Prioritizing the importance of blocking for a teammate is one way position coach Brennan Marion builds solidarity among Pitt’s wide receivers.

“If you love the guy, you’ll fight for him,” Marion, a Greensburg Salem graduate, told reporters Wednesday after the second day of practice in preparation for Saturday’s game against Western Michigan. “If you don’t, we’ll just keep rewinding the tape and showing that you don’t.”

Taysir Mack found another way.

Mack and teammate Tre Tipton have been close friends since 2018 when Mack transferred to Pitt from Indiana.

“When his Mom passed away (this summer),” Mack said, “everybody was blowing up his phone. He wasn’t responding to anybody.”

But he responded to Mack, who told him, “I don’t care where you’re at. Send me the location.”

Mack said: “He was an hour and a half away, and I drove there and I was there for him,” Mack said. “That’s just the trust we built for each other, just to check on each other mentally. It goes both ways because we both understand the struggles in a lot of different aspects of losing family members, going through injuries.”

“I’ve seen Tre struggling (when his mom was sick) when nobody knew about it. But every day he would come in and say, ‘11 (Mack’s jersey number), how’s your mental?’ when he knew I was getting back from surgery (two in 2020).

“He had stuff of his own he was going through. That shows how much a brother really cares for you.”

Such togetherness can’t be tangibly traced to results on the field, but Marion insists on preaching it. As Mack said, “This game is more mental than it’s physical.”

“You have to be a psychologist as coach,” Marion said, “know what makes every guy tick, what makes them go. Pushing them hard on the field and lovin’ them off the field … keeps the group cohesive.”

“I forget what coach it was, but through my time coaching, he told me that a great coach is like you’re a dad and you go to pick your kids up at school and they run (toward you shouting), ‘Dad.’ The players should feel that type of energy when they see you. Even though I’m hard on them, at the same time, I’m still positive and try to give them hope and push the needle forward.”

After the opener against UMass, Marion challenged his receivers not to settle for catches without gaining extra yardage.

“Are we not good enough to make a guy miss in space? Do we have to put running backs out there?” Marion said he told his players. “Just challenging their minds a little bit.”

A week later, Mack improved his YAC (yards after catch) from 1 to 28 while Jordan Addison made a jump from 20 to 38.

“I was proud of them for taking the challenge and fixing it,” he said.

After gaining only 34 yards on three receptions against UMass, Mack caught four balls for 100 in the first half of the Tennessee game. He also improved his drop rate in two games from 17.9% in 2020 to 12.5%. His contested catch rate also is up from 36.4% to 66.7%, according to Pro Football Focus.

Perhaps he’s on his way to a season such as he produced in 2019 when he made 63 catches for 736 yards before falling off in an injury-plagued 2020 to 23 for 305.

But if Mack reaches his ‘19 numbers, he won’t be impressed. He’s faced hurdles before, starting in the second grade when he was diagnosed with dyslexia and struggled while learning to read. Now, he has a bachelor’s degree in media and professional communications and is pursuing a second major in sociology.

“I want to be better than I was in 2019. That’s like saying that’s the limit,” he said. “You can’t say the sky’s the limit when people walked on the Moon.”

Mack is one of the receivers who asked for permission last week to catch balls off the JUGS machine at 10 p.m. Plus, he said he has walked through pass routes 25 times, seeking perfection.

“We have optional, mandatory things (Marion) wants us to do,” said Mack, not trying to be funny.

Mack was pleased with the victory against Tennessee, but he said, “It’s bittersweet because at the same time, Tennessee isn’t the goal.”

“It was bittersweet just due to the fact that we’re not going to the college playoffs after that game. We’re not ranked after that game. Week by week, just stacking improvement. I want to be one of those guys who’s a Biletnikoff candidate. That was my bounce-back week. Now, I know what it takes for me to be at my best.”

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