The defense is being setup to be a good one next season. Rhoads still has to leave though because someone else with fresh aggressive ideas can do a lot with these kids.

Bostick will be fine as long as Shady helps him, which he will. I would not trade them for any other freshmen in the country. We show flashes of what can be, we just have to make it be a full time thing.

if pitt had made a couple plays earlier in the game(scoring more than one TD when your defense forces 4 TOs would be helpful), it wouldn’t come down to a bad call at the end. quit whining about the refs. we need better players who are better coached to perform when it counts.

Hey scott you can say the game was lost by not scoring earlier but whenever it comes right down to it, it was lost when the ref threw a flag that should have never been thrown. The panthers did enough to win this game wheater you want to admit it or not.

Pitt got fucking robbed. No question. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fucking idiot. The coaches and players did all the right things today. The team got fucked by some incompetent high-school drop-out who happened to know somebody that could get him job officiating football. I wouldn’t be surprised if that cocksucker had money on the game. Fuck him and fuck anyone who says Pitt lost the game because they didn’t.

Here you go contact the big east and tell them how terrible there refs are link to bigeast.org;

I am sick of the “we have turned the corner” talk. This team has difficulty coming back from deficits (except for Cincy). Let’s also not forget the games we have won that we could/should have lost (Cincy without a doubt). Until Wanny can consistently lead a come back and pull these games out I do not think they have turned anything.

I refuse to be a Seattle Seahawks fan…go out and make plays…don’t let officiating lose it for you.

Strong was open…make a good throw its a TD.

That doesn’t mean that the official didn’t blow the call, but I think whenever you play a game close to the sleeve you put it in the officials hands.

The officiating made a couple of offensive PI calls (two on Rutgers earlier in the game) so you know they were calling/looking for it.

I am heartbroken as anyone, but I think its too easy to blame officials…

As someone earlier wrote “…we are not good enough to recover from a bad call…” (I am paraphrasing). This is the real problem not the bad call.

DaveD

What I wrote earlier is we’re not good enough to win the game twice. Anyone who thinks this was a loss is a moron. Watch the play, it is clearly not pass interference. It was a terrible call by a terrible ref making terrible fucking calls all day. And they all went against Pitt. The call on Chappel? Bullshit. The call at the end of the game? More bullshit. These kids went out and did exactly what we asked of them: just enough to win the game. And then they had it ripped away by some useless asshole who doesn’t know the first fucking thing about officiating.

Does anyone know the name of that official?

Stuart is 100% correct. A team of freshman and sophmores shouldn’t be asked to win a game twice. Turner caught that fucking ball. If anything that should have been defensive pass interference. Pitt was robbed in a game where they did everything correctly.

omar and stuart, you’re both delusional. “pitt did everything right”?! give me a fuckin break! we scored one TD, had less than 300 yards total offense. did either one of you clueless wonders play college football? i did, i know what a solid, fundamentally sound, well coached team looks like. pitt’s not there yet. recruit better players and put them in positions to succeed. pitt has a long way to go. doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do w/ one bad call.

Watch the fucking video: the defender makes contact first, he shoves his hands off, they continue to slap hands back and forth, we score the fucking TD. It was defensive pass interference before it could ever be called offensive pass interference – which it still wasn’t. Since when is pushing the defender that is on you “offensive pass interference”? What a fucking nightmare. The other ref standing right there didn’t throw his fucking flag – he had the exact same view. We got jobbed.

You wanna see offensive pass interference? Look in the first half where their player laid ours out. That’s pass interference.

Same fucking ref didn’t call the penalty when Britt ran over Chapel, same ref made that terrible call when Chapel had perfect coverage, and same ref and made that terrible call at the end against us when we won the game.

Scott,

FUCK YOU! I watched the game. What the fuck did Rutgers do to win that game? NOTHING! Pitt won the game. 1 turnover. On a great run by McCoy. The refs stole it. The defense played as well as any Pitt d has played in 5 years. The offense didn’t turn the ball over and made plays at the end of game. How can you criticize Pitt? Your are delusional.

The pass interference call at the end was terrible. There is no denying it. Pitt won that game. I was shocked when he called offensive pass interference. He couldn’t have seen pass interference. What did he see?

BTW – did you play for Pitt? Didn’t think so – go root for your college, troll. Last thing i want to hear from is some douche that didn’t even attend our college…assholes…

Why don’t you tell us all what powerhouse you played college football for…

MSU takes the lead….

…this is where they find a way to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory and make morelli the overall number one pick all in one series…god i hate msu…

I can’t even quote myself after being misquoted and insulted? Awesome…

I’ll even settle for the refs screwing psu in exchange for us getting screwed…something….cmon morelli, one more time…that’s all i ask…

Suck it PSU. MSU finally comes through….after years of futility….i’d say the timing couldn’t be better….

