Football: Pitt players adjust to new system at training camp

Pitt football players worked to pull together head coach Todd Graham’s new no huddle,… Pitt football players worked to pull together head coach Todd Graham’s new no huddle, self-described “high octane” offense during the past two weeks of the team’s August training camp.

During the camp, The coaching staff focused on making players completely comfortable with the new system before the season’s opening game against Buffalo on Sept. 3.

“We believe at throwing it all at them and then refining it,” Graham said after a mid-August practice. “We have around 11 or 12 different coverages on defense and 15 different blitzes. That’s a lot and the kids have picked it up well, but we’re still refining it.”

Last season, the Panthers ran Dave Wannstedt’s methodical pro-style offense. In stark contrast, Graham aims to run 80 plays per game — as opposed to the 63.8 plays per game Pitt ran last year — with his no-huddle, spread offense that will often place redshirt junior quarterback Tino Sunseri in the shotgun.

Graham added that the installation of the new system is also difficult for the offense — he wants the team to snap the ball every 15 seconds.

“If you look at the 40-second clock, we want the ball snapped at 25,” he said. “I think our tempo is starting to get where we don’t notice we’re going fast. We are fast right now, but we need to be faster.”

Redshirt senior defensive tackle Chas Alecxih said practicing against the no-huddle offense will help prepare the defense to face similar systems this season.

“We practiced hard last year, but when we would go up against a no-huddle team it would be a little harder,” he said. “Getting to go against a no-huddle team every day, I think that’s really going to help us out.”

Unlike former head coach Dave Wannstedt, Graham closes portions of his practice, including scrimmages, to the media. But after the team’s first scrimmage, Graham said the players started to develop consistency.

Sunseri said installing the offense during spring ball and maintaining it during summer conditioning gave the team a chance to implement the boundaries and core plays of the offense.

“You can see in practice we’re able to go down the field and put drives together,” Sunseri said. “We want to make sure we operate fluently, but make sure that we’re also going really fast. “

He added that it’s important for him, as well as the other quarterbacks, to take on a leadership role this season.

“The quarterback is the centerpiece of this offense,” Sunseri said. “The biggest thing for us in the quarterback position is to make sure we’re not only leading on the field, but in the classroom.

“We want to make sure that we’re up here studying tape. We want to make sure we’re students of the game … [and] if people have questions, we’re able to answer them.”

Redshirt junior wide receiver Mike Shanahan said that while the fast tempo has required adjustment, he enjoys the system. He said his role in the new offense allows him to run “pretty much every route in the book,” including deep and intermediate routes, over the middle, out cuts and shallow routes.

“[This year] I have more matchups on safetys,” Shanahan said. “I have to avoid linebackers getting in my routes and I have to block linebackers a lot more, which I wasn’t used to.”

One focus of the offense is finding consistency at center. Right now, Graham said that redshirt junior Ryan Turnley is the starter, with redshirt senior Chris Jacobson starting at left guard. But he said there’s still competition at the position.

“I believe that Chris Jacobson is probably our best center and our best guard,” Graham said.

Graham said the team had four mishandled snaps during the first scrimmage, errors that occured when Turnley, pumped with adrenaline, would snap the ball back too firmly.

“It really hurt our offense that we were behind in the count, forcing us to be in second and long quite a bit,” he said. “I have confidence in both

Ryan Turnley and Chris Jacobson and believe that we just need to continue to get repetitions until we are natural at the snap and don’t have mishandled snaps.”

Sunseri said he’s noticed improvement from Turnley since the beginning of camp.

“You can see each day he’s getting more comfortable,” Sunseri said. “He’s faster and he’s getting better and better each day. He’s kind of getting used to his role and getting oriented with the offensive line, and that group is really tight.”

Third-team quarterback Anthony Gonzalez, who is currently suspended for the first two games after being charged with possession of marijuana and false identification in his hometown of Bethlehem, Pa., has stepped into a dual role during training camp.

Graham is looking at the redshirt freshman as a h-back.

“We think he is too good of an athlete to be sitting over there as the third-team quarterback,” Graham said. “We were taking a look at him in some receiver stuff and we were somewhat impressed.”

Graham said he watched film on Gonzalez and paid close attention to everything he did throughout the entire practice.

“He doesn’t look like a guy that moved over and started doing it,” Graham said. “He looks natural at it.”

No matter what happens this season, Graham said he came into a good situation and will not blame anything on the coaching staff that came before he did.

“Naturally there are things that are philosophically different from before, and the kids have really bought in,” he said. “This really gives me great confidence that we can win right away. Installing a new offense, defense and kicking game that is drastically different — that is the challenge.”