My questions concerns and thoughts on Pitt as the first day of camp begins and it is less than 28 days to FSU-Pitt.

Part 1 is here. Part 2, here.

8. Who is going to kick field goals? This is the one question that  has the potential, at the end of the year to look back at and wonder why there wasn’t more concern over this issue. Kevin Harper is gone. He never quite got that consistency to match the leg strength, but now what? Does freshman Chris Blewitt come in and beat everyone? There are two walk-ons in Brad Lukasak and Drake Greer battling with him. Pitt was 0-7 in games decided by 5 points or less the last 3 years.

9. Can the D-line dominate? As much as Pitt intends to rely on the defense, it really is about how the four guys up-front perform. All the optimism on defense stems from the D-line. Aaron Donald is going to face regular double teams. Tryone Ezell and Tyrique Jarrett absolutely have to take advantage of that to help create the pressure on the opposing offenses and take the pressure off Donald.

On the outside, David Durham — the Ohio State transfer — is expected to start and make the line stronger on the edge. This is the make-or-break year for Bryan Murphy who has been dogged by injuries and academic struggles. He’s now a redshirt junior and freshman Shakir Soto enrolled early and already made the depth chart.

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Part one of  is here. Just a list of some of the issues — and where they rank to me.

4. Offensive Line. You can’t talk concerns about Pitt for the last 10+ years without putting the O-line on the list. The fact that I have it all the way down here should be encouraging or terrifying. It either means there’s a lot of reasons for optimism or that there are so many other issues this one actually gets dropped this low.

Freshman Dorian Johnson will get the opportunity to seize the right tackle starting job from T.J. Clemmings and/or (fresh from his own one-year suspension) Juantez Hollins, but Coach Chryst is doing his best to hedge on that.

“None of us feel comfortable (with starting a freshman),” he said.

Chryst pointed out that Joe Thomas didn’t start as a freshman at Wisconsin, but he became an NFL first-round draft choice.

“On all true freshmen, you have to make sure that they’re ready, that it won’t hurt them and hurt their development.”

On the rest of the line, it looks surprisingly stable. Technically there is a battle at the center spot between Gabe Roberts and Artie Rowell, but Roberts was clearly the guy from the spring at center. Despite converting from a tackle spot.

I’m going with optimism. I like the job O-line Coach Jim Hueber is doing, and I feel confident that Coach Chryst and OC Joe Rudolph does more than simply say that they need the O-line to do well.

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Questions on the field. Questions off the field. Questions about the coaches. They are all there. Some will get sorted out in the next few weeks. Some will only be put to rest once the season begins.

Here are my top issues as camp begins. Actually, this list kind of got long, so I’m splitting it into a few posts.

1. Quarterback. Natch. Covered this yesterday so I won’t repeat it.

2. Defensive Coordinator Matt House. The defense is expected/needed to be the strength of this squad. The man in charge of the defense is a first time DC. A man with a total of 4 years of position coaching experience. Outside of new Defensive Ends & Linebackers Coach John Palmero the rest of the position coaches on the defense have 4 years or less of experience coaching at the college level.

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