I don’t know how much to focus on the New Hampshire game. It was a win for Pitt as expected against a 1-AA team, but there is the caveat not to take them for granted when VT suffers utter humiliation to James Madison.

The big story/BS controversy is at running back after Ray Graham had a great day in relief of Dion Lewis. Graham on 9 carries went for 115 yards. This included a 64-yard TD run.

Lewis did most of work in the first half, when the New Hampshire defense was keyed on him. Limiting him to under 30 yards. The depressing thing was seeing the O-line getting killed by New Hampshire when they rarely went more than seven or eight up front. Seeing play calls sending Lewis anywhere near the middle of the line was an exercise in futility.

I don’t know if Lewis is banged up. I don’t know what the cumulative effect is of 325 carries on a freshman of his size in 2009 are the following year. That’s speculation.

I do know that Graham had the benefit of Pitt coming out passing in the second half to really loosen up the New Hampshire defense.

One reason for Graham’s second-half running room was that Pitt opened up the offense  — throwing on its first nine snaps of the third quarter. After gaining only 36 yards on 17 carries in the first half, the Panthers gained 133 yards on 12 carries in the second.

“As the game went on, things started opening up a little bit,” coach Dave Wannstedt said. “Maybe we were blocking a little better, maybe they were tired, maybe Ray was fresh. Ray’s got some (LeSean McCoy) in him. He’s a different style of back than what Dion is. Dion is going to break tackles; Ray is going to make you miss.”

The O-line’s continued struggles — and Chris Jacobson hurting his ankle — has most sane Pitt fans concerned. Coach Wannstedt does the positive spin.

“We have a lot of upside and a lot of work to do,” Wannstedt said, “It is exciting to be the coach of this team. We have so many young players with so much growth potential and, as long as our players keep working like we have worked over the past couple of weeks, we should expect to improve week after week.

“But, if you watch us play, we’re still not there yet. This happens every year. The execution is not perfect, but, as long as the effort is perfect, I will accept that, and we will get better. That’s the key.

“We struggled running the ball in the first half, and I thought our offensive coaches did a nice job with their adjustments as we started running some draw plays instead of the power runs and we opened things up. [The screens] were by design, we thought they did some things on defense we could take advantage of by using them.”

You know, like stop running the ball to the inside of the O-line. Unfortunately, Coach Wannstedt went back to the claim that this team is so young and inexperienced.

“They are a great group of kids. When you have ten seniors on the team to begin with and two miss this game, I would beg you to check any team’s roster and you won’t find many, if any, that have that amount of youth participating.”

Please stop. Coach Wannstedt has been banging this excuse since Big East Media Days. I called BS earlier.

On the offense, starting  there are 3 redshirt juniors (Chris Jacobson, Greg Gaskins and Henry Hynoski). Not to mention two other juniors in Jon Baldwin and Lucas Nix.

For the defense there are 4 redshirt juniors (Chas Alecxih, Myles Caragein, Max Gruder, Tristan Roberts/Greg Williams) plus junior Antwuan Reed.

That’s 7 starters on offense and 9 starters on defense that are juniors or seniors. That’s not a youth-filled group. Please, never speak of that again.

But he did, and now Joe Starkey is not buying it.

You know what? I’m not sure anyone cares. Wannstedt frequently mentions his team’s inexperience, and it comes off sounding like a preemptive excuse if Pitt loses more games this season.

Besides, it’s not like the Panthers have a bunch of freshmen running around. There isn’t a single freshman in the starting lineup, and every starter but two — tailback Dion Lewis and middle linebacker Dan Mason —  is at least a redshirt sophomore, meaning he is in his third year in the program.

No fewer than seven redshirt juniors start, and several departed players still would be here if Wannstedt had redshirted them as freshmen. They include tight ends Dorin Dickerson and Nate Byham, cornerback Aaron Berry and offensive lineman John Malecki, who spent his freshman year as a backup defensive lineman.

The time for excuses has passed. This is year six of the Wannstedt regime. If it’s true that he is a great recruiter, as he has so often been labeled, then his classes should be bearing bushels of fruit.

Young or old, it’s time to win.

Young or old, anything less than a Big East title is unacceptable for this group.

/deepsigh

The defense had a good day. Even without Greg Romeus. Sacks were accumulated.

Saturday afternoon against New Hampshire, Pitt decided to make up for lost time. The Panthers sacked New Hampshire quarterback R.J. Toman six times as they defeated the Wildcats 38-16.

“We took it extremely personal,” defensive tackle Chas Alecxih said. “We go from leading the country in sacks last year to not one sack? It was embarrassing, quite frankly.”

Defensive end Greg Romeus missed the game with a bad back, giving redshirt junior Brandon Lindsey (Aliquippa) his first career start and putting more pressure on Alecxih and senior end Jabaal Sheard to provide pressure. Alecxih had a career high three sacks, while Lindsey had two and Sheard one.

“Everyone knows Brandon can do it,” Alecxih said. “What the coaches told him is that with Greg out, we can’t let the production drop. You’ve got to keep the production up and he did it.”

Now they have to prepare for Miami. Both teams will absolutely need that game.