Misleading stats cut both ways. We’ve read how Coach Wannstedt talked up Pitt’s pass defense as being one of the tops in the country statistically, while then excusing the lack of turnovers as because teams have big leads and didn’t have any pressure to do much other than run the ball. At the same time, he talks of how the run defense has improved and excuses the Navy game as an aberration (or “not reflective”).

Obviously reality gets examined this weekend. Pitt will play a team with prolific passing, but a struggling running game.

The Cardinals (4-4, 1-2 Big East Conference) still rank fifth in the Football Bowl Subdivision in total offense at 529 yards per game, but they have been held below 100 rushing yards in four of their past five games.

…

Pittsburgh (3-4, 1-1) will enter Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium tomorrow ranked

Nationally, that puts Pitt’s run defense at 54th in the country. Louisville’s longest run from scrimmage this season has been 20 yards. Of course with one of the best QBs and probably the best pair of receivers in the country, the running game hasn’t been the problem. It’s been the Louisville Defense.

The running game leads into a topic of Coach Wannstedt in the papers today: Time of Possession.

If Wannstedt has it his way, though, standout Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm will be doing a whole lot more standing and watching than actually playing.

“[Controlling the clock] would be our objective every week,” Wannstedt said. “That is one of those things that shows up on the stat sheets that people don’t talk about usually. They talk about the obvious — touchdowns, interceptions, sacks — but possession time is a key and there are so many benefits to that, particularly when you are playing a high-scoring team and you want to minimize the number of possessions they have.

“If you are a running team and you can control the clock and you have a controlled passing game — and we’re that way now — I think the theme is, don’t stop ourselves. It is amazing how, even in last week’s game, we’re at the 9-yard line going in and we have a holding call and we settle for a field goal.”

Wannstedt said that even if the Panthers do control the clock on offense and even if they don’t turn the ball over, they still will have their hands full trying to figure out how to stop the Cardinals.

Unless there is a huge disparity, time of possession is a relatively minor stat for a game and the season. Louisville ranks 5th in the country in ToP

So, while the running game for the Cardinals hasn’t been much, they still use plenty of clock moving the ball with the pass.

Pitt comes in at 47th at 30:24. The difference between being 23 in the country is just under a minute (Toledo, 31:21). The difference of being 70th is the nearly the same (Oklahoma, 29:25).

Zeise probably nailed the issue at the end of the article.

Although time of possession is one key statistic from the win against the Bearcats the Panthers would love to duplicate tomorrow, it will only be possible if they duplicate another — turnovers.

The Panthers forced three of them and turned the ball over only once, a big difference from the first six games of the year when they had 16 turnovers and forced only six.

More possessions leads to a larger ToP. To do that against Louisville, it is going to have to come predominantly from interceptions. Brohm has only 6 interceptions in 8 games. Pitt coaches are essentially talking scared about blitzing.

“He makes you pay for (blitzing),” Rhoads said. “First of all, they’ll ‘max-protect’ in a heartbeat. If they sense any pressure, they’ll keep seven players in to block and protect him. Now, it doesn’t matter how great the scheme or what you bring. Your chances of getting there are certainly slimmed up.”

…

Even if blitzing isn’t the answer, the Panthers are planning to pressure Brohm in some way, shape or form.

“You always got to get to him and touch him some how, some way,” Phillips said. “You let him sit back there, of course he’s going to pick you apart because he’s a great quarterback. You’ve got to get in his face, get after him and make him hurry some decisions.”

If not, Pitt’s secondary could be in for a long day.

“It’s a big challenge,” Phillips said. “We’re really going to see where our defense is at.”

Scary thought.

Joe Starkey had a … column, with this final thought.

Not sure if Dave Wannstedt stepped further in or further out of Pitt’s defensive game plan Saturday, but something looked drastically different. Here’s what Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly said when I asked his opinion of defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads and the Panthers’ scheme: “I can tell you this: They had not shown the versatility within their defensive scheme that they showed against us. … They never gave a static look. Their plan was excellent.”

Something tells me Navy coach Paul Johnson didn’t leave Heinz Field with a similar feeling.

