There’s a natural tendency to focus on all the pressure on Pitt and the Big East for this game. The fact is, there is just as much pressure on Miami and Coach Randy Shannon, plus some ACC respect.
For all the success Shannon has had in cleaning up the image at Miami (though, a lot of the heavy lifting was really done by Butch Davis, but Larry Coker got lax) and scoring some big recruits, the Canes haven’t really been relevant in his tenure.
This is his 4th year as the head coach and he has a record of 21-17. He’s 0-2 in bowl games. He hasn’t won many road games against good opponents. This is supposed to be the year his players, his recruits step up and make Miami a true player once more upon the national stage. Not just a fringe top-25 team
Instead, they got slammed by Ohio State on the road. The special teams made the score respectable, but the offense and defense were dominated. When you take into account the quality of Ohio St. against Utah, I really don’t see too much that separates Pitt or Miami’s losses. Other than Pitt at least had the excuse of sloppy play because it was the season opener.
They are in the same spot as Pitt. They were supposed to be a darkhorse BCS championship contender — and that has been dispelled early. They have to improvise on the D-line with injuries inside to DTs Jeremy Lewis and Curtis Porter — to the point where it is rumored that their star DE Allen Bailey might have to play a little at DT.
Their running game, which was supposed to be a strength with the depth is also weakened as Graig Cooper is still out with an injury.
The biggest difference between the two teams leading up to the game — aside from QB experience — seems to be that Pitt has been distracted by off-the-field idiocy. Miami on the other hand just has front-running, bandwagon bailing idiot fans that led to a teamwide twitter ban.
Pitt fans seem both excited and fearful for this game. Hoping for a win, but almost expecting the disappointment. The funny thing is that ‘Canes fans seem to have a little less swagger. They don’t quite know what will happen either.
DOn’t know if you caught this but former Pitt WR Yogi Roth has written a book about his time at Pitt and as a coach at USC…might be worth a tab on the PittBlather! Good to see a Pitt kid doing well! More info on the book found at link below:
