Well, it is obvious that there are lots of questions, doubts, frustrations, etc. about the future of this Pitt program under Coach Wannstedt (Zeise’s chat tomorrow should be a hoot). Those aren’t going away. But, after a while I have to turn to the next game.
USF is the next opponent, in case you had forgotten. You will be forgiven if the only player from the team you know about is QB B.J. Daniels. He seems to get most of the attention. He’s been playing great the last few weeks — and making a lot fewer mistakes. Only 1 INT in the last 3 wins while tossing 9 in the 3 losses.
And of course, he’s a dual-threat QB.
In the past, the Panthers have been able to deal with athletic quarterbacks and spread offenses by replacing a linebacker or lineman — or a combination of the two with defensive backs so they have more speed on the field.
But this year, with Dom DeCicco playing the dual role of safety and linebacker, the Panthers might be able to get away with DeCicco at weakside linebacker and Jason Hendricks at safety and using their base 4-3 defense.
Oh, goody. No need to try to be creative or leave the base D. That’s worked well. Which is essentially what the USF coaches and players expect.
Part of the challenge for the USF offense, Bulls senior RT Jacob Sims said, will be attacking a defense that can stop the run with its four defensive linemen, which makes it harder to throw.
The Panthers give up only 111 rushing yards per game, ranking second in the conference.”They’re able to stop the run with their front four,” Sims said. “They don’t need to bring in other guys. That’s something that’s really impressive to see. They’re not bringing eight guys in the box.”
Not even when they need to.
As for the Bulls, they are not only riding a 3-game winning streak, they have hope in the ugly Big East.
“It’s a lot more exciting,” senior C Sampson Genus. “It’s different from the past. Now we’re getting closer to the end of the season and we’re in the race for the Big East title. It’s something we haven’t been able to do in past seasons, and a lot of guys are excited. We don’t try to talk about it a lot, just try to take one game at a time, but the talk is in the air and all of them are excited. I’m excited myself.”
Over to Pitt, Ray Graham is working on his “correctable mistake.”
Sophomore running back Ray Graham said he is doing extra ball-security drills at practice this week. Graham, the team’s leading rusher with 760 yards, has fumbled four times in the past three games, losing two of them. “I’ve got to take care of the ball,” Graham said, “Point-blank.”
His playing time depends on it. One of the major factors that cost him a chance at the starting job last year was that in training camp, Graham had a couple fumbles while Lewis had none.
March Madness can’t get here soon enough!
No, kidding, several people, not jokingly, yelled back, “I thought we play Maryland next?”
Enough said, how many times have all of us recognized the failure of our coaching staff to adjust or properly gameplan?
Wanny is a joke!
Pitt should be the premier football team in the conference. Coach Wannstedt just can’t make it happen.
The underlying question is why did Pitt play the vanilla base defense when everyone and their grandmother can see the flaws and problems associated with the same old recycled gameplan used year in and year out?
I don’t think it’s “not to lose” rather Wanny is clueless on how to win!
Its a play on words I know, but it really makes you wonder doesn’t it?
Agreed. If it isn’t one thing with this guy, then it is another.
I’m all for pointing out Wanny’s flaws (as well as his positives)and am ready to move on to the next era, but let’s be realistic. No one in their right mind starts Flacco in that scenario.
Dave may not be a great head coach but he didn’t shank 2 punts, he didn’t pull up from a punt block, he didn’t fly into the World Trade Center, he didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor and he didn’t invent cancer. Lets keep it realistic.
Hail to PITT!
-al-
“Connecticut’s offensive line kicked the tails of
Pitt’s defensive line up and down the field and Pitt’s defense never really made any kind of adjustment — like dropping extra guys in the box, selling out to stop the run, doing some more run blitzing — and just sort of allowed it to go on.”
And the on the other hand he writes;
“On the defensive line being “overmatched and beat up” by Connecticut’s offensive line, which is what conventional wisdom would hold. Bennett said, that simply isn’t the case.”
Then quoting Bennett he writes: “We don’t have the rotation [along the defensive line] we had a year ago but I told people this, last week against Connecticut, our problem was not our D-line. Chas Alecxih and Brandon Lindsey – they did not get knocked off the ball, our problems were fitting at another position [outside linebacker].”
All of this may be true – But I’ll believe my own eyes when I see the DL getting knocked five yards downfield on a regular basis – however it is Zeise’s job to jump back at Bennett and ask him to explain exactly what he means when he’s telling us something that we all watched happen…didn’t happen.
On a side note – not having the DL rotation we had last year? So we do what? Leave the 1st string in to systematically get their asses kicked and give up 220+ yards to one back… priceless. Tell Aaron Donald, TJ Clemmings and Brian Murphy they are non-contributors please – a brick needs to fall on the staff’s head and they realize kids can’t get better unless you play them.
This is another example of DW having a set thought and not being able to deviate from it. Players are “young” so we can’t play them – much better to keep the “old” players in even if it is brutally evident they aren’t getting the job done.
It’s getting almost surreal with this program.
As you all know, any sport is best played when the athlete stops “thinking” and let’s his or her natural talent take over. Wanny’s way has the athlete constantly thinking instead of just reacting. Some can overcome it because they are perfectionists themselves, but others can’t. Instead, they look lost, unprepared, unmotivated and frustrated.
attendance for the Backyard Brawl will be the lowest in Pittsburgh in more than 20 years. I think our fan base is ready to send a message to Pederson that enough nonsense is enough.
The one thing, however, in Pitt’s favor against WVU is that it is a short week, meaning that Wanny and his staff of outstanding assistants have less time to screw up the “game plan”.