Pitt fans hadn’t seen it either. So, when Coach Wannstedt talked on Monday about not being as interested in blitzing and bringing pressure, it created a natural anxiety. Concern that Coach Wannstedt was being stubborn and blind to what had worked. Zeise was asked about it in his Q&A.

Q: I was listening to DW’s press conference from Monday, and was getting a little concerned. It sounds like he does not want to bring as much pressure this week. I felt like the reason the defense started to play well was because of the extra guys they were bringing, especially in the middle. What is your take? Clearly, not bringing pressure has not helped, so why not go with what seemed to work? What is the worst that could happen that has not already happened the past 3 years?

ZEISE: Well, you’d hope he is just trying to throw Louisville off because if you sit back and let Brian Brohm stand in the pocket and throw it, he’ll light it up. I think that is the wrong approach. Again, I go back to last year when Rutgers played Louisville and came from way behind to hand the Cardinals their only loss. The key to that game? Greg Schiano blitzed and blitzed and blitzed and got Brohm out of his comfort zone. That’s so important. But we’ll see. Again, part of me thinks that is just pregame coach speak, though there is a lot of precedent suggesting it is not.

Hopefully that’s all it is, but Zeise is correct in suggesting that Wannstedt has not been much for gamesmanship in saying one thing in the strategy and doing another.

The Zeise chat today, following a win actually had a lot more centered on the Louisville game.

jimmy_g: Was last week’s game just a fluke or has the defense gotten better?

Paul Zeise: The defense played well last week. Did it get better? Log in and ask me next week after we watch it play against Louisville….

shady_is_sweet: How do Pitt’s corners match up with Douglas and Urrutia?

Paul Zeise: From what we’ve seen this year — I don’t like that matchup at all. Not for a minute. I think this is an area that has to improve for Pitt — the coverage of the corners and the coverage of the safeties. It hasn’t been terrible, but it hasn’t been great either and it needs to be great this week because the Cardinals receivers are special.

panicbutton: What about Pitt’s offense versus Louisville’s D? The focus is on Pitt’s D this week, but I’m hoping to see a big game from Shady and company.

Paul Zeise: Well that’s what we have been talking about. It all comes down to Pitt posession the ball, the taking some time off the clock with nice long drives and not turning it over or settling for field goals. Louisville will score some touchdowns so Pitt needs to match that.

Lots of pressure on the secondary this weekend.

Kiss of death. Some think Pitt might be turning the corner and picking Pitt. Of course it could just be the lack of faith in Louisville these days.

Pitt 27, Louisville 24: Did the young Panthers turn the corner last week? I’ll say yes. Their pass defense is very good (sixth in the country) and I really like their ground game against a suspect Louisville D.

Bruce Feldman really hasn’t seen Pitt play, has he?

Finally, in 1-AA, the University of Northern Iowa Panthers are #2 in their polls. Here’s a puff-piece on former Pitt Panther, now UNI Panther WR Terrell Allen. At least he’s happy now.

Why does it seem that the beat writers for two different papers seem to be writing about the same thing on the same day? There’s a simple and easy answer for that. It depends on who Pitt makes available for interviews. It’s an access thing. This isn’t like the NFL where media members can roam the locker room and talk to who ever they want. The media can request players, but it’s Pitt’s discretion to decide who to make available.

So with LeSean McCoy and LaRod Stephens-Howling talking, the storyline is obvious. Their relationship and how Stephens-Howling has handled being passed by McCoy on the depth chart.

Which is all well and good, but nothing did more to soothe Stephens-Howling’s soul than celebrating in the end zone Saturday at Heinz Field after scoring the winning touchdown in Pitt’s 24-17 upset of then-No. 23 Cincinnati.

“People were saying after I scored my touchdown that I did a little celebration. But I would just say there were a whole lot of things that were bottled up in me that came out, and that was just to let me know that I can still do it and I’ll keep on trucking,” he said.

There’s nothing but praise, of course for Stephens-Howling. From McCoy, Coach Wannstedt and RB Coach Dave Walker.

“He’s the example of what you are looking for in a student-athlete, a teammate and a friend,” Walker said. “You know what you are going to get from him all the time, and it will always be everything he has. Everybody has roles on our team and his has been adjusted a little bit but he has handled it as well as you can.

