CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- I'm always the first to admit when I'm wrong.
I was dead wrong about Pitt and its prospects of repeating as ACC champions, especially after Kenny Pickett and Jordan Addison were replaced with Kedon Slovis and a couple of transfer wide receivers hoping to carry the torch from a Heisman Trophy finalist and a Biletnikoff Trophy winner.
After media days at ACC Kickoff, I voted Pitt to repeat as Coastal Division champion.
How silly of me. Shame on me.
The 2021 ACC championship was a mere aberration.
With four games to play, Pitt is not only 4-4 overall and 1-3 within the ACC, but at this point, they will be lucky to reach the six-win threshold needed in order to qualify for a bowl game.
Consider the Panthers' final four opponents: No. 16 Syracuse, (at) Virginia, Duke, and (at) Miami.
Is Pitt better than two of those teams right now?
The question beckons thought, but judging from Saturday's 42-21 season-crushing defeat to No. 21 North Carolina, it is becoming more difficult to believe so.
"Every defeat is obviously tough for our kids," Pat Narduzzi said. "They play hard. It's like I told them afterwards, they're playing their tails off. There's nobody quitting. We got beat by a good football team today. You have to give them credit. ... Our guys will be fine. We'll come back, bounce back, we've got a really good Syracuse team coming in at 3:30 on Saturday and we'll get to come home and not play in a night game."
Just to be clear: Effort was never the question.
A more in-depth answer might stem from this question: Can Pitt out-score two of those four teams?
There was not only talk of repeating as Coastal Division and ACC champions, but there was national buzz around the Panthers having national championship aspirations -- see ESPN analyst Desmond Howard's preseason College Football Playoff bracket for example.
Those ships left the docks weeks ago. We're past calling the season a disappointment.
Take it from Pitt's two-time team captain:
"In a way yes because we want to win an ACC championship," Deslin Alexandre said. "We've just got to continue playing every day and every play like it's our last, and I think we'll continue to do that."
I appreciate Alexandre's candor about the team being a disappointment, but we're now leaning toward the season being a total failure.
What is the starting point? Is it the offense, which under first-year/returning coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. has looked like a shell of what we anticipated?
Is it the defense, which returned most of its play makers from the 2021 run but is now average at best?
There are four games left. At this point, we know what Pitt is, and what it isn't.
I wish Narduzzi would also be the first to admit when he's wrong.
It would be refreshing, at minimum.
Slovis hasn't been close to "the guy" as advertised throughout training camp. Cignetti hasn't been the offensive mastermind we thought he was going to be. The defense, for as vaunted as it should have been, has been pillow-soft, and the special teams have been a disaster.
"It sucks," Slovis said, "but as a team, as a competitor, you just have to get better and improve every day. We did a lot of good stuff; it's something to build off of. It's never fun not getting a W, so we've got to do more to get one.
"As players you can't look too far into the future. You've just got to control the one in front of you. One play at a time, one drive at a time, one game at a time. It's easy to get caught up in what could be and what could not be, but that's -- if you get caught in that trap, is you lose a game, it can spiral on you. So, I think it's important that we just focus on what's in front of us, and right now it's on focusing on Syracuse next week."
Narduzzi won't go away from Slovis at quarterback because that is who Narduzzi is. He is a player's guy. If he commits to one and puts his faith in one, Narduzzi is going all-in and will live and die with him. This comes to a benefit and a detriment at times, and that's the brand of football Pitt plays.
Slovis has thrown for five touchdowns and five interceptions while completing a 58.2% of his passes. That is a career-low in completion percentage. His 124.3 rating is also his career-low.
The season hasn't even been about one-too-many plays escaping Pitt, either. Losing to a now-top 5 Tennessee team in overtime is one thing, but the Panthers were out-played by Georgia Tech and got smoked in the second half by Louisville and UNC.
This is not the same Pitt team which hung with the Volunteers, even with an injured Slovis and Nick Patti.
Not even close.
(I also don't think Slovis is truly at 100%. He has not been the same passer since sustaining the concussion against Tennessee. That has unquestionably been the one play which single-handedly turned the Panthers' season.)
Pitt has the seventh-ranked offense (30.5 points per game) and the eleventh-ranked defense (27.9 ppg) in the ACC. It is eighth in total offense (409.5 yards per game) and seventh in total defense (351.1 ypg).
Right in the middle of the pack. I believe it was former NFL head coach Bill Parcells who once said, "You are what your record says you are."
Based on those four figures, Pitt is a middling team with a middling record which will now be fortunate to see the postseason.
Back to the original question: Is Pitt better than two of the four teams remaining on its schedule?
Syracuse? Not now.
Virginia? Yes.
Duke? Probably.
Miami? Who knows.
If Pitt does not qualify for a bowl game, it would be a colossal failure. The fact that we're here to begin with is sad in itself.
Maybe it really was all about Pickett and Addison, after all?
