Rewinding to a year ago, prior to the start of the 2022 season, word churned from within the walls of the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex was that Pitt was holding a competition for starting quarterback.
Who was going to replace a Heisman Trophy finalist in Kenny Pickett?
Was it going to be his longtime backup, heir apparent, and friend Nick Patti?
Or, was it going to be Kedon Slovis, a transfer from Southern California with an arm as golden as the sun that shined on the campus he just transferred away from?
That issue's a nonfactor now as the Panthers are within two weeks of kicking off against Wofford, Sept. 2, at Acrisure Stadium, and Pat Narduzzi's team will be led by Phil Jurkovec. With no qualms about his status among the other quarterbacks. The Pine-Richland product was brought home after stops at Notre Dame and Boston College with a commitment announcement coming hours after Slovis entered the transfer portal.
If what Frank Cignetti Jr. said last week rings as true, then maybe Jurkovec is already the preferred option over the one who won the job last year.
The timing of Slovis leaving and Jurkovec entering Pitt doesn't look like a coincidence, after all. Cignetti revealed that Jurkovec was coming to Pitt whether Slovis was in or out. A competition was set to ensue. Jurkovec and Slovis -- the latter now the incumbent at the position -- were going to duke it out for the role.
That is, until Slovis bolted.
"We were actually bringing in Phil before Kedon left," Cignetti said. "We wanted Kedon to compete with Phil, and obviously he didn’t want to."
Don't those two sentences help explain some of the trials from last season?
As it went, Slovis became the guy. He was elected a team captain, led Pitt to a victory in a thrilling Backyard Brawl and, had it not been for a concussion sustained the following week against Tennessee, his season might have looked different. But, as time progressed after the season ended and the stain of the Slovis era began to fade away, more rumblings started to reverberate from the South Side about how things were with Slovis around.
Like the words from Narduzzi when he spoke in December about how he already had thought Jurkovec brought the leadership that "maybe we lacked a year ago."
Or the words from cornerback Marquis Williams, who tweeted shortly after the news broke about Slovis' departure:
As a team captain, you suppose to talk to your boys first before anything , wasn’t no love at all!
— Marquis Williams (@wiliamsisland14) December 5, 2022
And, now, with on-record confirmation from the offensive coordinator that Slovis was going to be challenged with competition, only for him to bolt for the mountains of Provo, Utah, and BYU via another run-through in the transfer portal ... that's three strikes, and he's out.
That brings things to the other side of the coin. Where Slovis ran from competition, Jurkovec was willing to run to it. Granted, with a run at Notre Dame that went nowhere and a few injury-riddled seasons at Boston College, he had few options on the table until the option to return home and play for his former coordinator at Boston College arose.
In a football sense, the move back to his home town made sense.
"I owe a lot of my success at Boston College to coach Cignetti," Jurkovec said in January. "He really knows how to coach quarterbacks. I'm so happy to be back in that system and the way they train the quarterback, it's different. ... He has high expectations, and he keeps it for the whole room. He's big on competition and speaking the same language. It's a little bit different now because I have a couple of years in this offense under my belt, so I guess the questions and everything, it's upper level. We're trying to do it the best."
But, in another sense, Jurkovec is not taking this final opportunity lightly. With little time remaining in Pitt's training camp leading up to the season opener Sept. 2 against Wofford, Jurkovec is showing one trait that Pitt did not have at its quarterback position a year ago.
"Oh boy. I’ll tell you: Phil Jurkovec has been very consistent," Narduzzi said last week. "You’re not sitting there looking at him going, ‘Wow, that was a terrible day by him.’"
The question asked to Narduzzi did not invoke Jurkovec's name in any manner. It was a vague, open-ended thought about who Narduzzi felt has been consistent throughout training camp.
That statement from Narduzzi can be backed in this manner by Cignetti: "First off, we know he’s a great leader, we know he’s tough, he brings that Pittsburgh grit, his teammates have great respect for him. But he’s done such a great job just making the right decisions, you know? He understands the play designs, he understands all three phases, whether it’s the run game, the protection, or the passing game in terms of running the offense. The checks that might happen at the line of scrimmage. And, I’ve really been impressed with his accuracy. I mean, he’s playing great football and I’m really proud of him."
Pitt achieved nine wins and won a hotly contested bowl game against a top-25 team with inconsistencies at the quarterback position last year. Having the ACC rushing champion in Israel Abanikanda and a defense that produced four picks in April's NFL Draft helped that cause, but this Pitt team will have to win games in 2023 because of its quarterback and not in spite of it.
Jurkovec is already forcing the offense to go with him, whereas Slovis had to play catch-up at many instances. Jurkovec will benefit from not only having played in Cignetti's system in prior years, but also from the development of pass-catchers Konata Mumpfield, Bub Means, and Gavin Bartholomew in their second seasons within the same offense. Daejon Reynolds brings a physically imposing threat to all levels of the field for Jurkovec to maximize with, and Kenny Johnson has been a freshman sensation at Pitt camp with Narduzzi saying he is "separating himself" from freshman counterparts Lamar Seymore, Zion Fowler-El, and Izzy Polk for the fourth receiver position.
The tools are in place for Jurkovec to succeed with, and he has been making the most of his new environment since setting foot on the South Side. And, while he might not be a Heisman-level quarterback like Pickett was, he is also staying away from the pathway that led to Slovis' downfall as the Panthers' quarterback.