“He hasn’t pouted and he’s played at a high level when his number is called. But the bottom line is, we need both guys and we’ll give the ball to whoever is hot.”

As done previously after the game against Virginia, using the play-by-play found here I compiled our first down playcalling and stats into a more visual form to be analyzed. Obviously the win over Cincinnati was in large part due to the way the offense, especially the running game, played. It also looks as though a huge improvement on first downs helped lead to the win.

Against Virginia a few weeks ago, the following happened:

— 58 total yards on first down plays
— 23 first down plays
— 2.5 yard average gain on first down
— 3 three-and-outs and 6 total punts

Not very efficient at all, and it’s really no wonder why we lost the way we did. Saturday’s game against Cincinnati showed that an improvement in those stats increases our shot at winning. The full first-down chart follows…

Note: “—” denotes the drive continued.

Just the length of the chart tells enough. Against Virginia, we moved the ball so much less that the number of first downs was very low. We saw 36 this game compared to 23 in that game. Looking closer, the box in the top right is a good enough summary. We gained almost 200 total yards more on first downs from Virginia to Cinci. Also, and maybe most importantly, is the average gain: 6.78 compared to 2.5. It’s much easier to succeed on 2nd & 4 to go than 2nd & 8.

More words and graphs after the jump.

(more…)

Well, this is something of a surprise to learn just as it nears the point when he will be passed.

Receiver Harry Douglas can break the Big East career receiving record with 466 more yards this season. Dietrich Jells of Pittsburgh set the mark with 3,003 yards in 1995.

And Douglas even missed a couple games this season with an injury. Of course, Douglas has had Brohm throwing to him. Jells had Alex Van Pelt and John Ryan. I’m just saying.

For all the stuff you want on Louisville, be sure to read the Card Chronicle. Mike R. is a daily read for me, even when Pitt isn’t playing Louisville.

In his Big East Notebook for ESPN.com (Insider subs.) Joe Starkey is a little hesitant to say that Pitt turned a corner with the win last weekend.

Or, it might have been an aberration. We’ll know more based on how the Panthers fare in their visit to Louisville on Saturday.

That is also the theme of this AP article.

Before dealing Cincinnati its second loss in a row, Pitt had been outscored 215-132 in Big East games since beating Syracuse 21-11 on Oct. 7, 2006.

“Coming in here on Sunday nights, before this week, it was tough to watch film and sit through meetings,” center Chris Vangas said. “This week, I think everyone was looking forward to coming in and watching film and getting ready to practice.”

At least the Panthers were until they saw game tape of Louisville (4-4, 1-2), which has outscored them 90-44 during a pair of one-sided games since 2005. Louisville, which plays host to Pitt on Saturday afternoon, won 48-24 last season in Pittsburgh and 42-20 the season before.

I don’t know if Mario Urrutia is playing but Douglas scares me more in their receiving corps. The secondary hasn’t had a major challenge to this point, so this is going to unknown territory. They haven’t looked good in limited spells.
There’s a connection between Colorado Rockies Outfielder Matt Holliday and Dave Wannstedt.

Holliday was a star quarterback at Stillwater (Okla.) High School. How good? His father, Tom Holliday, then the head baseball coach at Oklahoma State and now the associate head coach at North Carolina State, sent a tape of his son to then-Chicago Bears coach Dave Wannstedt. Matt was being recruited for both sports.

Wannstedt saw a young John Elway or Dan Marino. But Holliday said no thanks to football and college, and signed with the Rockies.

I assume the elder Holliday knew Wannstedt when he was coaching in college.

One on the offense and one on the defense.

DE Greg Romeus really showed up in the Cinci game. He made a bunch of plays as his playing time has increased. Naturally, that means a puff piece.

And as Romeus has learned and gained more experience, he has become harder for coaches to keep off the field. That’s why he has seen his playing time increase almost weekly and is now playing as many snaps as starters seniors Chris McKillop and Joe Clermond.

Romeus doesn’t have the experience of either of those two, but he has been able to be just as productive when he has been in the games because he is such a good athlete. Romeus, who is 6 feet 5 inches and 250 pounds, has 23 tackles and a team-leading seven for losses, including a sack. He also has broken up two passes.