Shit, even we could lose to MSU by 4…i’d love to have a Pitt/PSU game this year…especially at the end of the year…but no big east officials…

at least we arent alabama

ah, yet another thoughtful, refined, classy post from stuart. i played at washington & lee. 15 years after i graduated, i’m still in the record book. i’m quite sure you’ve never heard of W&L – it’s a top 15 school that you could NEVER get into. i could buy and sell you, loser.

Scot…”pitt has a long way to go”…IF you have watched this team over the last three seasons, then you would know that Pitt has come a long way and they will contend for the BE Championship next season. It will happen for the exact reason that you refer to…they have recruited “better” players. Those players are now starting to have more and more of an impact on the games. We have the best young QB in the BE, we have the best young RB in the BE, next year we will have the best DL in the BE, and likely the best TE’s and WR’s. If we can just get some talent on the OL, we will be a BE contender and a Top 15-20 team nationally.

DaveD…”Strong was open”…that’s true and if he looks for the ball it’s a TD. But the guy who should have read the all out blitz from the line of scrimmage goes 19 YARDS DOWN THE FIELD AND NEVER LOOKS BACK AT THE QB WHO HE KNOWS IS BEING BLITZED…and you make it the fault of the QB who threw a perfect pass!

First of all, Washington & Lee is not a top 15 school, c’mon now.

Second of all, we could have done things better in the first half especially. It was obvious that Pat was struggling and although we wanted to throw the ball down the field, some flare passes or especially some screen passes would have been much more effective just to get the D line off of Pat’s back.

Don’t get me wrong, with that bad of an Offensive line, it’s hard to do much, but we could have been more effective throughout the game.

But that was still complete robbery. I cannot believe they didn’t even give us the TD in the initial call. Two feet down by a mile.

Let’s try this again…you call me “delusional” – i ask if you’re illiterate. You misquote me, and don’t even understand the meaning of what i said.

I said “I’m not pretending like we didn’t play an awful game…” and you don’t seem to understand what i meant by that. Its self-evident. That is nowhere near saying “pitt did everything right.”

The rest of what i said: “…or if one of a handful of things would have went our way…and yes, even after the call, we had the ball at the end, still had a chance, and threw an int. But we’re not good enough to win any game twice. We’re just barely good enough to win once. And that wasn’t good enough today because of one fucking retarded ref. This isn’t whining where “that should’ve been pass int” on a ball that WASN’T caught – this was A CAUGHT BALL, this was a TD, we WON THE FUCKING GAME…”

Seriously, do you understand what i’m saying? Because your comments lead us all to believe you don’t, at all. You’re also very classy with your “clueless wonders” comment – ironic how it slips by you that we won the turnover margin by a large amount…and to top it all off, we score the winning touchdown…

Don’t purport to have any idea of my intelligence level or assume i went to Pitt for one reason or another. You have no idea…keep being a hypocrit by lobing insults and then calling others who do so “classless”…

ryan, you c’mon. from U.S. News web site:
link to colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com

Scott….I don’t know who you are but it’s pretty obvious that you haven’t been paying attention to any PITT games this year…..We are a team of Freshmans and Soph’s, and we lost are starting QB during the secong game of the season…..Rice and Co beat us up pretty good last year and was favorite to win by at least 12 pt’s today….For our young players to put their selves in a position to win this game and then have a ref who has been throwing bogus flags at are defenders all day, wipe out the game winning TD is a hard pill for us all to swallow…….This team will be a beast next season, and the games will not be this close.

Wait – are you seriously arguing about your liberal art colleges USNWR ranking to prove that you know more about football than all the other fans here? Seriously? Go troll on your college’s football fan blog… I don’t know what your “glory days” have to do with Pitt getting screwed today… Go bother PSU for losing to MSU…

I forgot – do we compare SAT scores now?

I was at the game and without the benefit of seeing it on replay i must tell you all that it “looked” like offensive pass interference when viewing it live. 10 Pitt people in our section screamed when he pushed off. We all knew the flag was coming. We didn’t like it, but from our vantage point it looked like offensive pass interference. That’s obviously what the referee saw as well. It was a very diificult way to lose the game. I thought we played well enough to win and the D was excellent today. Our QB situation held us back today. at least three sacks should be blamed on the QB’s who don’t seem to know enough to get rid of the ball when no one is open.

