working there. So Morgan could be an option at RG for the YSU game or Hodges could be there or Herndon could play there when healthy.
Like I said, moving pieces.
- Narduzzi did single out redshirt freshman Bryce Hargrove on Monday morning, and he seems to have caught the coaches’ attention. Freshman Jerry Drake has been working at right tackle, but Hargrove may have moved ahead of him. Either way, it’s all about moving guys around to find the best mix to cover the group until they can be at full strength - meaning, until they can have Bookser and O’Neill ready to go.
- A new addition to the roster on the offensive line is Kenny Rainey III, a freshman from Aliquippa. He’s a big freshman at 6’3” and 330 pounds, and it looks like the coaches see him as a center. He’s a walk-on, so he’s really an addition for depth, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
- With Rainey, it seems like Pitt has four centers: Connor Dintino, Jimmy Morrissey, freshman Owen Drexel and Rainey. Dintino is the odds-on favorite to start, although Narduzzi continues to maintain that him and Morrissey are battling for the job.
- The wide receivers are an interesting group to watch in camp. You have the established guys in Jester Weah and Quadree Henderson and then a whole bunch of question marks. Rafael-Araujo Lopes and Maurice Ffrench have both played receiver in actual games, which puts them ahead of the rest of the position group, but neither is exactly proven.
And after those four, Pitt has four scholarship players who haven’t played - redshirt freshman Ruben Flowers and freshmen Michael Smith, Dontavius Butler-Jenkins and Darian Street - and three or four walk-ons. Taking Tre Tipton and Aaron Mathews out of the mix (Tipton for the season, Mathews for at least the first two weeks of camp) changes the complexion of the group.
- That said, it’s impressive to watch Weah, even in early drills. He is night-and-day from what he was early in his career: he looks like a No. 1 receiver and a senior leader. He carries himself with confidence and just has a different air about him. Plus, he seems to catch just about everything thrown to him.
- Conversely, it seems like Ffrench needs to keep working on his receiving skills, especially if the injury to Tipton is going to result in more work for him. He doesn’t look natural at catching the ball the way Weah does (although to be fair, Weah didn’t look “natural” early in his career either). Ffrench can be a game-breaker for the offense, but he needs to be a little more perfect, from what I can see.
- Andre Powell said last week that they had a lot of guys they would try on the return duties, and I listed a half-dozen or so players who were practicing catching punts, presumably in the hopes of finding someone who can handle that job. On Monday, they had a lot of players out there catching kicks; I saw Henderson, Avonte Maddox, Araujo-Lopes, Ffrench, Butler-Jenkins, Smith, Jason Pinnock and AJ Davis.
Those were early drills, though; during the actual punt drills, they narrowed it down to Henderson, Araujo-Lopes, Maddox and Jordan Whitehead (yes, he was practicing again on Monday). I think they’ll continue to get a look at guys like Ffrench and the freshmen to see who else can contribute in those situations. With the freshmen, I imagine Powell wants to have an idea of who can do the job so that when decisions are made regarding redshirts, he knows which players he would want to have.
- One other funny element to the punt return drills: Narduzzi wielding what I could best describe as one of those pugil sticks from American Gladiators and using it to knock the returners around while they were trying to catch the punts. Maddox also grabbed the stick and hit a few guys to help out.
- Speaking of special teams, it looked like Alex Kessman nailed just about every one of his field goal attempts on Monday. If he missed the final kick from 47 yards - I couldn’t tell from my angle, but it looked close - then he didn’t miss by much.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the facility was that the defense was wearing blue jerseys, which means that side of the ball won Saturday’s scrimmage. Pat Narduzzi wasn’t giving up too many other details beyond being “happy with the effort” and that the team “stayed pretty healthy.”
- Still, it seems notable that the defense won the scrimmage. There’s the age-old adage that defense starts faster than offense, so perhaps that’s at play here. There are so many questions on that side of the ball - Who will generate a pass rush? How fast can the linebackers settle in? Can the secondary make even modest improvements? - that any indication of positive play is a good sign, even if it means the offense is still coming around.
- Narduzzi did single out a couple players on defense, and the first one he mentioned was redshirt senior defensive end Allen Edwards.
“The guy that’s been as consistent as you can ask for is Allen Edwards,” Narduzzi said. “That guy has been really good and you want your seniors playing their best football, and he really is. He’s been consistent every day.”
That is a positive development, obviously. The biggest expectations have been on Dewayne Hendrix, and Narduzzi said Hendrix “has been really good,” but as we saw last year, one pass-rusher isn’t enough; they need multiple threats. That’s where a guy like Edwards comes in. Hendrix has to live up to expectations, but someone else needs to step up from the group of Edwards, James Folston and Rashad Weaver (with guys like Kaezon Pugh and Patrick Jones behind them).
Edwards has looked the part since he arrived two years ago; now he needs to do it on the field.