Defensive Line Coach Greg Gattuso is trying to temper enthusiasm and expectations regarding Romeus. Coach Wannstedt freaked people out by reminiscing about and comparing Romeus to the legendary Dallas Cowboy Leon Lett. Hopefully the comparisons only stop at the physical part. Otherwise Romeus is being insulted about his intelligence.

Over on the O-line, when Joe Thomas went out with a hamstring injury (status, questionable for Saturday) John Bachman came in and performed exceedingly well. That’s a relief. No hiking the ball as a center, and suddenly he looked good on the line.

At right guard, Bachman appears to have finally found a position he can call home. Wannstedt and Dunn have both said Thomas won’t lose his starting role to injury, but that the position is now open to competition.

Bachman, for one, welcomes the opportunity.

“I’ve been around a lot,” Bachman said. “That’s been an experience for me, a positive experience. I think that works for me because I understand the offensive line better than some guys do. I feel more comfortable at guard than I have at tackle and center. I’m excited to be there. I think it’s going to be my natural position.”

I like that. Thomas won’t lose his job due to injury, but he will in competition.

It’s under way.

I’ll get back to this later. Just wanted to give the links.

The preseason coaches poll has Pitt picked to finish 4th.

2007-08 Preseason Coaches’ Poll

 

1. Georgetown (8)                            217

Louisville (8)                           217

3. Marquette                                    191

4. Pittsburgh                                    170

5. Syracuse                                     153

6. Connecticut                                  149

7. Villanova                                      143

8. Providence                                   141

9. Notre Dame                                 122

10. West Virginia                              112

11. DePaul                                       79

12. Cincinnati                                    62

13. Seton Hall                                   56

14. St. John’s                                   52

15. Rutgers                                      32

16. USF  23

 

First-place votes in parentheses

This despite not having a single player selected for the 11-player (huh?) pre-season All-Big East team. Levance Fields only merited honorable mention

Many of you have e-mailed me a couple articles about Aaron Gray making a big impression with the fans, coaches and possibly starting for the Bulls. Just haven’t had a chance to get to it.

Gray has endeared himself to both by being productive in the exhibitions preseason, but also humble and very self-critical.

“I know I still have a lot to work on. I hear about it every day. If he didn’t care about you, he probably wouldn’t say anything. The important thing is, I’m learning a lot.”

Not that Gray’s head had swelled from that double-double against the Mavericks.

”Maybe my stats [were] OK,” he said immediately after the game, ”but I’m making so many mistakes out there. I have a lot to learn yet, especially defensively. My rotations are so slow.”

That might help explain why Gray fouled out Tuesday — his six personals matching his six points in 16 minutes — in a victory against the Washington Wizards.

Skiles said Thursday he wasn’t surprised that Gray’s self-analysis emphasized the negatives over the positives.

”Those are the guys we like,” Skiles said. ”If not all, most of the guys in the gym are like that.

”For a young guy like him who is big and has a skill set, he’s a quick learner. You can tell that he wants to learn, so we’ll keep teaching him. He may end up being a bigger factor for us than we realize right now. Who knows?”

His production and presence on the court has Bulls Coach Scott Skiles considering Gray to be the fifth starter, forming a twin towers situation with Ben Wallace.

“We liked what happened at the beginning of the game the other night,” Skiles said. “We thought Ben Wallace and Aaron played well together. Ben is a good passer. And he found Aaron once the other night. Ben also knows our offense well.

“We have to decide, balancing both units, do we want a couple of defensive players in the starting lineup or do we want more offense. Aaron has shown—and I think he will in the regular season—that he can score. Do we want to use that to start a game? It’s something we have to think about.

…

The rookie from Pittsburgh has impressed many with his fundamentally sound play and steady development.

Despite fouling out against the Pacers, most infractions coming from poor or slow defensive rotations, he’s averaging 10.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.8 fouls in 18 minutes per exhibition. He’s also shooting 61.3 percent in five games.

“The mobility issue, in my mind, is much less a factor even than it was in the summer,” Skiles said. “He’s definitely picked up how we want him to move and where we want him to move to. And because his hands are so good and he’s got a soft touch and his size, it makes up for those issues.”

