Pitt can't overcome loose aerial connection between quarterback, pass catchers

They toiled all summer, even when coaches weren’t watching, trying to create that special connection the best quarterbacks and wide receivers feel with each other.

Kedon Slovis, Jared Wayne and Konata Mumpfield, who remain the key figures in Pitt’s crumbling shell of a passing game, have the requisite talent and desire to stand tall among their peers, certainly taller than next-to-last in the weak ACC Coastal.

Which is where Pitt (4-4, 1-3) resides, with four games left to salvage the season and some respect, or risk suffering the ultimate indignity of regressing to those mediocre days before coach Pat Narduzzi arrived.

The connection through the air that all good teams develop isn’t there, and the 42-24 loss Saturday night to now-No. 17 North Carolina was an example. Slovis completed 45.1% of his passes to just three teammates — Wayne, Mumpfield and Bub Means.

You can blame play-calling, Narduzzi’s stubbornness to remain loyal to his quarterback, the opponents’ defense and Slovis’ inability to see the entire field. Eight games into the season, here’s what Slovis has been able to accomplish with his two best pass catchers.

• Wayne, who has an NFL body at 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, is clearly Pitt’s best. He has good hands (most of the time), a willingness to fight for the combat catches and enough speed to run away from most defensive backs.

He leads Pitt with 32 receptions for 572 yards (an impressive 17.9 yards per catch). But he has only one touchdown — and Nick Patti threw it seven weeks ago against Tennessee.

• Mumpfield, an athletic pass catcher who was a freshman All-American at Akron last season, has not found the same level of success in the Power 5. With 30 catches for 289 yards, his only touchdown came against Western Michigan — from Nate Yarnell.

• Slovis hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass to a player who’s still on the team since the second quarter of the Georgia Tech game Oct. 1. Who knew Jaden Bradley, who quit the team after six games to enter the NCAA transfer portal, would lead Pitt’s wide receivers in scoring?

And, while we’re discussing backup pass catchers, Jaylon Barden didn’t play a snap after Narduzzi said Thursday he would start.

It can be argued that either Slovis or offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. (or a combination of the two) have not gotten Mumpfield, Wayne and tight end Gavin Bartholomew involved enough in the passing game.

Bartholomew is another perplexing case. In the Tennessee game — when he hurdled a defender on his way to a 57-yard touchdown — he was targeted six times and grabbed five for 84 yards. In the next six games, he averaged only three targets and caught 10 for 160.

Pitt came into the season wanting to re-establish a running game, and that has happened. Izzy Abanikanda is Pitt’s first 1,000-yard rusher in five seasons (1,086). But the best offenses create opportunities in the air by finding success on the ground.

Cignetti’s game plan, at least at the start of the game, included attacking North Carolina downfield. Yet, Narduzzi said, “I don’t know if we took enough deep shots in the second half.”

No discussion of the failures on offense can be complete without mentioning the offensive line. Slovis was sacked only once but hurried six times.

Center Owen Drexel missed his sixth consecutive game, and offensive tackle Carter Warren is out for the season after playing in only four. Perhaps Pitt oversold its depth on the offensive line.

Narduzzi sounded his most forlorn when he said, “We protected (Slovis) pretty good, not good enough.”