- One physical observation on the defensive linemen: redshirt freshman Rashad Wheeler looks like he has really slimmed down - or, at the very least, he looks leaner. He’s still listed at 290 pounds and he might be carrying that weight, but he doesn’t look as, um, “round” as he did a year ago.
- Speaking of linemen, we got our first look at Brandon Hodges in full pads on Monday. The grad transfer offensive lineman from Texas was working with John Peterson and his group in practice, and Narduzzi said he was looking forward to seeing what Hodges can bring to the mix.
“We’ll find out. We’ll find out after today a little bit more and the next day a little bit more and the next day a little bit more. It helps us. It’s a quality guy that’s played some good football and we expect to get even better football out of him.”
Narduzzi said that Hodges will start off practicing right tackle, which is where he started nine games for Texas in 2016. I still think there’s a chance he could play guard, especially in the season opener while Alex Bookser is suspended.
But there are a lot of moving parts on offense. The coaches are still getting redshirt senior Jaryd Jones-Smith work at left tackle while they are cautious with redshirt junior Brian O’Neill. So as that process continues, they’ll probably be motivated to use Hodges more at right tackle.
We all saw the tweet from Peterson Sunday night that showed the offensive line group - including redshirt junior Mike Herndon wearing a walking boot. Herndon had been working at right guard in place of Bookser, seemingly to get ready for that Youngstown State game. But as he rehabs whatever he’s got going on, redshirt freshman Justin Morgan is working there. So Morgan could be an option at RG for the YSU game or Hodges could be there or Herndon could play there when healthy.
Like I said, moving pieces.
- Narduzzi did single out redshirt freshman Bryce Hargrove on Monday morning, and he seems to have caught the coaches’ attention. Freshman Jerry Drake has been working at right tackle, but Hargrove may have moved ahead of him. Either way, it’s all about moving guys around to find the best mix to cover the group until they can be at full strength - meaning, until they can have Bookser and O’Neill ready to go.
- A new addition to the roster on the offensive line is Kenny Rainey III, a freshman from Aliquippa. He’s a big freshman at 6’3” and 330 pounds, and it looks like the coaches see him as a center. He’s a walk-on, so he’s really an addition for depth, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
- With Rainey, it seems like Pitt has four centers: Connor Dintino, Jimmy Morrissey, freshman Owen Drexel and Rainey. Dintino is the odds-on favorite to start, although Narduzzi continues to maintain that him and Morrissey are battling for the job.
- The wide receivers are an interesting group to watch in camp. You have the established guys in Jester Weah and Quadree Henderson and then a whole bunch of question marks. Rafael-Araujo Lopes and Maurice Ffrench have both played receiver in actual games, which puts them ahead of the rest of the position group, but neither is exactly proven.
And after those four, Pitt has four scholarship players who haven’t played - redshirt freshman Ruben Flowers and freshmen Michael Smith, Dontavius Butler-Jenkins and Darian Street - and three or four walk-ons. Taking Tre Tipton and Aaron Mathews out of the mix (Tipton for the season, Mathews for at least the first two weeks of camp) changes the complexion of the group.
- That said, it’s impressive to watch Weah, even in early drills. He is night-and-day from what he was early in his career: he looks like a No. 1 receiver and a senior leader. He carries himself with confidence and just has a different air about him. Plus, he seems to catch just about everything thrown to him.
- Conversely, it seems like Ffrench needs to keep working on his receiving skills, especially if the injury to Tipton is going to result in more work for him. He doesn’t look natural at catching the ball the way Weah does (although to be fair, Weah didn’t look “natural” early in his career either). Ffrench can be a game-breaker for the offense, but he needs to be a little more perfect, from what I can see.
- Andre Powell said last week that they had a lot of guys they would try on the return duties, and I listed a half-dozen or so players who were practicing catching punts, presumably in the hopes of finding someone who can handle that job. On Monday, they had a lot of players out there catching kicks; I saw Henderson, Avonte Maddox, Araujo-Lopes, Ffrench, Butler-Jenkins, Smith, Jason Pinnock and AJ Davis.
Those were early drills, though; during the actual punt drills, they narrowed it down to Henderson, Araujo-Lopes, Maddox and Jordan Whitehead (yes, he was practicing again on Monday). I think they’ll continue to get a look at guys like Ffrench and the freshmen to see who else can contribute in those situations. With the freshmen, I imagine Powell wants to have an idea of who can do the job so that when decisions are made regarding redshirts, he knows which players he would want to have.
- One other funny element to the punt return drills: Narduzzi wielding what I could best describe as one of those pugil sticks from American Gladiators and using it to knock the returners around while they were trying to catch the punts. Maddox also grabbed the stick and hit a few guys to help out.
- Speaking of special teams, it looked like Alex Kessman nailed just about every one of his field goal attempts on Monday. If he missed the final kick from 47 yards - I couldn’t tell from my angle, but it looked close - then he didn’t miss by much.
