Pitt assistant Jeremy Darveau working to fix issues on offensive line

When T.J. Parker lined up at defensive end for Clemson against Pitt, it was his 10th game this season. He came into the game with five sacks. In one afternoon, he had four. His teammates had four more.

So went the game as Pitt lost its third in a row.

“T.J. Parker is a beast,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said. “He’ll be first-round defensive end someday. That’s what Jackson Brown had to go against most of the day.”

A redshirt sophomore, Brown started for the first time at right tackle as part of Pitt’s repeated attempts to reconfigure the offensive line — a tough task with the season happening. Before Saturday, Brown played as a reserve in five games over the previous two seasons — one at Pitt, one at California.

“I think they matched (Parker) up with a young guy, which is a good move by them,” Narduzzi said, bowing to Clemson coach Dabo Swinney. “Probably (we) should have helped him a little earlier. We helped him a little late (with tight end Gavin Bartholomew staying in to block) but not enough. He took over the game.”

Offensive line coach Jeremy Darveau is moving players around like pieces on a chess board, right to left, on and off the bench. Brown replaced Isaiah Montgomery, who replaced Ryan Baer, who moved to left tackle to replace Terrence Enos, who replaced Branson Taylor, who is out for the season with a knee injury. Ryan Jacoby, Jason Collier and Enos have manned left guard. Montgomery, a redshirt sophomore with no starting experience, started at right tackle in the loss to Virginia before Brown got his opportunity.

“Injuries are part of the game, and you have to keep marching forward,” Darveau said. “You adapt to them. Some of these guys just haven’t got the reps. The technique things that show up, the assignment things that show up, those are usually a product of just not getting the same amount of reps as the older guy.

“Jackson had a rough game at right tackle. That’s what you have to do when you play tackle in the ACC. He’ll continue to get better. We’re working at it. Outside of four or five really bad plays, he showed a lot of potential.”

The problem is Pitt has lost two games in a row by margins of four and five points. Four or five bad plays can be enough to tilt a close game in the other team’s favor.

“What we try to do is bring them in and, if they want, get some voluntary work with me outside of your normal hours,” he said. “That’s all voluntary stuff. Watch a little more film. Watch a little more tape of individual drills. Here’s where that foot should land. Here’s where the right hand should be. Here’s where that left hand should be.”

There’s no telling what the line might look like Saturday at Louisville as Pitt plays its second-last regular-season game.

“You try to find your best five guys you can work with,” Darveau said. “You don’t truly know until you play under the lights on Saturday.”

Darveau said moving Baer, a highly touted four-star prospect from Eastlake, Ohio, has been “a bit of a process.”

“It’s probably been a little bit more of a process than what I expected, mostly with his hands. It’s where he has had to do some growth. When you play right tackle, you spend so many hours developing your left hand, your inside hand, your protector inside. Then, all of a sudden, you move over to left and you have to develop that right hand to the same capacity as your left. It’s a little bit tougher to flip things in your head than kind of what you think.”

Darveau believes Baer (6-foot-7, 325 pounds) has a future at that crucial left tackle (protector of the quarterback’s blind side) position.

“He’s taken a lot of ownership in it. He knows if we can clean up one or two things in his sets that he can be a really good player and be that left tackle of the future in this program. I really believe that. He has all the potential to do that.”

Procedure penalties have been issue, but Darveau refuses to use youth as an excuse.

“It’s a focus thing. I don’t want to give them a way out by saying ‘Just because you are a two- or a three-(string), that it’s OK to jump offside or false start.’ They just have to listen to the quarterback and tune out the other noise that’s happening around them. Be laser-focused on the quarterback.”

Defensive players make it difficult by trash-talking while the quarterback is calling signals. “That’s what we signed up for, and that’s fine,” Darveau said. “There is a certain level of all of a sudden you are under 40,000, 50,000 people and a big defensive line. There’s a little bit of growth there, but it’s not an excuse.

“You have to focus, and I have to do a better job of preparing them for those situations when they arise.”

Center Lyndon Cooper, who was out briefly at the end of the Clemson game, and right guard B.J. Williams have been the steadiest players in terms of starting every game and showing up for most of their designated snaps.

“His bust rate is so low,” Darveau said of Williams, “I don’t even know if it’s got a percentage that I can assign to it. He’s always on the right guy.”