ACC Network’s Wes Durham Weighs in on Pitt QB Competition, New Offense

Wes Durham is as connected to Atlantic Coast Conference football as anyone. He is the lead play-by-play broadcaster for the ACC Network and his crew paid a visit to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to tape the newest ACC Football Road Trip covering Pitt’s fall camp.

Over the last two days, Durham has had a front-row seat to understand the uniqueness of Pitt’s offseason, specifically on the offensive side of the ball.

As always, quarterback competitions unfold every year for teams and this season, Pitt is not the only one in the conference. However, the situation brewing between Nate Yarnell and Eli Holstein has all the intrigue you can ask for.

“I think it’s an interesting battle,” Durham said. “I see positive with both guys. Yarnell has got the experience of being here, the guys in the locker room know him, they are familiar with the way he handles a game week.

“Holstein, watching the spring game, it was funny because the first play is him cutting the ball loose down the field. It’s like, here’s Kade Bell, here’s the offense and bang. I think it’s going to be interesting because he really does some nice things, too.”

Head coach Pat Narduzzi pointed to Yarnell as the starter following the spring game, but since the opening of camp, he has insisted that there is competition between the two, and it’s more apparent from a conference-wide perspective than people may think.

Eli Holstein (10) of the Pittsburgh Panthers

“This is a terrific decision. When you look around the league, we’ve got three or four schools that are in this boat. Others I think are window dressing in some respect for the competition, we know who the heavy favorite is”

If it was not already evident, it should be more so now than ever that the quarterback competition is shrinking, especially with a fully healthy Holstein. Now, it’s a matter of when an official decision is made as the Panthers gear up for scrimmage No. 2

“I said on the show, can you wait till a week out? EJ Manuel thinks you got to give them two weeks. Roddy [Jones] and I are in that seven-to-10-day window. I will be really interested to see what coach Bell and coach Narduzzi elect to do.”

Whomever the quarterback of choice is will be handed the responsibility of bringing Kade Bell’s offense to life once the season commences and Durham is high on its potential.

“Are people ready for this here?” Durham said laughing.

“I don’t know how deep you guys go back,” he continued. “The geek in me here of watching tape and YouTube rabbit holes is going to come out a little bit. I knew what Kerwin [Bell] had done at Valdosta State. I knew that Valdosta State was influenced by a lot of different people, but Kade now has influences not only from Kerwin, who is a terrific coach and a terrific offensive mind, and remember that Kerwin played in those Florida days where they were breaking ground with the way they threw. Kade has taken all of that and now expanded it. You can tell by the lineups and formations and the brief that we’ve been able to watch the last couple of days that there’s some NFL influence in this.

At Pitt, Bell has a lot of room to experiment with the offense and a good amount of weapons at his disposal, but there is one player that Durham believes can be the centerpiece.

“For me, the most interesting player on the field is not any of the running backs or any of the wide receivers, its Gavin Bartholomew. If I’m Kade Bell, I know he’s a weapon with the football. The one thing you can’t question about Bartholomew is his athleticism and his toughness. I think he is a fascinating part of what they can become,” Durham said.

Pittsburgh Panthers tight end Gavin Bartholomew (86) Sept 10, 2022 David Hague/PSN

There are still some obstacles to overcome with this offense, but one that has been tackled from the onset is the conditioning of the entire offense, including the lineman.

“The real challenge is – I thought Ryan Jacoby and Terrance Moore who were on the show tonight were really reflective with Roddy yesterday and a piece we taped about their transition here. Pat talked about how much the strength and conditioning program has affected how these kids are going to be in shape.”

With Kent State looming in just over two weeks, Pitt will be able to transform all of the offseason and camp work onto the field, and before we know it, we will have a full understanding of how this offense will operate.

“It’s going to be really interesting to watch it happen,” Durham said. “You go back to the first four games, you clearly going to see two Big 12 games in the middle of that four-game stretch. That feels like to me, how much continuity, how much rhythm do you have, how much stability do you have in your depth chart?”