Sorry for just quick stuff. I’m a bit overloaded and even a bit behind on things — including a slightly delayed preview week for college basketball at FanHouse.
I still need to put some more thought into the Big East choice of commissioner. For the record, Chancellor Nordenberg has been great for Pitt and Pitt Athletics. That isn’t an issue to me. I do question his decisionmaking with regards to the Big East conference, which is something different. So, the fact that he was co-chair of the search committee that made this decision puts a lot of the responsibility on him.
In the semifinals of individual awards, it is no surprise that Scott McKillop has been named a semi-finalist for the Trent Ronnie Lott award and the Chuck Bednarik Award. Both are for outstanding defensive player.
LeSean McCoy made it to the final-15 for the Maxwell Award — the top collegiate player — which is something of a minor surprise. No surprise, that he was named one of 10 semifinalists for the Doak Walker award for best running back. He’s got a shot, but at the same time he isn’t a lock. If you look just in the Big East, he’s behind Donald Brown in YPC and total yards.
The Cinci game is a 7:15 ESPN2 primetime game. Pitt made the wise decision to move the IUP-Pitt basketball game to a 4pm start from 7 pm. Good call.
Pitt also put up a link page to all the potential bowls Pitt could be attending — sort of. More precisely, all the bowls the Big East is directly tied-in to. After all, the BCS Championship game and Rose Bowl are not even realistic should Pitt win out the season.
I’ve said it before, I like both beat writers for Pitt football. Both do a good job overall. It’s also fun to dissect things. This week, Paul Zeise has been focused on the secondary issues. It came out in his “Good, Bad & Ugly” review of the Louisville and the question answered in a Q&A.
Q: In your “Good, Bad and Ugly” summary you hit the nail on the head with the ugly — On the touchdown pass [in the Louisville game] Aaron Berry threw his hands up in confusion immediately after the play, during the extra point and the whole way over to the sideline where he met with Phil Bennett. It also appeared that Cantwell and Simms were throwing at Berry every chance they had. And when the kid is visibly showing his confusion, it’s hard to blame teams for throwing his way. You also mentioned some time ago that it looks like Eric Thatcher is getting beat (since he usually has to make the TD saving tackle or is the closest guy to the play), but in reality he may be just cleaning up. My questions are: How much of the blown coverage is truly Aaron Berry and how much in safety coverage? Is it a matter of confidence with Berry or does he not understand the playbook?
Jim Raible, Irwin
ZEISE: Those are great questions — and the answers are simple — some of it is on the corners and some of it is on the safeties, hence the confusion back there. On certain plays it has been the corner just getting beat, or worse, thinking he had zone coverage when the play called was for him to be in man coverage, but sometimes it is a corner knowing he was supposed to have safety help over the top and the safety isn’t there. It has been a real issue because the breakdowns are so easy to see from the press box. This is something that really needs to get solved. I think it is simply a matter of communication and making sure before the ball is snapped every player is on the same page. There have been plays when Berry was at fault, but there have been plays when it has been Thatcher or Dom DeCicco or Elijah Fields as well. And on the other side — with Ricky Gary or Jovani Chappel — it is just simply that both are struggling in man coverage and probably would be better off if they had safety help over the top on most plays. These things can get resolved, but if Pitt is going to win the Big East they need to make sure the touchdown pass thrown by Louisville is the last time this year a receiver is running down the middle of the field with nobody in the secondary even close to him.
That developed into his story in the PG today.
“It has become personal because guys think they can come in here to Heinz Field, or even when we are on the road and throw a lot of deep balls at us now,” Gary said. “We had what you would call a little tweak in our defense against Rutgers and some guys got behind us so now a lot of guys think they can get behind us.
“But it isn’t like people think it is. Sometimes receivers get the best of corners in certain games so we just need to regroup. We are going to redeem ourselves and show the world that our secondary is better than what people think it is.”
Part of the problem, according to Gary, is miscommunication, but it is also that players try too hard to make big plays.
He said the 30-yard touchdown pass the Panthers gave up against Louisville Saturday, for instance, was an example of miscommunication between a safety and a corner, resulting in a bust and a wide open receiver.
Gary said defensive coordinator Phil Bennett has made it clear that those kinds of busts will no longer be tolerated.
Or else what? That actually wasn’t answered.
Meanwhile if you have read Kevin Gorman this season — especially his notes in his blog — he has cast a dubious eye towards Coach Wannstedt’s constant refrain from week one about winning the turnover battle. That led to this week’s story.
The statistic is such a prominent part of his philosophy that Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt finds it inconceivable that a team can win games without likewise owning the turnover battle.
Yet his Panthers have proven it’s possible on a near weekly basis.
“We pretty much made a joke of the turnover ratio,” Pitt quarterback Bill Stull cracked last week.
That explains why Wannstedt was so relieved when No. 21 Pitt (7-2, 3-1 Big East) forced five turnovers – and committed none – in a 41-7 victory over Louisville Saturday.
“Finally, we play a game where we win the turnover battle,” Wannstedt said. “It was a long time coming. This was a game where we needed to force some turnovers, and we did.”
In the previous eight games, the Panthers had confounded Wannstedt. They won the turnover battle only once, against Syracuse, and finished even another time, against Buffalo.
Even after the lopsided Louisville game, Pitt has four more turnovers lost (17) than gained (13) and is in a six-way tie to rank 85th nationally with a minus-.44 average per game.
I’m not so sure that Pitt truly needed to force turnovers to win. It made it look easy, but “needed?” Um, not really.
Nice story on the defensive line — focusing on DTs Rasheed Duncan and Mick Williams.
In another Q&A, Zeise notes the impact of strength and conditioning coach Buddy Morris, including admitting he had been dismissive of the change in that before Morris returned.
And of course cursory stories about getting ready for Cinci. Hard to do much yet with that on a bye week and Cinci playing L-ville tomorrow night. Brag about the trophy?
“It’s the River City Rivalry for a reason,” Pitt linebacker Scott McKillop said. “We’ve been lucky enough to have the trophy the past three years. … No matter what the trophy looks like, we want to keep it in-house. I just wish we could pick it up and carry it around, but it’s a little bit heavy.”
The “reason” is that the Big East wanted to show everyone that they can jury-rig a rivalry/trophy game to match the Big 11’s Land Grant Shelving Unit.
