You didn’t really think I was skipping the primary and secondary reason on offense that Pitt won this year’s Brawl?
LeSean McCoy had 200 total yards in the game out of Pitt’s 346 total yards. 183 on the ground and 17 more receiving. He scored 2 of the 3 Pitt TDs. And just for good measure he took one kickoff return for 16 yards. On a weekend where there were only 2 Big East games, is there any doubt who will be the offensive player of the week in the conference?
As such, there were just a few stories on LeSean McCoy.
There tend to be a few as the biggest star on the offense leads the team to the win. To say nothing of McCoy coming up big on a big stage. Especially after being held back the last couple of games. He comes back and that 183 yards of his was his career high (previously it was 172 at Michigan State). And just keeps piling up numbers.
With his 183 yards, McCoy has 13 100-yard games during his first 23 games with Pitt. The nation’s leading scorer also has a school-record 35 touchdowns through his freshman and sophomore seasons.
And, by the way, he’s got 331 rushing yards in two games against West Virginia.
It was impressive from McCoy and the Pitt offensive line in the 4th quarter when everyone knew it was going to be McCoy and little else from the offense. And WVU still couldn’t stop him.
A performance like that has many saying, good gosh, McCoy is ready for the NFL despite what he says.
After an interception by Pitt’s Jovani Chappel gave the Panthers the ball at the West Virginia 16 midway through the fourth quarter, McCoy ran for 11 yards on the first play and a 5-yard touchdown on the second to cut the Mountaineers’ lead to 15-13. Then, after Pitt took possession at its 41 with 5:10 left, with everyone in the house knowing he would get the pig, he carried 10 times on an 11-play touchdown drive, accounting for 55 of the 59 yards and scoring on a 1-yard run with 52 seconds left. It was his 20th touchdown this season and the 35th of his two-year career, breaking Larry Fitzgerald’s Pitt freshman-sophomore record.
“When I was with Miami,” Wannstedt said, recalling his NFL days, “I once gave the ball to Ricky Williams 14 plays in a row.”
You have a horse …
“Oh, yeah, you ride him,” Wannstedt said.
And you have to imagine McCoy will get plenty of advice. Including the fact that RBs have short NFL shelf lives, and running for a Wannstedt coached team at any levels will put a lot of tread on the tires.
I want him to stay, but I have no problem if he goes pro. Another McCoy earlier said he was staying, but is now reconsidering. Shady has been everything Pitt could have hoped to be and more.
There are some PITT fans who do exactly the same thing, over and over, seemingly just to fulfill a preconceived notion of what either the coaching staff is capable of, the players themselves are capable of or just plain what PITT’s football program on the whole is capable of.
It’s almost like it would physically hurt them to give credit where it’s due.
Personally, I don’t understand it, and it makes me wonder if these ‘fans’ get any enjoyment at all in following PITT’s team as the season progresses. Every mistake is amplified, and every positive note is squashed until they are left with the bitter taste of success in their mouths – which is the exact opposite of what you’d think a fan would want to have happen.
And what is really strange are most of those same fans have unrealistic expectations for the team going into the season – it’s like they set some goals that would entail magic to reach, and then when the program falls short it’s the end of the world.
Watch, we’ll see it on Saturday afternoon should PITT fall to UCONN. The same fans who were ‘demanding’ a 10-2 or 9-3 season will pull their hair out should we end up at 8-4, and will be calling for DW’s head on a platter…and this after a 5-7 season in 2007.
Couldn’t agree with you more. There was a whole row of guys like you mentioned sitting behind me at the Brawl last Friday. After the first drive where Stull threw the TD to Kinder they’re saying how great we look. 2 quarters later they’re calling for Cav’s head and calling Stull a “piece of sh*t”. My brother and I were discussing how embarrassing it was seeing these clowns actually boo Pitt off the field to end the half. This came after dominating WVU for 2 quarters (granted the score didn’t show it, but still).
Anyway, instead these PG schmucks writing about how “WVU gave the game away” you’d think someone would write how dominant Pitt was and how it could have been an absolute route had Lee connected on his FG attempt and we go in for the score before the half. With the exception of White’s big play, WVU didn’t do a damn thing all day. Choke on that Starkey.
Poll is on the left hand side of the page. I’m sure those marketing twats will consider this, too!
