Oh, boy. That Rutgers crowd will be fired up in the second half with Lil’ Jovi in the house.
Smizik thinks Rutgers is the best team for Pitt to date, but still inferior. Don’t know why that makes me nervous.
Everyone wants to have an overarching theme. It can’t simply be a conference game. It has to have a deeper meaning.
For Pitt, it is the whole revenge thing. For injuries. For losing 4 straight. That has been the storyline from the Pitt side.
For Rutgers, it is about redemption from laying an egg once more to start the season and to show that they can be a factor in the Big East.
“The Cincinnati game stuck with us,” defensive end Jonathan Freeny said. “It’s kind of like fuel to the fire. Every week we come into the week and we have to remind ourselves we don’t want that feeling again. Every week we have to practice hard, not overlook anything.”
Well, you get the idea. The big story arc will continue to be that Pitt is winless in the Wannstedt era against Rutgers. Well, when a team in 3-19 before a 4-0 streak, it is noticeable.
Rutgers’ series with Pittsburgh dates only to 1981 and has been an intense one. The teams will meet for the 25th consecutive season, which is the second-longest current continuous rivalry after West Virginia and Syracuse (30 straight years each). The Scarlet Knights have won only seven of the 26 meetings between the schools, but are 4-0 since 2005.
Uh, um. Right. “Intense.” That would be the word I’m looking for. Maybe it has a different meaning in New Jersey than anywhere else.
Rutgers freshman QB, Tom Savage, is likely the most heralded recruit in the Schiano era (or simply ever at Rutgers?). So starting as a freshman, making his first conference and BCS start along with it being nationally televised has just a little attention on him. Despite his youth, he has been well-coached at his cliches and bland statements.
Despite the disappointing opener, do you feel like this team can still get back into the Big East race?
TS: Yeah, absolutely. With the leadership we have, we’ve turned it around. And this game will be a huge measuring stick to see where we’re at, and I think we’re looking forward to it. Everything is a one-game season around here. We’re focusing on Pitt and not looking forward to anything else.
How much better are you now than when you first got thrown into the Cincinnati game?
TS: I think I took some pretty big strides, but I definitely have a lot to work on. You can always get better and always watch a lot more film. I just have to stay focused and keep working, and that’s what I’m going to do.
Of course, if he doesn’t want to end up with a second concussion this year, he needs to slide when he takes off.
Meanwhile in slightly more entertaining, Pitt DE Greg Romeus credits the students and crowd for getting fired up with Sweet Caroline, and getting the team fired-up vs UConn, and lets us know that Myles Caragein and Brandon Lindsey were the featured dancers.
Shockingly, it took until today before there was a feature story on brothers Ray Graham and Khasheem Greene being on opposite sides of the game.
“All of our lives, growing up, our families just dreamed of us going away to college and getting away from Elizabeth,” Greene said. “Now it just so happened that we both went to schools that play each other.”
While Greene and Graham are brothers, their relationship is a slightly complex one: “We’re brothers from different mothers,” Graham says. Ray lives with his parents, Raymond and Nyla, while Khaseem lives with his mother Arnessa Greene. They have never lived in the same house at any point in their lives, but that didn’t stop them from spending as much time as possible together.
“He was a great big brother, still is,” Graham said this week from Pittsburgh. “We always used to hang out together, do everything together. We played football, basketball, everything. He was always better than me though. I always considered him to be the best at everything in my eyes.”
Rutgers CB Devin McCourty and Pitt WR Jonathan Baldwin say nice things about each other ahead of tonight. Odds are the talk on the field will be less so.
Concerned about Rutgers running the Wildcat?
The Scarlet Knights haven’t used the Wildcat yet, but mostly because they haven’t had to as they’ve played a weak schedule — except for their opener against Cincinnati — to this point.
But Rutgers can run the Wildcat with either Lovelace (who is a back-up quarterback) or tailback Joe Martinek taking the direct snaps from center and either handing off to the motion man, or faking a handoff and running or, on rare occasions, passing out of it.
Still, in the game of cat and mouse that always seems to go on the week leading up to this game, Schiano denied that the Scarlet Knights have been working on the formation or saving it for tonight.
I’m only concerned that Pitt will be burned by it because the coaches might actually believe Jabu Lovelace will be allowed to throw the ball. The Scarlet Knights’ packages with Lovelace in at QB are predictable and fail more often than not because despite his athleticism, he can’t hit water falling out of a boat. That means if he’s in there, he’s running. Even Rutgers fans want this package junked because it is a waste of time.
