Author : college football/basketball writer @MattZemek, Editor at @TrojansWire .
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The Pittsburgh Panthers have won the ACC Coastal Division before, in 2018, but they were 7-5. They got crushed in the ACC Championship Game. They lost their bowl game. They finished 7-7, hardly a team which will be remembered as special or accomplished.
This year, Pittsburgh has a chance to not only win the Coastal, but capture the whole ACC. Everything — and nearly every team — is in play at this midpoint of the season, given the bunched nature of the standings and the lack of a dominant team.
Who is in the running for ACC Player of the Year? Many players… but Kenny Pickett has to be at the heart of the conversation. Pittsburgh’s offense has been a roaring force this season. Even when the Panthers lost to Western Michigan, they scored more than 40 points. Pickett has presided over a powerhouse in Pennsylvania, giving Pitt and Pat Narduzzi a real shot at the New Year’s Six bowl bid which comes with a conference title.
If Pitt wins the conference, Kenny Pickett will likely win ACC Player of the Year.
That’s the best way for him and his Panthers to frame any discussion of individual awards: They will flow from team accomplishments in a conference which is completely up for grabs.
Given that reality, this next fortnight — a two-week stretch with a road game at Virginia Tech, followed by a home game against Clemson — will go a long way toward deciding the ACC POY race.
A Pitt sweep of the Hokies and Dabo Swinney puts Pickett and the Panthers in charge of their world. An 0-2 sequence would be a disaster. A split would be reasonable yet leave the individual and team races up in the air, which would be a very “ACC” outcome in this crazy 2021 season.
What is Kenny Pickett made of? What is Pitt made of? Those two questions are closely connected. We’re about to get solid answers to them. The Panthers hope they are the right ones.
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