I have my in-laws showing up tomorrow for my kid’s granparent’s day at school. My dad is also making a trip in for this. I need sleep, but it won’t be coming for a while. The bourbon tastes like crap with the ashes of this season, but I’m still drinking it.
This game was there for the taking for Pitt. Something. Anything. Just a little hope. Apparently that little spark was just too much right now.
The defense was as piss poor as expected. DC Paul Rhoads showed his usual ability to cope with a rushing attack with a QB that can move vertically. He can’t. He never has. He never will.
Pitt gave up 497 total yards. 331 yards on the ground and 168 in the air. Oh sure some might argue that numbers get skewed with 2 OTs, but not this time. OT only accounted for 38 yards.
In regulation, Pitt gave up 459 yards total, with 318 rushing and 141 in the air. Prior to this game Navy averaged around 446 total yards per game. What does that mean? It means Pitt was slightly below the average D of Temple, Duke, Air Force, Ball State and Rutgers. Oh, and only Duke allowed them to score more points (in regulation).
Hell, what is there to write about the defense that hasn’t been written tons of times before. I mean, the ultimate humiliation is when Lou Holtz is able to see the problems while not even being sure who’s on the field.
Up until the final couple plays in the second OT, I was completely ready to give the offense a pass. Expectations were and are low on that end, and Navy’s defense is hardly much of a measuring stick. Still, 38 points in regulation after the past 3 games still could only be a positive. Taking some chances. Letting Bostick have a chance to play and throw the ball.
Then Pitt had the ball inside the 2 on 3d down. The 3d down pass, I suppose I can accpet. Questionable but not insane. 4th down. Totally right to go for it. I’m not questioning that decision. The play call. The formation. That was madness.
A called fade to the short side to Strong. All the while in a conventional set that doesn’t spread the defense. Gives no other choice and gives the defense every chance to make the play.
Otherwise, the offense did fine. It got yards. It mixed things up. It did its best considering the pathos that is the O-line. Actually involving the wide receivers in the game plan. Over 400 yards of total offense and not just from second half desperation to catch-up.
Pitt fell behind after 3 quarters and took back the lead. Actually got a lead back.
Pathetic. Yet another, “must win” for Pitt and Wannstedt that wasn’t.
By gambling, Wannstedt appeared to be saying to his slumping team, “We’re going to win this right now.” But the play itself – one in which Strong went to the edge of the end zone and waited for the ball inches from the out of bounds line – was risky enough no matter the circumstances.
“I can’t say much as a player. You always go with the plays they call. … There’s no use pointing fingers at anyone,” Bostick said. “We can look at the film and say we could have done many things different.”
Think Wanny has lost this team?
…
I will not get down on the players because I know in my heart that for the most part they give it their all. But you can give your all, but that is negated by bad leadership/management. Such is the case with my beloved Panthers.
The frustration/despair I feel inside this morning has nothing to do with the players, but everything to do with coaching. I give in to any hopes of Wannstadt leading Pitt to the Promised Land.
There is a reason he was fired in his two stints as an NFL head coach, he is a bad head coach. Some coaches are meant to be HCs; Wanny is not one of them.
Any HC with any sense knows you play not to lose at home, and play to win on the road. It is as elementary as hot is to cold. It is clearly evident that Wanny is deficient in the abstract thinking needed to be a HC.
Wanny is steadfast in his belief that his system is right, and that if the players execute it success will follow.
He fails to see the urgency of it all. Yes, proper execution of the system in a theoretical sense means success. But just as in life, belief in a theoretical proposition does not constitute success from said proposition.
There needs to be a balance in coaching, a balance of concrete, and abstract. While it is not bad to approach coaching from the concrete presupposition of one’s stated philosophy, it becomes fatal in the face of continued adversity when one fails to bring in abstract coaching philosophy.
Holtz was right when he stated that you need to attack an option offense, and that Pitt had the bulk up front to do so. Instead there was not initiative for Wanny to do so because once again he failed to think in the abstract, but rather clung to his concrete proposition that if the players executed his system the team would win.
It is the job of the HC to give the players the best chance they can to win. Can we honestly say that Wanny has? The answer to this rhetorical question is no. We as fans are in a no win situation. If Wanny stays most likely there will be no elevation of the program, if he goes what of the recruits who have come?
I could go on and on, but I think it best for me to look in the direction of the BB team.
Fire Paul Rhoads…
Fire Matt Cavanaugh…
Fire Paul Dunn…
Fire the waterboy…
Fire the guy holding the clipboard…
Fire anybody and everybody associated with this team and do it today…!