Gray has become very intriguing to a lot of fans, even as some are reserving judgment and think this as much to do with lighting a fire under some other players.

Matty Rosenberg of Only the Bulls blog sought my thoughts/scouting report on Gray when he was with Pitt. On his site, I also came across this video of Mr. Gray showing his musical stylings.

[Editor Note: For whatever reason, the embed keeps failing. Code is being stripped out after I insert it. It then screws up the rest of the blog, so I just pulled it.]
Okay.

I guess the Pitt coaches had a pretty good idea over the summer where that extra scholarship they didn’t have but have been offering, would come from. Darnell Dodson was not cleared by the NCAA Clearinghouse to be eligible this season. Rather than continue attending Pitt and trying to get eligible for next year, Dodson has apparently opted to head to junior college.

Dodson decided to leave because he wanted to continue his playing career.

Because he was enrolled at Pitt and taking courses attending a prep school was not an option. Dodson could return to Pitt after his stint Miami Dade [Junior College], but if that happens it won’t be until the 2009-10 season.

Well, hopefully he will get his work in order and Pitt and Dodson can still come together in a couple years.

Pitt is 3-4 with five games left. Somehow, there is actually thought that Pitt could make a _{bowl game}. Personally, I think the chances still aren’t good, but amazingly there is still a chance.

Good news, during the Dave Wannstedt press conference ahead of the Louisville game, there was no mention of what he did when he was an assistant at Miami or anywhere else.

On moving past the Cincinnati win and focusing on Louisville:

I think we have enough veteran guys and enough coaches (to keep the team focused), and that’s my job to make sure that everybody understands. We have to set the tempo in practice, which we will. I think we have good seniors that have already turned the page. These young kids, I don’t know if it’s confidence and winning and all that stuff as much as it is an opportunity to play. Every one of them (young players) to a man, they’re just so excited about playing so I don’t think that the win will affect them as much as another opportunity to play.

All you have to do is put in the tape on them (Louisville) and these guys, the last two years, we couldn’t slow them down. We did not really slow them down. Games were close for awhile, but in the end we couldn’t hold up physically, we couldn’t hold up on the scoreboard. Defensively, we don’t have many true freshmen that are going to be involved in the action; everyone else has been a part of this thing for the past few years. They’re (Louisville) balanced, they hurt us with the run as much as the pass in years past. The statistics and the names that they have, they have two or three first-round draft picks supposedly on their offense. A couple that we know for sure, so our players know that. They know what kind of talent they (Louisville) have.

The balance isn’t really there with Louisville right now. The Cardinals seem to be struggling with finding a good running game with consistency. Anthony Allen has looked good at times and at other times he has been lost. Stripling and Bolen haven’t been the answer. The Cards have run the ball 281 times (including Brohm’s sacks and scrambles) and thrown 344 so far this season.

The Cards were robbed in the game with UConn when the Big East officials blew the fair catch call that was then advanced for a TD, to the point where the Big East apologized for the officiating. The officials got fooled by a kid who knew exactly what he was doing.

“Fair catch?” Taylor said. “That wasn’t no fair catch out there. That was fair play. The referee didn’t call anything. But I didn’t call for a fair catch anyway.”

It took me a couple of listens to my audio tape of Taylor to finally figure this out, but it’s a pretty interesting quote. Taylor said the referee said something to him just before the punt.

“He said to make sure I get my hand up high so he could see it,” Taylor said.

A reporter followed that up with this “Why did you put your hand up?”

Taylor said, “I didn’t really put my hand up. I was playing a mind game with the defender. I don’t feel I got away with anything. The referee never blew the whistle.”

I asked Taylor if the reason he ran because he never heard a whistle.

“Once I caught the ball, I just ran.”

By rule, a fair catch is signaled when a player raises one arm above his head and waves it from side to side more than once. You can nitpick and say Taylor never waved his arm, he just stuck it up there. If that’s the case, then by rule the ball never should have been advanced. An invalid fair catch, in this case a player who raises an arm but pulls it back before a wave, can not be advanced more than two steps, according to the NCAA football rulebook.