TMGPanther…..I had the benifit of seeing the reply over and over and the call was BULLSHIT!….From what I seen, both players were fighting for position to make a play on the ball and the best man caught the ball…..Situations like that, the refs gotta let the players decide the outcome of the game or at least review the play upstairs.

that was horrbile, first off wanstedt should not of taken out bostick at the beginning of the second half….what a way to kill a freshamns confidence, there was no reason to take him out, he wasn’t playing well but were ot playing for this year were playing for next year and hwat’s to come, taking out your freshman qb will not help this, and after shady fumbled it seemed like he wasnt in for like 2 possesions….and how bout cavanugh gets some flow going, call some better plays in the redzone!!!

Pulling Bostick was the right call because it worked. Bostick will probably be redshirted next year. If it hurt his feelings to get pulled after throwing for 30 yards then we don’t want him as our quarterback. We need to play to win the current game, not a game 2 years from now.

This comment is not so much because of these comments but one of the other Pitt sites: the D played well. We held their run the whole game except for one play. I hate PR as much as the next guy, but give credit where credit is due. Rice did not run all over us like we all thought he would. Good defensive performance.

Jared, I am a big fan of Bostick, but he was clearly rattled and pulling him was the right thing to do.

well said jon C. YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME. bostick deserved to get pulled, then seemed to respond well to it when he was put back in the game.

and scott: a ranking for liberal arts schools? seriously? since you like lists so much, point out your school on this one: link to colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com

i’ve been attending Pitt games for 30+ years, am a season ticket holder and Panther Club member. and yes, i’m certain i’m more intelligent and knowledgable about football and countless other subjects than an ignorant, loud-mouth like you stuart.

I am outraged that a terrible unnecessary call lost us the game and for all intents and purposes, the season (no bowl now). But I’m more outraged in the conference. Can’t we all agree now that the Big East is garbage and Pitt has to do everything it can to get into the Big Ten? Better to stink in a respectful conference then stink (and get screwed over by officiating, as we do particularly in basketball) in a big-money conference with real bowl affiliations and absolute crap schools. With Notre Dame down now, it may be the last chance (though Mizzou’s success is a bad omen). Call the retarded administration and demand it. Bombard Nordenberg’s secretary. Picket the Cathedral. Throw tomatoes at his limosine. Most of all, the next time the GoldenTeamPantherClub sends an extortion note, send it back charred around the edges with slash marks through it and a demanding note that not another cent is forthcoming without action. Screw Mike Trangrese up the ass.

That felt good. And to prove I’m a stand up guy, kudos to the Pitt defense (I can’t bring myself to say that directly to Rhoads) for a nice job today.

I meant NO absolute crap schools … like the Big East has. Indiana gets 10000000000000000000000% more respect than South Freakin’ Florida, no matter what the record.

Bostick will never be any better. He has no arm. But this team has 17 future starters redshirted and waiting to play next year. The refs took this game. Could you imagine how many games we could win with Pryor behind center?

You obviously can’t read or don’t understand the english language – misquoting me and mischaracterizing what i said is more prone to come from a high school kid, not a college graduate. And the insults top it off…

Here’s a thought – attack my arguments and what I say, not me. Do you understand what logical falacies are?

Geeman2001…(1) Both Northwestern and Minn are crap teams (2) The Big 10 DOES NOT WANT OR NEED PITT (3) The BE is, top to bottom, just as good, if not better than the big 11 this year. Get over it.

I think it’s hilarious when men in their 30s brag about Division III college football glory and make ridiculous boastfull “I could buy and sell you” claims.

Who cares?

I agree that Pitt didn’t do enough to win. It shouldn’t have come down to an officiating blunder.

On the other hand, I also agree that Slutgers didn’t do anything to win the game either. They played just as much of a shit-laden game as we did.

But they just got a good call (at least for them, not us) at the end.

Should they have gotten that call? Probably not.

But oh well. If we had stepped above the slop and shit football that was being played by BOTH teams, we wouldn’t won by two TDs like we rightfully should have.

We didn’t play above that level though, and we opened ourselves up to getting assfucked out of a game that we should’ve rightfully won.

Next year, we’ll beat ’em by 17 at Heinz to eliminate any chance of Tony Soprano’s paid off refs (relax, I’m being sarcastic) costin us a W.

“Pulling Bostick was the right call because it worked.” – Jon C.

Amen!

Smith briefly sparked an offense that was lifeless in the 2nd quarter. And, most importantly, he lit a fire under Bostick’s ass.

So yeah, benching Pat to start the 3rd was a good move. The proof that it was a good move is in the result. And if Pat’s game-winning TD pass doesn’t get called back, this is a non-issue right now.

Kevan Smith looked like an olympic track star compared to Bostick. It really put back in to perspective how slow and bogged down Bostick looks when he moves around the pocket. I like Bostick but he needs to work on some quickness and that throwing motion looks like hes winding up to throw a softball.

Next year its our turn, look at the potential:

1) all of the big games are at home.
2) Bostick and McCoy both almost a full year of experience.
3) Kinder and half the injured team come back healthy and rested.
4) Our nemesis Pat White, Brohm, and Ray Rice will all be gone.
5) The defense has steadily improved every week since the Navy disaster.

lots of good things to look forward to.

This team will be amazing in the near future.

Bostick is a pocket passer. That is a tough thing to be when the word “pocket” cannot possibly fit in to any gameplan with our line. I didn’t see the game but just assume he had no time. He is also a freshman, who was not supposed to play this year. Remember, I really doubt he will start next year. Hopefully we have a QB situation that will allow us to redshirt him. That is not knocking him, anyone could use some experience. You cannot teach someone to be fast (insert Wanny joke here.) He will never be a scrambling QB, ever. If you want to bash someone, lay off the freshman.

We’ve lost 4 or so games now by 1 play. Things are looking a lot better. Hopefully the roster we have next year makes that one play difference at least. This is the first time in recent memory that we put the clamps on a good running team.

It seems pretty obvious that every bounce and call we got a couple years in the Fiasco Bowl season is now correcting itself this season, where we can’t get anything to go right when we need it to.

Joey D: I think that is true and we are (for some reason) paying for the Steelers super bowl XL win with the questionable calls against Seattle (see “push off” in end zone.)

Just to add fuel to the fire: I left that game yesterday on the lowest of lows after being on the highest of highs 10 seconds earlier. The officiating in that game was awful and admittedly it went both ways but that last call should get someone fired. There is a quote this morning in our local paper from RU’s Devin McCourty on that TD pass: “I thought he made a good play, I just assumed the ref would call defensive interference as soon as I saw the flag..” It doesn’t get anymore frustrating. This was a finish that should have given Bostick a much needed boost of confidence. By the way, when Pitt comes back in two years I’m getting one of those crappy seats with the other Pitt fans because although we had great seats we were in a sea of red and it was getting pretty tense there at the end.

Jimbo Covert’s son: The point some of you are overlooking is what we *did* do enough to win the game. We had a receiver catch a ball in the endzone, get two feet in, and maintain posession, which was enough to give us the win. And he did all this after he got pushed and was fighting off a defenders hands.

We *didn’t* do enough to win the game twice. We’re not that good yet. That’s asking too much of this team. Quite simply, they got fuct. And our players are all better people than I am for not bitching about it. I would be furious.

And i don’t care if their sloppy play means they didn’t *deserve* to win the game – they made the goddamn play at the end to WIN THE GAME. Who the hell determines who *deserves* to win a game? What the hell is that? They made the play to win the game. That’s all that matters. And it was stripped from them. Too bad they didn’t make it twice…

I hope they remember this next year when Rutgers comes here, and do something about it. If we’re winning late next year, there is absolutely no chance I’d let up, even for one second. Our goal should be to embarass them next year.

Give WANNY the FIVE YEAR extension now- Finally everyone can see what DW is building. Just think, Fields and Dom will be our safeties next year and all the other players have one more year of experience under their belt.

Did anyone think that Strong should have scored on the late catch?

Hail to Pitt-

PS- Pryor would be the missing link to our magical run in 2008- BTW- that is the year DW said the team would be ready

Strong doesn’t score on last play, game winning catches. That’s not his thing. See: my rant after the Navy game.

From this game, it does look better for next year, but i’m still tenative. Yes, our D played well against the guys that were on the field, including a mobile backup QB – but when Teel would come in, our secondary would get exposed on deep throws – or we put in Chapel and he provided no run support. Its awful. We need some guys to step up out of nowhere next year.

Our QB situation improves by default, as long as Stull doesn’t transfer. Either Bostick improves immensely, or Stull is the man – and we start throwing that tricky “forward pass” thingy i see other teams doing. Our lack of passing has obviously been the biggest problem with this team. We had a very solid chance of having been 8-2 at this point with a real QB and a top WR like Kinder, even with our other problems.

Also – what the hell is that embarassing formation that we have to go to in order to get 1 yard? Are we really that soft we’ve resorted to crawling? I appreciate the coaching staffs willingness to do anything, no matter how pathetic, to get us a win, but those lineman should hang their heads in shame at what they’ve had to resort to. What happened to all that Buddy Morris strenght crap? All those lineman should have to wear Strong’s “I WORK OUT AT CURVES” pink shirts in practice next year until they can consistently get 1 yard when necessary. This is either a line coach that needs fired or more time needed in the gym. Disgusting. I’ll understand if somehow Rhoads maintains his job, but i see no way in hell that the Oline coach has any chance at all to be here next year.