I had USF as a toss-up game at the beginning of the season have no reason to change at this point, especially after UConn.
USF suffers the same college-team-in-a-pro-town pains that Pitt does. They depend on fans to choose them over the Bucs, Lightning and even the Gators, but their fanbase has been growing each year and the recent win streak should have fans out in force. So, they will have a home field advantage. Pitt needs to strike fast and often like at Syracuse to take the bandwagon fans out of it.
Coaching advantage goes to Holtz. He did well with less talent at E. Carolina. He’s a positive motivator and the players are buying in, so expect them to be ready to play.
On offense, they really have no running game to speak of, unless you let Daniels get loose. He’s the key. Their receivers are fast, but not as skilled as some Pitt has already faced. So, it will be up to the defense to keep Daniels contained while not letting the receivers beat them deep. That will force him into taking some chances and making mistakes, much like in last year’s game.
On defense, they lost all of their big playmakers to graduation and the NFL. They’re fairly inexperienced but they have talent and they are fast. They’ll probably load up to stop the run, like everyone else, so Pitt’s passing game needs to be on. Pitt’s receivers have the advantage in talent and experience on USF’s secondary. It’ll be on Sunseri to get the ball to them.
IMHO, this game comes down to special teams. USF has a couple of burners as returners in Lamar (KOs) and Mitchell (punts). They were FB and track teammates in HS and both are dangerous, especially Lamar who averages 30 yds/return.
So, this game is squarely on Wanny in more ways than one.
Hail to PITT! Beat the Bulls!
link to bleacherreport.com
link to bleacherreport.com
Especially this…
“And remember, Mr. Zeise, your use of “lunatic fringe” is a humorous, ludicrous way to describe the devoted Pitt fans who live in the real world, and are rational, reality-based, and real pissed.”
the master recruiter who cant recruit oline, secondary, or linebackers
i dont care how many stars mason, etc have… they are slower western pa players…id take Session and Blades or other florida 3/4 stars ALL DAY
again, it slips under the radar that the yinzer buffoon has completely erased the Florida footpring Walt got Pitt
lets recap… top 25 recruiting classes for all 5 years making up this team
record against top 40 rpi – 0-3
39 – ND – LOSS
24 – Miami – LOSS
27 – Utah – LOSS
record against mediocre big east teams – 1-0
That solid Cuse team that Rev George loves to point out the W comes in at a HOT HOT 51… also having beat ZERO quality bcs teams… what a WIN
record against terrible big east teams – 2-1
72 – Uconn… LOSS!!!
69 – Louisville win
87 – Rutgers win
record against joke cupcake noncons – 2-0
106 – Florida Int.. win
78 – New Hampshire.. win
PITT IS NOT GOING TO PLAY A TOP 20 TEAM IN THE REGULAR SEASON!!!!
The wanny defenders dont really understand, or choose not to accept, how epicly easy our schedule has become
During the Walt years, wed have to play 3 top 15 teams a year
Now, all wanny has to do is play 4 moderately good teams and 8 cupcakes… and he STILL FINDS GAMES TO LOSE… now we have 4 losses…amazing
As I have always maintained, to even bring up last season and 1981 in the same day should be a punishable offense…
WOWOWOWOWW we went 10-3!!!!
Did you beat any good teams? Well we beat a 4th place acc team!!!
Did you lose any bonehead games? Absolutely! We lost 3 games we should have won… WVU, NC State, Cincy
What a season!!
I don’t think there’s a big USF bandwagon right now, sorry.
The town isn’t exactly abuzz over the Bulls like they were a few years ago when they got off to that hot start and were ranked #2.
I was at the Rutgers game a few weeks back that they won by a point. Maybe 30k in the stadium (oh, and USF fans didn’t go online and complain about it like we do when we get 50k) and most of them came away unimpressed.
I expect little energy in RayJay, as most people in this don’t know, nor do they care, that USF even has a prayer of winning the Big East.
Which, btw, CANNOT happen. It would be HUMILIATING for the Big East champ to go to Miami at the end of the year and get crushed.
Oh, and BTW, we’re winning this one.
The UConn game was the classic “Wanny off a bye”-syndrome loss. Not the case this week,
Different story now and the local media has been playing that up. Maybe, it’s a lot of Pitt fans like you and I who are going to the game. I hope so. It was that way in ’04. It was not that way in ’06 and ’08.
I guess we’ll see on Saturday. Wear your Pitt Blather name tag. I’ll keep an eye out for you.
One thing is that he seems to believe everything anyone on the staff tells him when he should be taking each interview with a grain of salt. That interview with Bennett begged for hard and pointed follow up questions given what transpired on Thursday.
I am somewhat amazed at his condescending tone he takes when talking about the PITT fans though – considering we are his only actual readership. He apparently can’t take anyone actually disagreeing with his opinions – even after they have been overridden by events and results… instead he turns to name calling and slights.
Well – he should stick with editorials then and he shouldn’t use a reporting venue that begs for interaction with those same people he insults.
It is kind of strange actually. But I do appreciate the volume of stuff he gets us and he writes pretty well for the most part so I’m glad he’s covering PITT football.
its meant to show the quality of our wins since we havent beaten anybody in the top 25 in 3 years (end of year poll)
it shows that he cant beat anybody… he cant even beat average teams with all of his stockpiled talent as the master recruiter
threre will obviously be element to any computer ranking that are questionable as it doesnt factor in head to head ratings… but the logic is sound and this is applied to all manners of things (elo_chess is the standard system for ranking chess players, etc)
