New offense at Pitt means new demands, philosophy to adapt to

A scrimmage held March 23 resulted in a win for Pat Narduzzi's defense. Contrasting a newly implemented offense against a defense that has been installed for 10 years and which has retained nearly all of its staff is lighting a fire underneath the offense's growing process.

"I feel like we take it one day at a time," Carter said. "We're trying to get three percent better every day. I don't feel like it's just we're trying to get better over practices. I think we're taking it one day at a time, one step at a time and I feel like we've done a great job of that. ... We're leaps and bounds (better). First day we had a lot of mental errors and then little by little we kept getting down to one, two missed assignments. I think we're getting better as an offense from our first practice until now. You see everybody's comfortable, everybody knows what they're doing. Now it's just can we do that consistently and can we do it at a high level."

Bell's offense was a massive success at the Football Championship Subdivision Western Carolina. The Catamounts paced the FCS in total offense and were third in passing offense and fourth in scoring offense in 2023. Aside from the 13 points Western Carolina scored at Arkansas in Week 1, the lowest point total achieved was 17 against FCS No. 3-ranked Furman. 

Pitt scored 17 or fewer points on five occasions in 2023, including a stretch of four consecutive games with point totals of 17, seven, seven, and 13. Removing the 45 points scored over FCS opponent Wofford in Week 1, the Panthers scored more than 24 points just once. Bell achieved that eight times at WCU last season.

If that's going to be replicated in 2024, Yarnell and Bell will have to get on the same page.

"That takes time, too," Narduzzi said Tuesday. "I don't know -- if Nate can think just like Kade then he'll be our offensive coordinator in a couple of years. I think the more time they spend together the more you get that. I think there's a lot of things flying around out there. ... There's a lot of learning experiences out there. The only way you can learn is by success and failures."

Yarnell took over the starting quarterback duties for the final two games of the regular season and is the presumptive starter in spring camp as a redshirt junior. In three starts as quarterback at Pitt -- including one a Western Michigan in 2022 -- Yarnell has completed 45 of 66 passes (68.2%) for 651 yards (217.0 per game), four touchdowns, and one interception for a 168.0 rating.

He is still in development after sitting behind Kedon Slovis and Nick Patti two seasons ago and Jurkovec and Christian Veilleux last season, but he is being unlocked by a coordinator who has been successful at unlocking quarterbacks in recent memory. This offense will run the ball and maintain a respectable passing game in the intermediate, but having explosive plays within a calculated margin will also have to be a part of it.

"When you talk about playing fast ball, playing fast tempo, those (deep) balls will be there," Narduzzi said. "Coach Bell does a great job of teaching him to take what they're giving you and you guys have heard me say that over the last 10 years. We'd like to have the deep ball but we wan completions and keeping the drive going."