Many factors led quarterback Kenny Pickett back to Pitt for a fifth season.
Among them is his relationship with Mark Whipple, who enters his third season at Pitt as the longest-tenured offensive coordinator under coach Pat Narduzzi.
“Coach Whipple is like family to me. If he wasn’t coming back here, I wouldn’t have come back,” Pickett said Friday as Pitt made final preparations for the start of spring drills Sunday. “There’s a lot of unfinished business. He’s a competitor just like I am.”
He also seriously considered his relationship with teammates and familiarity with the program. He was first introduced to Pitt four years ago when he left Ocean Township (N.J.) High School a half-year early to enroll.
“If I didn’t love it here so much, it would have been a lot easier to leave, given the position I was in. It was a win-win either way,” he said.
Said senior defensive end Deslin Alexandre, who enrolled with Pickett in January, 2017: “He’s the heart of this team.”
Just as important — perhaps, moreso — is Pickett’s desire to prove he’s a better quarterback than what others might think.
“Very close,” he said when asked how close he was to declaring for the NFL Draft. “I took my time with it.
“Everyone had the idea that I was declaring (for the draft). My friends back home were the only ones who knew I was making a decision because I was stressed about it.”
Pickett, his family, plus Narduzzi and Whipple, talked to many people in the NFL, including former Penn State and Houston Texans coach Bill O’Brien, to gauge what the league thought of the 22-year-old quarterback.
“At the end of the day, it was such a broad spectrum of where I could potentially wind up getting drafted,” Pickett said. “I think more highly of myself than where I was projected. As a competitor, it just fuels the fire more for this season.”
Near the end of last season, Narduzzi teased Pickett and center Jimmy Morrissey about returning in 2021 for their final season of eligibility, considering the NCAA’s one-year, pandemic-induced waiver.
“ ‘Yeah, right coach,’ ” Narduzzi said they told him. “It was a foregone conclusion that he was gone.”
Pickett’s only regret is he was unable to convince Morrissey to return with him.
“He didn’t really bite on that,” Pickett said, with a smile.
In the end, Narduzzi called his second recruitment of Pickett “one of the best recruiting gets ever.”
He’s solid for one more season at the game’s most important position, with Pickett third all-time at Pitt in total offense (8,552 yards) and fifth in passing yards (7,984).
“I think it’s a great decision by Kenny. I think he can come back and really raise his stock and become one of the top quarterbacks drafted next year,” Narduzzi said.
Pickett is one of 13 so-called super seniors who returned to Pitt thanks to the waiver when they could have started drawing paychecks either inside or outside football.
The list includes wide receiver Tre Tipton, who is approaching his seventh season at Pitt and linebackers Chase Pine and Phil Campbell III and defensive tackle Keyshon Camp (sixth).
Many of the 13 have NFL potential that can be enhanced by another year of college, but the lure of the NFL wasn’t overwhelming at the moment.
“I’m excited they’re all back,” Narduzzi said. “Some of them will turn into NFL players, for sure, with another year of development.
“You look at (defensive end) Pat Jones and (safety) Damar Hamlin coming back for another year (in 2020) what it did for their careers. I think they made money.”
But Narduzzi was quick to emphasize that having 13 super seniors doesn’t necessarily correlate to success during the season.
“You can’t say, ‘OK, you have 13, so it counts as 13 wins.’ I wish it would,” he said. “It takes a team to get that done.”
NOTE: Narduzzi said there are plans to hold three scrimmages before the spring game at Heinz Field. “We’re hoping and praying we will have fans for that spring game,” he said.
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Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jerry by email at jdipaola@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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