As others have mentioned, the schedule and other schools graduating players helps immensely too.

Like i also said, and agree with you cdmoore, give him an extension, rewrite the buyouts in the University’s favor just in case. Win-Win situation, and a no-brainer. To bad we have no AD.

Now that it looks optimistic, i’m reverting back to my typical Pitt-fan self and waiting for the impending disasterous collapse…

PS. Penn State still sucks.

I’d like to declare that every one of those calls in the Super Bowl were spot-on.

I’m not from Western PA and was a neutral observer in the Stillers superbowl – and to compare someone fully extending their arms and creating a full yard of seperation from a defender, to two guys slapping hands with no seperation occuring at all (even the defender admits he thought the penalty would be on him – he hit our receiver early, first) is absurd. The players and fans of Pitt got robbed. Hopefully they don’t forget it next year and are improved enough to do something about it.

$250 plane ticket
a lay over in Cincinnati,
2 $40 game day tickets,
$150 rental car,
watching the coaching staff blow another victory, priceless!

Pitt plays just good enough to lose every week…and this is due exclusively to the coaches, WHEN WILL IT STOP? Big time coaches coach their kids to big time wins, and this coaching staff has not and will never be able to accomplish this feat. Until we get a competent coaching staff things will never change.

Marco – both the last 2 throws were right where they needed to be – what more do you want from the coaches? As a matter of fact they did do enough to win the game once. I’m not sure how we can blame the coaches here…

Xmas wish list for Bostick: 1. Speed up throwing motion 2. Improve footwork 3. Improve pocket speed and escapability (let’s face it Pat will never be Pat White)

Wanny X-mas list: New DC, New Oline, New OC…Juco Center, Juco QB, Recruit athletic QB, Some stud DBs, LBs

PR X-mas List: 1. By/Read/Understand ? any book dealing with blitzing, aggressive defenses. 2. New Resume…send to Akron, Miami OH, Kent St. oh hell…whoever will take him

O-line Coach: A nice set of Samsonite Luggage and a moving van…hopefully a good letter of recommendation from Wanny

Pitt O-line: The Heart to make a yard when it counts

Marco, I’m in the same boat, we actually left Friday and went to the Pitt and Steeler game, looks like we are 0-2 in the meadowlands for the weekend.

Stuart & cdmoore,

If you are referring to Strong’s catch that took him down to about the five, I’m going to give Strong the benefit of the doubt on that one. Bostick put the ball where it needed to be but he floated it a bit. Strong made a nice catch and broke at least one or two tackles right after making the catch. I seem to remember him having two Rutgers defenders standing in his direct path to the endzone, and another one coming from the middle of the field. He lowered his shoulder to try to bull his way into the endzone, but it would’ve been tough for anyone to get in there.

On the final play, he probably should’ve looked sooner, but I think Bostick let the pass fly about a split-second too early.

Stoosh…On the last play, Strong ran straight down the middle of field and never looked back. Bostick was in the face of blitz and thew the ball to where Strong was going, if Strong looks back to his QB, say around the 5 yard line, that was most likely a TD pass. The bottom line is this, while I do think that Bostick should red shirt next year, he is often made to look bad by receivers who are not where they belong, or who lack the instincts to go after the ball (in this case to even look for the ball). For all the talk of how much losing Stull hurt our offense, I’m not so sure that losing Derrick Kinder was not an equal, or even greater loss.

I’m talking about the last play.

The ball was thrown to the exact spot that the tallest guy on the field was going to be. You’d expect him to be able to outjump the shorter ones and get it. Too bad he can’t. I wouldn’t even bitch if this wasn’t the first time he did this.

The play before was a much bigger improvement from him than i’ve seen all year. At least he didn’t try to run out of bounds short this time. They must have made him wear the pink shirt again after the Navy game.

I hear you about Kinder – maybe he makes both of the grabs we needed and we have a winning record right now. Oh well…

would somebody drive out to Jeannette and give Pryor smokers until he commits so i can be optimistic about the future rather than delusionally optimistic?

I am not blaming anyone. Our young men played a hell of a game. My only thought is that BIG DARELL STRONG could have fought his way to the end zone on his last catch. The Rutgers corner was scared to tackle strong. Either way, we played hard and he future looks bright especially if a certain mr pryor, mr hale, mr baldwin, and the gang answer our call
For the records- Next year Byhnam is taking that reception and turning into to SIX. Byhnam is a stud.

Hail to PITT