Here’s the way things are looking right now:
- Derek Kinder — WR — ACL, out for year
- Chris Jacobson — OL — Dislocated kneecap, out for year
- Dan Matha — OL — Shoulder injury, out for year
- Bill Stull — QB — Torn thumb ligaments, out for about 6 weeks
- Elijah Fields — S — Team rules violation, suspended for the year
- Gus Mustakas –DT — ACL, out for year
- Kevin Collier — RB — Broken wrist, out for year
Then there are the walking wounded. Players who are playing with nagging injuries (already).
- John Pelusi — TE
- Aaron Berry — CB
- Joe Thomas — OL
- LaRod Stephens-Howling — RB
I’m not blaming it on the strength and conditioning program — at all. This stuff happens. Just feel it needs to be noted from the Pitt website for irony purposes:
A significant portion of the S&C training load is dedicated to drills that serve to reduce the possibility of sustaining an injury. In this regard, a great deal of special exercises are performed during the advanced stage of the warm up, which precedes the primary phase of the workouts, that target the muscles that articulate the neck, shoulders, hips, and knees.
Anyways…
3 starters and 23 others who were expected to be on the 2-deep all season. Only Matha would have been a question mark for the 2-deep, though with the play of the O-line so far, not as much of a stretch.
Some may point to this as yet another reason to say that this is why the coaches should just be looking at this season as getting ready for 2008. No. This is the reason you don’t count on a particular season as when things happen. Injuries happen, then everything changes. The team and program can’t assume.
Have to give credit already to Cav for Smith’s readiness as shown last week – he did well especially considering he was splitting first team reps in practice with Bostick the week before Grambling. This week he’ll be taking all the starter reps and that should help his confidence (but he looked pretty secure out there) and open the playbook a bit.
Now we’ll see if the Gattsuto as D line coach can do the same with his second string.
IMO – screw 2008, and go balls to the wall for this season. It was a good choice to go with Smith and not worry about Bostick’s redshirt. If things go well as they appear so far with Stull and Smith, Bostick has more to worry about than how many years he’ll get to be PITT’s QB. Play every freshman that can possible help us, it’s good for this year’s team, and builds team unity for the long season and into the future.
I was out of town over the weekend so didnt hear much about the game. Im assuming Bostick never played? How did Smith do?
I understand you have to get your second string QB ready to play because he’s 1 snap from being the starting QB. But I hope he gets a little more game action than what we saw against Grambling otherwise it will appear to have been a wasted year for Bostick.
I’m not saying he should start over Smith, but at some point this year he needs some PT.
Likely, given both Stull and Smith look decent.
Bostick tripped over Shady’s feet on his first handoff and threw one pick, then handed off the rest of the way. He’s not ready yet (but I agree that he lost his redshirt when Stull went down).
