Pitt notebook: Spring drills offer Panthers opportunity to move past last season's losing streak

Ryan Baer used the words “embarrassing” and “unacceptable.”

Kyle Louis spoke unashamedly of his “missed assignments … missed tackles … many screw-ups” during his All-American season last year at outside linebacker.

Eli Holstein, according to Baer, is making clear improvements as a leader at quarterback while “stepping up” his game on the field.

“Sometimes, he has to tell people the way it is,” Baer said. “Sometimes, you have to get into people a little bit.”

Those are some of the comments from two prominent members of the Pitt football team after the first two days of spring drills.

The 2025 season is coach Pat Narduzzi’s 11th and perhaps most important at Pitt considering 3-9 in 2023 was followed by a six-game losing streak to end 2024.

At this early stage, Narduzzi’s team appears to have enough backbone to recover from recent adversity — if togetherness is all that matters. Of course, there’s more to it than wanting to do it, but Baer and fifth-year senior safety Javon McIntyre said the basics are in order.

“Even just being in spiders (limited pads), the O-Line and D-Line, we’ve been battling. That’s good. That’s what we need,” said Baer, a junior offensive right tackle. “We needed to change something up. We’re on the right foot right now.

“You don’t make excuses. You have injuries. Stuff happens. Everyone around the country has injuries. You need to be able to step up, next man up. We just didn’t. (The offensive line) played horrible. I didn’t play great. We didn’t play great as a unit. We just have to turn it around. It’s in the past now. You have to use it as fuel.”

Baer is one of the leaders on the line, and one of the ways he made himself accountable was losing weight. At 319 pounds, he said that’s the lightest he’s been since his junior year of high school.

“Trying to thin down (out of respect for the hurry-up offense),” he said. “I feel great, really in shape, a little more agile. As you get older, it’s kind of your job to lead by example and lead vocally, too.”

McIntyre, who made a game-saving interception as a redshirt freshman at the 2022 Sun Bowl, said the older players made a point of keeping “the brotherhood” together.

“Losing six games, that could divide the brotherhood,” he said. “We talked about getting stronger so we can prevail and overcome the obstacles. Together, we can do anything.”

Meanwhile, Louis made himself accountable, even after he had one of the best seasons for a Pitt linebacker in recent memory.

“In my eyes, I didn’t feel like I had the craziest season I really could have had,” said Louis, who did not record a sack in the final three games.. “(Late in the season), my production definitely fell off. I have to be more consistent.”

The team is changing on several fronts, with Narduzzi recruiting multiple transfers on both lines and at wide receiver.

But the return of players such as Holstein, All-American all-purpose back Desmond Reid, Baer, Louis, McIntyre and linebacker Rasheem Biles set the foundation.

Narduzzi said there has been no lack of intensity in practice.

“Love the intensity, wasn’t as clean as I would like practice two to be,” he said. “I would probably guess most of the time it’s not. I thought there were too many offsides on the defense. Offense did a nice job with the cadence.”

The hope in the second season of offensive coordinator Kade Bell’s system is players will be more accustomed to it.

“They’re getting lined up so much faster, even though we have a bunch of new wideouts,” the coach said. “The second year always helps. It looks totally different as far as just the tempo. You still have to go out and execute. We still aren’t nearly where we need to be.”

He said the second stage of evaluation will occur Saturday. That’s when the team will practice in full pads for the first time.

Spring game intact

Narduzzi said Pitt will not follow the lead of other prominent schools, including West Virginia, Ohio State, Texas, Nebraska and USC, who have canceled their spring game to prevent players from being over-exposed and, thus, vulnerable to poachers.

“We’re not doing that,” Pitt’s coach said. “It’s an opportunity for our guys to go out and play in front of people. To me, that’s a whole other opportunity to go show what you have. I think it’s going to be fun. By practice 12 and 13, they’re ready to play a game. To have another practice, they’d be disappointed, too.

“I’m not worried about the portal, guys getting recruited. They know who our guys are. They’re going to have video.”

On the subject of schools tampering with players who are not in the portal, which happened to Holstein this offseason and Kenny Pickett before his senior season, Narduzzi said “absolutely nothing” can be done.

“It’s embarrassing. They let the cat out of the bag now, and they have to get it back. With revenue sharing and the House settlement (upcoming), that will hopefully manage some things.”

Pitt’s spring game is scheduled for April 12 at Acrisure Stadium.

Nwabuko on track

Narduzzi said running back Che Nwabuko, one of 19 players who had offseason surgery, has left the team to concentrate on rehab and his track career. Nwabuko, who will be a redshirt junior at Pitt next semester, won three state gold sprint medals at Manor High School in Austin, Texas.

“He has a chance to be really good (in track),” Narduzzi said. “I think it’s really his first love.”