Do You Think You're Better Off Alone?
These two Pitt Panthers have become one of the most underrated duos in college football
Do you think you’re better off alone?
- Alice Deejay, musician
Hello pigs, welcome back. Here’s an exercise I have for you: if you split the college football regular season scoring period for fantasy football leagues in half last year, who do you think would have been QB1 for this period?
I’m not going to lie and pretend that I did some rigorous analysis on this (too lazy), but I imagine Pitt’s QB Eli Holstein would be a good guess. From where I stand, there was no QB in College Football torching it on the field more than Pitt’s Eli Holstein last year (OK, maybe Wazzou’s John Mateer and a few others in the service academies) until… October 12th rolled around.
How’s this for consistency—Holstein threw three passing scores in each of his first five games and also punched in another three rushing scores over this time span. He never scored less than 25/32 points in four/six point passing TD formats during this span; pretty good if you ask me.
I don’t know exactly what happened from October 12th onward (other than the fact that Holstein started sucking ass on the field, not literally of course but you get the idea). Starting from that very day, he scored around one point in CFF leagues (yes, for the entire game). He then failed to score more than 16 points in a game in four point passing TD formats for the rest of the year.
Injury was likely a factor, in fact we know it was in November when he suffered multiple injuries (wrist and head), but that still doesn’t explain what happened in October. I will assume there were other ailments that went unreported. I’ll also note that the schedule got harder later in the year and this likely played a factor as well.
But I—ever the optimist—almost always give the benefit of the doubt to returning starters at QB whose first season as a starter was the previous year. That is the case for the former four star QB from Louisiana. Let us not forget that Holstein held offers from seemingly every program in America coming out of high school, and eventually committed to Nick Saban’s Alabama. I’m expecting big things in year two at the helm in PA.
Another piece of information readers should be aware of is that WR Kenny Johnson has been a standout this spring—reportedly elevating his play from a year ago.
Here’s what Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi on the rising junior earlier in spring:
"Kenny's been outstanding all spring. He is a different receiver than he was last year. Just the details to his route running is probably the main thing and understand how to stack receivers and get open. He's gotten a lot better at that wide receiver spot."
Unfortunately, the Pitt Panther faithful were delivered a bit of—what I imagine was—shocking news in April when KJ announced he’d be hitting the portal.
Pitt junior wide receiver Kenny Johnson had NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) offers from other schools of around $1 million if he would transfer there, according to a recent report from Stephen Thompson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
That figure is surprising to me if true. I know KJ had a good year last season but 1M? Really? These players must really be getting paid right now. What on earth are Ryan Williams and Jeremiah Smith making then?
However—and this is an important piece of information for today’s story—my highly reputable sources tell me that only one text message was needed from QB1 to bring KJ back into the fold:
This was an encouraging development in my mind because KJ is in a good spot at Pitt, not to mention this whole offence is shaping up to be one of the most explosive in all of CFB. Here is further confirmation on the successful spring KJ had and his expected elevated role in 2025:
Johnson’s the most explosive and proven returner in the group. As a true freshman in 2023, he made a quiet impact with 15 catches for 122 yards and a touchdown. He then showed more of the promise seen from that rookie season with 46 catches for 537 yards and three touchdowns, despite inconsistent quarterback play.
With a year of experience under his belt and Konata Mumpfield gone, Johnson is expected to take on a lead role in 2025 — not just as a top target, but as a tone-setter for the offense. He’s up for the task. His versatility makes him a major asset, as he has shown the ability to gain yards after the catch and beat defenders in one-on-one matchups.
Of course, some of you may remember the last Pitt Panther WR who broke the CFF charts with a Biletnikoff winning 2021 season, Jordan Addison, who also chose to enter the portal in the offseason between his sophomore and junior seasons. Only in his case, he made good on his intentions with a move to USC.
So, Panther fans can be forgiven if the news of KJ’s entry inspired some PTSD-like symptoms. It’s all water under the bridge now—the player is back and all is forgiven. In fact, he’ll be welcomed like a hero if he has the kind of season he’s expected to have with this program in 2025.
