For one game at least.
Turnovers were one of the main themes. That’s fine. This one, I understand but don’t buy into. The defensive players apparently are claiming it was all about getting behind DC Rhoads.
“We know we are a good team, we’re not a bad team,” defensive back Kennard Cox said. “And coach [Dave] Wannstedt is a great coach and so is our coaching staff. We had some adversity but we just kept on sawing wood. We just had the will to win.
“And we’ve been rallying around coach Rhoads all year. You think about it, as a defense we only had one off game all season. As a team, we’ve been up and down, but we’ve stuck together and from this point forward now we need to keep it together.”
The theme of rallying behind Rhoads seems to be a major one among the defensive players. Instead of just talking, the Panthers showed it on the field against Cincinnati, doing some things that have been uncharacteristic.
Apparently they rallied around him, by discarding the Rhoadsian approach of bend but don’t break. Of passive defense.
Sorry. I’m really happy about the win. I would love to see it continue, but I’m seeing quotes from players and Coach Wannstedt pretending that only the Navy game was the bad one for the defense. That UConn and Virginia wasn’t the defense’s fault at all because the offense — and coaching decisions — buried the team early. That’s crap.
The offense was putrid in those games. Not disputing that. The defense, though, hardly distinguished itself. Wannstedt excused the lack of turnovers in those games because the opponent built up big leads and only handed off and just looked to eat clock. Well, that skews the defensive numbers when a team has built a huge lead before halftime. So, it can’t be both to me. The defense didn’t do anything in the first halves of those games in turnovers or stopping the opposing offenses.
Zeise in his Q&A took too much of a contrarian stance in response to this question.
Q: Much has been written about what a great defensive effort Pitt turned in last week. But I saw something different, I saw an offense that kept on shooting itself in the foot with penalties. Although the turnovers were a nice plus, I think those penalties masked a mediocre defensive effort much like it did against Michigan State. These last five games will be long ones if face teams who can stay disciplined.
ZEISE: I would have to respectfully disagree. Look, it is easy to kill the Panthers for their ineptitude over the past few years because they have made it easy but the flip side of that is, you have to give credit where credit is due and they deserve a lot of credit. And what I saw from Cincinnati — and this leads to penalties and turnovers — is a team that got frustrated because Pitt made it difficult on them. Pitt did a lot things we haven’t seen, like blitz, like drop guys off into coverage after showing blitz — and that threw the Bearcats and their quarterback, Ben Mauk, out of their rhythm. I’m not sure what the final five games will bring for this Pitt defense, but for one day at least, the unit stood tall against a very good offensive team, and the Panthers for once were the aggressor and that is what led to those results.
Why can’t it be both? The Pitt defense was uncharacteristically aggressive. That contributed. That said, the defense didn’t come out of the gates aggressive. Cinci, though, came out from the get go sloppy and penalty inclined. The second half turnovers. No doubt that came from Pitt’s defense being more aggressive. But, don’t discount how sloppy and poorly Cinci played.
We don’t even know if this was Rhoades idea in the first place. I would think that he would be totally against any type of change. After all we have heard for 6 years that his scheme is sound and that it would work if the players just hit the gaps and executed the game plan correctly.
For all we know it could have been Wanny under glass calling for an agressive D. If so he needs to stay there and call the same type of D again this week.
In reference to Zeise’s Q&A, I do think it goes both ways. I think we all can agree Cinncy was certainly not as sharp as they have been. However, Pitt did things on D that certainly helped caused many of those mistakes (both physical and mental). Don’t discount the way they played on Defense. When you force pressure on the QB, that pressure can translate to the whole offensive squad….,false starts, turnovers, wrong reads, etc….It can become the “snowball effect.”
With that said, unless I am reading too much into Coach’s remarks, I am very disappointed that Pitt doesn’t want to build on their aggressive style D against Louisville. They may see something that I don’t, but Brohm isn’t mobile and you can’t let him back there surveying the landscape all afternoon. Shane Murray said it in one of the articles today, “I really enjoy the blitz package because that can take a lot of pressure off our secondary and our linebackers in pass coverage. Hopefully, we’re going to keep it up.” I would think that would be a pertinent area of focus for Louisville on Saturday. Only time will tell!
“Hail to Pitt”
You and I both know what the offense wanted to do and they accomplished those goals. I am not saying the defense was the deciding factor b/c it wasn’t. However, the defense plan was different on Saturday. I feel it fit much better into the Panther’s overall game plan, rather than the “sit back and wait approach” they normally institute.
“Hail to Pitt”
I think all he was saying was that you can’t simply plan to blitz Brohm on 1st and 2nd down like they did Mauk – you’ve got to be a bit more selective about when to be aggressive. And a defense being aggressive does NOT always mean a defense has to blitz. There are other ways to be aggressive.
Agreed, there are many ways to skin a cat and you are right aggression doesn’t always mean a blitz package. The major thing that sticks in my mind about the Cincy game is that the defense just looked so much more engaged. Along w/ picking certain situations to blitz, they also changed their looks, schemes and really attempted to confuse Cincy. It was refreshing to see and I think that it produced some good results. Hopefully, I am over-analyzing Coach W’s comments.
“Hail to Pitt”
We need improvement on the blitz from our defensive (pressure from linemen, linebackers and coverage from secondary).
I guess the only way to improve is too practice blitzing and blitz more.
The one postive i saw is that our corners were closers to the recievers instead of their customary 10 yards off.
Questions- Did Dom and Dorin play? Keep TJ on the field with Mo
Did anyone see this article in the Chicago Tribune about GRAY maybe becoming a STARTER for the Bulls? He’s some kind of amazing scoring threat now?
It’s unbelievable. I’d love to see him succeed (even though when the stakes got big for us, he didn’t come through), but I always have this sinking feeling that when the pressure gets too big (ie, do good in these 2 games and you’ll be starting opening day your rookie season even though you were a second round pick!) he crumbles…anyone remember that second georgetown game? The one that decided if we would win the big east? Anyways, good luck. It would be funny for him to start and score against the starters for the Mavs tonight…
Listen, I can appreciate that Gray worked hard to become a better player and was a big part of their success. But, IMO, he was a bigger part of their failure when it really counted. More than anything about Gray I will remember the hundreds of layups he missed and how he was dominated by mediocre centers in big games. IMO, those missed layups and poor performances were all mental — a complete lack of a killer instinct. If that’s something he’s finally developed, then great. I just wish he had it one year earlier, because it most likely would have made a huge difference.
their o played sloppy and poorly because they were actually confused by the pitt d. And their d line gave up at the end. It’s only one game, but come on.