Well, what can I say. A convincing win. Either Pitt’s offense is a lot better than I thought, or Kent St. is even worse than I believed. Last week, Kent St. won against Akron in a shootout — 52-48. Even if Akron also sucks, any team that could put up that many points has to have some weapons and will at least be able to score and cover the spread of 29 to 30. Not even close in a 43-3 rout.
Did you ever wonder what local coverage is for patsy teams? I mean the teams that are bad, will almost always be bad, and their athletic department’s budget is based on being paid 6 figures just to do a roadie to be beaten up. Teams like Louisiana Tech, Akron, McNeese St. and Kent St. Here’s a sample.
Kent State’s 15 minutes lasted exactly that long.
After a quarter of level-headed football, it looked as if the Golden Flashes were genuinely going to put together some sort of upset bid against Pittsburgh on Saturday night at Heinz Field.
Then it came unraveled mentally and physically — and did so quickly. It was as if the two parties seemed all too happy to settle into the anticipated roles and the Panthers ended up getting some fun for their $300,000 in a 43-3 victory.
Honest reporting. Got to love it.
Speaking of honest reporting, the Rod Rutherford misdemeanor assault charge is still fodder. Actually, Harris’s handling of it is more the issue. Either he should have benched Rutherford or played him, period. His half-ass “punishment” of not letting him play the 1st quarter was idiocy.
Of course, as we’ve been saying, this is not a major incident regarding Rutherford, but that won’t stop some from trying to make it bigger. Take this from the Palm Beach Post who seems to link Adrian McPherson (the disgraced former Florida State QB who bet on games and may have bet on/against his own team) with Marcus Vick and Rutherford.
Rutherford was charged with kicking out a car window and assaulting a 19-year-old woman outside a nightclub early Monday. Vick, the younger brother of Michael, was one of two Hokies suspended this week after violating unspecified team policies.
While Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer held out Vick the entire game, Pitt’s Walt Harris showed a silly little incident like punching a woman and displaying a violent temper isn’t going to get in the way of a football game.
Harris believed the way to penalize his quarterback was to sit him… for the first quarter of the season opener against Kent State. Rutherford threw four touchdown passes in a 43-3 victory after being “punished.” Rutherford should have been sitting on the sidelines for Saturday’s game and probably a few more.
Punched? Violent temper? The alleged assault was that he grabbed her arm, through an open window leading her to strike her head on the inside of the car. There was never a punch. Of course that would interfere with a good story.
Nice to see that reporters are looking closely at the facts.
Back to the game. The dark cloud, was that it is clear that Getsy is a tremendous drop-off from Rutherford. Getsy got the start (because they still hope to be able to redshirt Palko) and it was ugly. Getsy was 0-4 passing in the 1st quarter, and 3-11 overall with some mop-up duty. The stats show Rutherford to be the key. This worries the hell out of me. As I’ve said, before, one of Harris’s weaknesses is his focus on one of his QBs to the exclusion and bad development of the others. Looks like the trend is continuing. Or Pitt better blow out Toledo and Ball State early to give Getsy lots of mop up time.