He’ll never get away with it again, but it gave UConn the score they needed. And it really was the difference in the game last week. I only bring this up, now, because by all rights Louisville should be ticked at this and a loss. Pitt comes in to face them after all of that.

Both articles from the beat reporters focused on Wannstedt talking about QB Brian Brohm.

“I am a big Brian Brohm fan,” Wannstedt said yesterday at his weekly news conference. “I thought if he’d have come out last year, he might have been the best quarterback in the NFL draft. Though they’ve been inconsistent as a team, it hasn’t been because of him.”

Well, in the UConn loss, he was actually a bit inconsistent. Perhaps it was weather related — raining — but he wasn’t as precise in that game. That, however, was the exception.

Coach Wannstedt is definitely not promising that Pitt will blitz. Only that he will look to have the defense mix things up.

“I think you’ve got to mix it up on him,” Wannstedt said. “You go down there and try to blitz this guy, he’ll kill you. He’ll tear it up. But, at the same token, you have to be willing to pressure him enough to make him understand that he’s not going to have time to sit in there and hold the football.”

I’m just hoping this is a bit of misdirection from Wannstedt in the media.

“It’s easy to look at them and say, ‘First-round draft pick quarterback, Heisman Trophy candidate, 400 yards passing. You better rush the passer every play,'” Wannstedt said. “You can’t do that. You have to be able to stop the run.

“If you look back on our two games, down there two years ago, it wasn’t the passer. They ran the ball for 200-some yards against us. That’s what killed us. Last year, when they needed to make some plays, sure, Brian is going to make his share. But if you can make them one-dimensional, it creates a whole different scenario.”

Actually, as I mentioned, the Louisville run is not a major issue right now. It is to set up the pass. Two years ago, they had Michael Bush running wild. Last year they had 31 rushes for 162 yards — with no RB carrying more than 9 times. It was Brohm carving Pitt up for 337 yards and 4 TD passes. They will run a little, but it is about the passing game.

I think Pitt will blitz some in the game. If for no other reason, the players really responded to it and if Wannstedt is serious about wanting the speed on defense he has to let them loose a bit more.

Q: After the success versus Cincinnati, do you feel as though the coaching staff will continue to let the defense play more aggressively?

Zeise: One would hope, but each game is different. And you are right — it was much more interesting to watch, which is why I enjoy watching Rutgers. I’m not sure Greg Schiano ever met a blitz package he doesn’t like and they just get after it on every play. Also, if you talk to Pitt’s players, they enjoyed playing that way and they believe that by being more aggressive, they were able to force the turnovers and play faster.

The difference for Louisville this year, is that their defense has been a major letdown. Well, that’s being kind after the Syracuse embarrassment. It has looked better based on the points scored in recent weeks, but it still has big let downs. In the UConn loss, they allowed UConn to take the lead in the 4th quarter — 10 points in the final 11 minutes.

The Louisville players may have had their dreams of a national championship and likely the Big East BCS Bid, but they are still talking strong.

“We don’t ever count ourselves out,” U of L safety Bobby Buchanan said yesterday. “We’re going to keep fighting through adversity and work harder. This race isn’t over. The Big East is still a wide-open gap for anybody to win. Of course, we can’t afford another loss.”

U of L’s quest starts with Pittsburgh (3-4, 1-1) on Saturday in Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. Since building a 20-game home winning streak before the Syracuse debacle, the Cards have dropped two straight at home.

“We owe our fans a win at home,” Buchanan said. “It’s time to start the winning streak at home all over again.”

Here are game notes for Pitt and Louisville (PDF).

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.

You know, maybe some day… ten, fifteen years down the road. Maybe the River City Rivalry Trophy will take on some so frickin’ ugly and ridiculous it’s cool vibe. At that point– No, wait. Who am I kidding. It’s one of the worst looking trophies ever jury-rigged for a non-rivalry. The Land Grant Trophy is at least just a hunk of wood of no real visual disturbance.

Instead, we’re stuck with a dadaist eyesore that deserves this and more.

It also means Pitt gets to hold the strange trophy for a year. What the hell they’ll do with it is anyone’s guess since it seems to be designed to be both impractical and unwieldy all at the same time. We can only guess at its uses, and what they’re saying at this happy, joyous moment in Pitt’s recently dismal football history.

