The Panther offense last year was, to put it bluntly, a disaster. Yes, Darrin Hall and Qadree Ollison each rushed for over 1,000 yards. Yes, they had a historic output against Virginia Tech. Yes, this team won the Coastal division and earned the right to spend an evening getting manhandled by Clemson. However, anyone who actually watched the Panthers play last season knew that this was all in spite of former Offensive Coordinator Shawn Watson. We are nearly 8 months removed from his ouster and I am still flabbergasted that one person could be so bad at his job and keep getting hired as had even prior to coming to Pitt. I have said and will continue to say some very not nice things about his skill as an Offensive Coordinator because I am so astonished at how poor he was at his job. That’s all in the past though and Mark Whipple has come to town to re-make the offense. While we have to wait for Saturday to see exactly what “Whippleball” will look like, we can take a look at the personnel that he inherited and get an idea of what to expect.

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Quarterback

Starter: Kenny Pickett (Junior)

Backups: Nick Patti (RS Freshman) or Jeff George, Jr. (RS Senior)

Also on Scholarship: Davis Beville (Freshman)

Walk-on: Eli Kosanovich (Freshman)

Kenny Pickett enters his Junior year and second season as the starting Quarterback of the Pitt Panthers. Going into last season the New Jersey native received a lot of hype due to his performance in his first career start against #2 Miami in the 2017 season finale. This was stoked by the comments from the coaching staff over the offseason and into training camp (find some quotes). Unfortunately, his first full season didn’t failed to live up to these lofty expectations by quite a large degree. For the season he only completed 58.1% of his passes and failed to hit 2,000 yards (1,969) despite the Panthers playing 14 games. His 6.4 yards per pass attempt were 11th in the conference (last of qualifying QB’s) and 90th in the country (out of 107 qualifiers).

It would be unfair not to mention some mitigating factors that contributed to Pickett’s underwhelming performance, primarily Shawn Watson. The former Offensive Coordinator utilized an antique plodding offense and seemed unable to understand basic offensive strategy, despite that being exactly what his chosen career requires. Sticking Dan Marino in his prime under center last year likely wouldn’t have resulted in much better results (and Watson’s concepts were not as out-of-date when he played). With Mark Whipple running the show, the forward pass looks to be a regular part of the Panthers’ offense once again. Another factor is that Pickett seemed to suffer a knee injury in the opener against Albany. Despite not missing any games, he was seen wearing a knee brace much of the season and was likely bothered by it all year.

With Shawn Watson gone, a healthy knee, and a year of experience as a starter in the ACC, I would be very surprised if Kenny Pickett didn’t have a much improved season this year, assuming he remains healthy. It may be asking a lot for him to play at an All-conference level, but he should at least be average for a Power 5 program. Even average is a massive improvement over last year though.

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