Pitt's defense has been the pride of the team's 2020 campaign. Even without Jaylen Twyman, the group boasts redshirt Paris Ford as a top flight safety and a defensive front that leads the NCAA with 10 sacks thanks to edge rushers redshirt senior Rashad Weaver and redshirt senior Patrick Jones, and a talented linebacker group with redshirt junior Cam Bright, redshirt sophomore Wendell Davis and redshirt senior Phil Campbell.
The defense has only allowed one touchdown in their first two wins and forced five turnovers, while having the best NCAA's best run defense, allowing 26 rushing yards per game, and the fourth best pass defense, allowing 97 passing yards per game.
But on Saturday they'll face Louisville, ranked No. 24 by the AP with an offense led by redshirt junior Malik Cunningham at quarterback, who leads the NCAA with six passing touchdowns. He's teamed up with redshirt junior running back Javian Hawkins, who is the sixth leading rusher in the NCAA with 235 yards. And there's their two leading receivers in the speedy junior Tutu Atwell and the physical redshirt senior Dez Fitzpatrick, who each rank eleventh and twelfth in receiving yards in the NCAA.
If Pitt's defense is for real, Saturday is the time to prove it. And the Panthers have their own defensive stars to battle back.
Bright was named ACC linebacker of the week for his ten tackles, 2.5 for loss and half a sack, and Weaver was named ACC defensive lineman of the week with seven tackles, three for loss, and 2.0 sacks.
Bright might have an edge to stopping Louisville's offense, especially since he knows Cunningham. They played together at Park Crossing high school in Montgomery, Al., both graduating in 2017.
"I played with Cunningham in high school," Bright said Wednesday via Zoom. "I know how to approach him and what his positives and negatives are. We have to contain him and keep him bottled up in the pocket and take away our first read. He was like our high school Lamar [Jackson]."
Bright and Pitt's defense showed several examples of how to bottle up an athletic quarterback when they faced Tommy DeVito and Syracuse last week. Watch how DeVito, No. 38, rushes off the left edge as Pitt collapses the inside of the pocket. Bright meets with Weaver at DeVito and they share the sack:
That's a great example of what Bright says Pitt will work to do against Cunningham. Granted, Cunningham looks like a lot better of an athlete on film than DeVito and easily has a much better arm. But that's a challenge Bright says he's waited years to face.
"It's going to be fun," Bright said. "This was the game I've been looking forward to because in high school I could never tackle him because he was our QB1. When I get to hit him now I won't get in trouble for it. We used to go home at the same time and work out together."
Pat Narduzzi's confidence in Bright is very high, as he said on Thursday.
"Cam's speed is really good," Narduzzi said via Zoom. "He's tough, he's athletic and he loves to play the game. He's a good athlete. That's what makes him good and he knows what he's doing. He understands the defense and he's done it for a while. It's not his first rodeo."
Part of how the team has prepared for Cunningham has included putting freshman wide receiver Will Gipson at quarterback on Pitt's scout team to give Pitt's defense more practice at an athletic option in the backfield.
"I credit that to our scout team," Bright said about what has Pitt's confidence high before facing Louisville. "We get a good look and they play fast so it's second-hand nature during game time."
But confidence aside, Narduzzi has Pitt's defense focused on not making mistakes that prove costly. It's only allowed touchdown came on a busted coverage where a safety didn't come overtop of Jason Pinnock, something Narduzzi acknowledged after Pitt's win over Syracuse.
Taj Harris beat Pitt for a score, but Atwell and Fitzpatrick are just as dangerous and have a better quarterback in Cunningham:
Narduzzi addressed Pitt's communication challenges on defense that led to the problem this week. But he says the only way to tell if what they worked on settled in for his defense is to see how they play Saturday.
"You don't really know until game day," Narduzzi said if what they practiced took hold this week. "We fix them in practice but we didn't think we had a problem the week before. But you don't really know until you see it. The fixable things that stall drives out involve acting like you've been there before."
Narduzzi went on to provide examples of what Pitt did when they were on their game and examples of mistakes he doesn't want to see repeated like naming some of Pitt's seven penalties that awarded 70 yards to Syracuse.
"Jordan Addison is a freshman scoring his first touchdown and what does he do? Hand the ball to the official," Narduzzi continued. "We fall on a fumble and we spin it like we think we're in the NFL like one guy we never thought we'd see from Deslin Alexandre, but he did and it's things like that and the unnecessary roughness by Bryce Hargrove. Those are the things that can't happen. We're going to make mistakes in a game, like you hope you don't have a busted coverage but there's times they don't get you for it. We're not going to be perfect as coaches or players, but the mistakes that stand out are the plays that shouldn't happen."
Plays that can happen involve giving Cunningham second chances to make throws on the run like he did here against Miami. Watch how he lets the pocket develop around him, breaks to his right then finds Atwell in the end zone. You can see down the field how his legs freeze Miami's defense, allowing Atwell to sneak behind them and get lost behind the coverage, making for an easy target:
That's where that contain Bright mentioned has to be on its best game Saturday. Cunningham will rip off long runs and hurt a defense with his big throws.
But Pitt's also well aware that while containing Cunningham, they cannot lose track of Hawkins and allow his speed to take the game over on the ground.
"Hawkins doesn't compare to anyone we've played yet," Bright said when asked about Louisville's top running back. "He's a straight speed guy who looks to make one big cut. Most of the time it's outside zone [runs]. So they'll give you eye candy to throw your rhythm off so that as soon as you start feeling the play, they'll go with something else."
Here's an example of how that kind of one-cut running with Hawkins' speed can break open a run that even looks contained. Louisville's offensive line looks to block in space to stretch out the holes for Hawkins to choose. That gives Hawkins options based off his assessment of which lineman he should run behind when he sees who's winning their battles. Here you can see he completely reverses field when he doesn't like any of the planned holes and scores a touchdown by breaking Miami's backside pursuit:
That's going to require a persistent discipline from Pitt's defensive front. They'll need to be on their toes both in their physical challenges to maintain each gap, but also communicate and flow well together to cover for each other when Hawkins tries to use his speed.
Bright says part of that has been Davis' stepping up as the starter at Mike linebacker for the defense and how he's kept everyone on the same page in his first two starts this season.
"Wendell's stepped up really well as a young guy without much experience," Bright said. "Our chemistry has been there from Zoom meetings over the Spring into the Summer and with all our long workouts. We complement each other well because we all know how to play in-sync with each other. We know how each of us fit and how others will fit."
That's a four-headed monster of playmakers Louisville presents to test how in-sync Pitt's defense truly is early in the season. Cunningham and Hawkins can hurt them on the ground while Cunningham, Atwell and Fitzpatrick can all hurt them in the air.
But that's the kind of challenge that makes great defenses. If Pitt can put the clamps on this group it will certainly put the country on notice that they're not just beating up on lesser talented teams, and ready to take on the best of the ACC.
"We're looking forward to it because it's another statement we have a chance to make," Bright said to conclude his Zoom call on Wednesday.
We'll see what kind of statement that is on Saturday.