It’s now 11:55 PM, Eastern Standard Time, and the Pitt-Miami game has just ended. Miami dominated Pitt 28-14 (yeah, I’m surprised that the score was that close too… the game certainly wasn’t). At halftime, I noted that Pitt had to “stop the Canes’s running game, protect Rutherford, and start tackling” or this was going to get ugly. We certainly didn’t, and it certainly did. Here are my on-the-spot observations on the second half (my thoughts on the first half are here).
–Well, I guess we’re going to the Continental Tire Bowl to likely play a Virginia team that impressed me in beating up on Virginia Tech this afternoon. Oh well. At least we’re not going back to the Insight.com Bowl, our home away from home. And at least West Virginia won’t be screwed out of their rightful place ahead of us in the bowl pickings.
–And at least Fitzgerald got his TD. You just know that keeping him out of the endzone was a major goal for the Hurricanes. Still, even Brett Musberger couldn’t help but note the crowd’s derisive cheering when Fitz made his very first catch of the game… WELL into the third quarter…
–Pitt’s tackling continued to be awful in the second half. Claude Herriot, in particular, should be ashamed of himself. Even Gary Danielson was making fun of his missed tackles at one point.
–Which Miami running back wound up getting the most yards against our pathetic run defense: Moss or Payton? Aw heck, I don’t even care. Each had well over 100. We had to stop the run to win, we knew that we had to stop the run to win, and we couldn’t even begin to stop the run. A team that was as weak against the run as we were against Miami, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Notre Dame doesn’t deserve to be in a BCS conference.
–Rod Rutherford got sacked 9 freakin’ times. Disgraceful. No wonder he threw 3 interceptions. Rod hasn’t looked that helpless since the Notre Dame game. Pitt’s offensive line should be lined up and put out of their misery like the lame mules that they are.
–Thanks to my picking Pitt to get within the spread on this game, my season record is now 23-24-1. Oh well. At least FOXSports.com/The Sporting News got this game wrong too. Personally, I thought that Pitt (1) would be able to at least slow down Miami’s rushing, and (2) run the ball more than a little itself. That’s why I picked Pitt. D’oh. Given the Panthers pathetic run defense all season long, I wonder how I persuaded myself that things would suddenly change now?
–Thank God Virginia Tech was ranked in front of us at the beginning of the season. Otherwise, the Pitt Panthers would clearly have been the most overrated team of 2003. I mean, seriously… people actually once thought that this was a top ten team!?
–So what is the final word on what was supposed to be Pitt’s big season? Disappointment? Sure. Disappointment so great that it could open opportunities for Penn State and West Virginia to get ahead of us in recruiting once again? Not this year, anyways. We’re pretty far ahead of both of them right now (in everybody’s opinion outside of State College). But still, we can’t survive many more seasons as disappointing as that one, or Rodriguez will snatch the “offensive genius” crown from Harris forever.
That does it. I’m going to freakin’ bed. Hail to Maryland pasting West Virginia again (in the Gator Bowl this time). Hail to Ohio State pasting Miami again (in the Orange Bowl this time). And for like the fifth time this season, hail to Pitt Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoads and his staff getting the Frank Solich treatment.