I said it when the “rivalry game” was announced, and I said it when I saw the monstrosity. The River City Rivalry deserves to be mocked and mistreated at every turn until the Big East, Pitt and Cinci quietly retire the thing and pretend this never happened.
The downside to winning it every year is that Pitt is stuck putting it on display  — that or just hiding it in a closet somewhere  in the South Side facility.

Even without a lot of upsets like the past couple of weeks, there were still enough to make this a mess. Thanks as always to Dennis for starting this.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	6
2	Ohio State	—
3	Boston College	—
4	Florida	4
5	Oklahoma	1
6	South Florida	5
7	West Virginia	2
8	Southern Cal	2
9	Oregon	5
10	Kentucky	4
11	Arizona State	1
12	Missouri	1
13	Kansas	2
14	Hawaii	2
15	South Carolina	10
16	Virginia Tech	2
17	Texas	2
18	Auburn	1
19	Wake Forest	5
20	Michigan	5
21	Alabama	5
22	California	11
23	Rutgers	3
24	Virginia	2
25	Penn State	1

Wait-listed/Standing by: Who the hell knows any more?

I have to say, watching the Oregon game was a really impressive thing. They have one of the best offensive lines in the country.  Shaky (to be kind) defense, but they are damn entertaining to watch.

This season, there isn’t a team on the list of top-25 that wouldn’t truly shock me to see them lose this coming weekend. It’s just that kind of a season.

This is just one of those years, where you want the poll to stop at top 10 or maybe 15. Trying to figure out who “deserves” to be ranked after that is just a crap shoot.

The kickoff time for Pitt and Syracuse’s November 3 game at Heinz Field has been set for noon. Similar to Saturday’s game against Cincinnati, it will be televised on ESPN Regional as the “Big East Game of the Week”. It can also be seen locally on WTAE.

Also, kicker Conor Lee was recognized as the Big East Special Teams Player of the Week (to be known as the BESTPOTW from now on). Lee accounted for 10 points against Cincinnati which ties his career high. He was perfect on three field goals (41, 25 and 37 yards) and one extra point. Lee, who is a candidate for the Lou Groza Award, extended his school-record PAT streak to 66.

It’s only a week and a half before Pitt’s first exhibition game for basketball. How the time flies. Fan Fest and a scrimmage was held yesterday afternoon. I wouldn’t put tremendous stock in the stats of the scrimmage, but here they are.

The theme for the day, apparently was, “here come the kids.”

Freshman DeJuan Blair and redshirt freshman Gilbert Brown were impressive in the Blue-Gold scrimmage that the Blue team won, 74-69.

Blair had a double-double with 17 points and 17 rebounds, and Brown had 15 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists with no turnovers.

Both players looked like they could contribute right away for the Panthers, whose first game is less than three weeks away.

Blair, though, is saying confident, bordering on cocky things, but does say the right things regarding starting and playing.

“I have no idea what’s going through coach Dixon’s mind,” Blair said. “I’ve been running the floor, rebounding. If you get the ball in my hands, I do great things with it. It’s up to him. He makes all the calls. I’m not worried about starting. I’m just worried about winning.”

Darnell Dodson may end up redshirting. He has yet to get approval from the NCAA Clearinghouse, so it wouldn’t surprise me. If Dodson can’t practice with the team, he’ll be too far behind in learning the system to get into the rotation. Gilbert Brown had the same problem due to injuries last season. It may not be that bad of a thing since it will give Dodson more time to work on the academic side, and there won’t — barring injuries — be a crying need for him at small forward with Cook and Brown.

Freshman Bradley Wanamaker will likely see limited minutes at the start of the season that will grow as he learns to play more at the point guard, and is given some experience and provide additional depth.

On the other side, Wanamaker, a 6-4 guard, had 14 points, eight assists and five rebounds in 30 minutes for the Blue team, which won 74-69.

“He’s tough,” Dixon said of the Philadelphia native. “He has a great feel. He sees the floor. He’s becoming a better shooter every day.”

Big East Basketball blog has a solid preview of Pitt up. He predicts a conference record of 11-7. Something that I think is probably right within +/-2.