Two problems for KJ’s Biletnikoff campaign though: 1) Kade Bell, the OC who is formerly from WCU, doesn’t have a history of large WR production (none of his hit 1000 yards at WCU), and 2) Bell’s former WR1 from 2021 and 2022 at WCU is also back with the Panthers—Raphael Williams.
Let’s take a closer look at the first concern…
Coaching & System
QB1/WR1 PPG AVERAGE — HC: 17.85/13.8 — OC: 21.6/11.441 (half ppr)
The PPG averages aren’t going to blow you away. But as mentioned with Narduzzi in the above section, there are some notable stats from his tenure with Pitt. That 2021 season, in particular, was magical with Kenny Pickett averaging around 30 PPG at QB and Addison at WR with 23 PPG.
Can history repeat itself here? Yes. I don’t see why not, honestly. Holstein showed us his potential in his first year starting (second ever year of CFB) last year, and KJ continues to receive praise. I will say that I am much more confident in Holstein’s outlook than I am in KJ’s. I would think that if KJ, who averaged around nine PPG in 2024, could get to around 15 PPG this year then that is a success.
Konata Mumpfield, Pitt’s WR1 last season, averaged just shy of 14 PPG over 12 games. He moves on and takes 52 receptions, 813 yards, and five scores with him.
Between the two coaches, they average around 52% pass plays on offence. Bell’s first year with the program saw a pass rate of 56 to 44 run plays. Narduzzi’s history is all over the place, swinging from 64% run plays to 54% pass plays even before Bell’s arrival.
Ditto for Narduzzi’s pace of play—his Panthers have swung from as many as 76 plays per game in 2021 to 59 per game in 2023. They averaged 68 in 2024.
Now, while Addison is the most notable name under Narduzzi thus far, I’d be remiss not to mention Jared Wayne, who followed up Addison’s 2021 season with 1063 yards and five scores himself, catching 64 of 102 targets.
However, given that Nar-Dog’s experience is on the defensive side of the ball, I don’t know how much of his patterns on offence are due to him versus the OCs who have worked under him. Some years he’s had some highly productive RBs with a lot of volume; other years, nothing of the sort. Ditto for WRs, as we’ve seen.
Outlook for 2025
I like a lot of pieces on this Pitt Panther offence. Obviously there’s the RB who’s a stud and is drafted accordingly. With Holstein, there’s a question mark regarding which version we will see in 2025—I wouldn’t expect it to be as good as the first half of 2024, but not nearly as bad as the second half either. 25 PPG seems a reasonable goal to achieve.
At WR, there are several names that stand out. KJ is one, Raphael Williams is another, and Censere Lee is another who followed Bell from WCU last offseason.
One of the big pros of a lot of these ACC teams like Pitt is that the schedule is very friendly, particularly in the first half of the year (once again). At the very least, if you draft Holstein, you can probably expect some massive outputs in September.
They open the year vs. FCS opponent Duquesne, which normally gives me some anxiety regarding how the staff handle sitting starters, but given that they absolutely eviscerated their under-matched opponents under this management last year, I am cautiously optimistic they will continue to do so in 2025 (they beat YSU 73-17, Holstein scored 40+ points). Though it should be noted that RB Desmond Reid didn’t play vs. YSU (might be something to keep in mind if you’re starting Reid week one this year).
Then they take on CMU and their rival WVU before a BYE week. Louisville, BC, FSU, Syracuse, NCSU, and Stanford await them after that. Where things may get hairy is after their second BYE—games vs. ND, GT, and Miami will be a step above talent-wise compared to previous opponents. I wouldn’t say GT and Miami are all that ‘scary’ from a CFF perspective, but ND could be a tough one to move the ball on, especially in November weather.
But by then, who cares? So much will have changed and there will be plenty of players that make themselves relevant on waivers that you’ll most likely have a completely different looking team from the one you drafted anyway. I would focus more on the first half of the season with players like Holstein and KJ given that the price to acquire both is relatively cheap (especially KJ), and then see what happens from there. ◾
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Sample of 2018-2024, excluding 2020.