LSU wide receivers had issues with dropped passes in 2018, and in the summer of 2019, they developed a method to remedy that issue.
The method? LSU quarterback Joe Burrow threw 10,000 passes to his receivers throughout the course of the summer, and the result netted out to something that college football had never seen.
Pitt quarterback Kedon Slovis took a page from that book and spun it to benefit his own play and allow for a quicker establishment of a rapport with the Panthers' receivers over the summer.
"I was like, that’s awesome. Why not strive to be like that?" Slovis said. "They’re probably the greatest offense in college football history. So, we just kind of mapped it out, like, hey, if we throw 200 balls five times a week or something like that. It wasn’t like we were counting … It was more like, if we throw X amount of times per week, if we throw every time, we have this many weeks in the year, we have one week off.
"But, other than that, going forward there were no days that we were like, ‘Oh we’re going to take this day off.’ I think we pretty much hit every day that we wanted to, and even if we didn’t, we definitely made it up on a day that we were supposed to have off.”
The breakdown helped lift LSU to a national championship following the 2019 season, and it helped put current NFL superstar receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson on the road to stardom. The twisting of what LSU accomplished that summer has been nothing but beneficial to the USC transfer Slovis since his arrival in January.
Pat Narduzzi coined Slovis the Panthers' starting quarterback on Wednesday, after eight months of competition against Nick Patti for the position. He noted the consistency in Slovis' throws as the separating factor between the two, along with Slovis' ability to protect the football and make good decisions.
Add in the dedication to his craft and the will to win the job. In order for Slovis to achieve that, he had to build chemistry with Jared Wayne, Bub Means, Jaylon Barden, and Konata Mumpfield -- the Panthers' four top wide receivers.
“He threw a ton of balls with these guys," Narduzzi said. "The summer, they’re not sitting around going to Pirates games, although they wanted to go to them. They were throwing a lot of balls. I’d be in the office late at night and they’re out there under the lights throwing the ball, and I’m like, ‘Who is out there? What are they doing?’ There’s times they’re in the indoor facility at 10 o’clock at night and our people are going, ‘they’re out there throwing.’ There’s been a lot of work put into it, and Kedon’s worked hard to get where he is today, that’s for sure.”
The original method brought forward by LSU came as a result of their 26 dropped passes in the 2018 season. The Tigers ranked 96th in catch percentage in Football Bowl Subdivision by grabbing 84.3% of catchable targets, according to data from Pro Football Focus. Wide receivers accounted for 21 of the team's 26 drops.
"I asked (passing game coordinator) Joe Brady and (wide receivers coach) Mickey Joseph, I said, 'tell them to catch the football this summer,'" then-LSU head coach Ed Orgeron said in 2019. "And they came up with the 10,000 catches."
These drills included catching balls while standing behind a door that would open and close and wearing special goggles that limited peripheral vision. The goal was to increase the receivers' ability to catch in traffic and tunnel down the ball.
This method helped the Tigers offense boom for one of the greatest single seasons in college football history.
If it wasn't the greatest.
Burrow tallied an NCAA record 65 total touchdowns in the 2019 season, and he was the first to ever throw for at least 60. He became the sixth college quarterback ever to win the Heisman Trophy, lead his team to an undefeated record, and win the National Championship in the same season.
"We're trying to build a culture of execution here," Brady said in 2019. "It's not about what you do, it's about how you do it. We're not looking to put on a show at LSU. We're looking to put on a clinic."
Chase became the first player in SEC history to total 20 touchdowns in a season. He also broke the LSU single-season receiving record with 1,780 yards.
The 2019 LSU offense was the first in NCAA history to contain all of a 5,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard rusher, and two 1,000-yard receivers. (Burrow threw for 5,671 yards, Clyde Edwards-Helaire rushed for 1,414 yards, and Jefferson added 1,540 receiving yards.)
LSU's offensive dominance came to a crescendo in the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship against Clemson.
LSU routed Clemson, 42-25, and they did it with near-ease. Burrow threw five touchdowns, and Chase broke the record for the most receiving yards in a National Championship game with 221, while catching two touchdowns.
So, yes, LSU's "Summer of 10,000 Catches" worked. While the extent of how Pitt conducted these drills wasn't broken down, the Panthers are hoping to reap the benefits of utilizing a same method over this summer.
"All of us (receivers) bring something different to the table," Means said earlier in training camp. "We've got speed, we've got route runners, we've got people that can go up top. We've got a plethora of talent in our room, so I feel like we're going to be able to make a lot of plays this year."
