Thanks Big East and ESPN. Bad enough that you have Pitt’s Thursday night game on Rosh Hashana. Not at all inconvenient, but I am not surprised. I don’t think there has been a season go past in the last ten years where at a Pitt game didn’t land on a High Holy Day. This year, though, they upped it with the Rutgers Game on Yom Kippur. I am trying to picture making it through the Rutgers game in the final hours of fasting. No booze. Not a happy place.

That was a roundabout way of getting to part of why I won’t be at the game tonight. Shifting work things around for today, cost me the night as well. I won’t even be able to watch the game, except on DVR delay.

Well, something has to give tonight. USF is 0-6 on Thursday nights and has lost three straight to Pitt. But, USF has also won 5 straight road games.

Pitt has lost three straight Thursday night games dating back to 2008 when Pitt beat — the Bulls. There’s also the fact that the last time a Florida team came to Pitt on a Thursday night game, the results were… unpleasant.

In the meeting last year, Pitt and USF both tried harder than ND and Pitt did to lose the game last week. Pitt did not try as hard, because B.J. Daniels managed to underplay Tino Sunseri. Daniels has been a lot better in the first four games.

Through four games, Daniels is 13th in the nation in total offense (1,286 yards), with one interception and eight touchdown passes. He threw for 202 yards and ran for 130 in a 52-24 victory against UTEP to help South Florida surpass 500 yards of total offense for the third week in a row.

Daniels’ improvement can be traced to working with the same offensive coordinator in consecutive years (Todd Fitch) for the first time since before high school. In his first three years at South Florida, Daniels had a different coordinator each season.

“He went through three years of learning what to do,” coach Skip Holtz said. “He still has some things he has to clean up, but he is doing good job of managing the football game.”

Now that Daniels is finally learning the system, Holtz wants his quarterback to stay within its borders, with the freedom to roam when necessary.

That freedom to roam, is the extra dimension that probably has the defensive coaches waking up at night in cold sweats. Given the struggles of Pitt with the underneath coverage and having to be prepared to try and contain Daniels, I wonder whether the defense will be able to blitz and attack up front the same way.

In a real change to the the Bulls offense of the last few years, they actually have a running game that isn’t all on the QB with Colorado transfer Darrell Scott.

Scott has had a promising first month for USF, rushing for 348 yards and five touchdowns. Against FAMU, he had a 56-yard touchdown run and 84-yard scoring reception, doing in a single quarter what no USF player had done in a single season: running and catching touchdowns of 50 yards or longer.

Though it should be noted that he only had 33 yards against ND. His numbers are a bit skewed with 146 yards on 12 carries against Florida A&M.

One area where Pitt is clearly better than USF, special teams. The Bulls will be lacking their punt return man (out with a concussion). The guy most likely to get the nod, a tight-end that USF Coach Skip Holtz affectionately calls, “‘Fair Catch’ Landi.”

With Chris Jacobson out for the year, Cory King is starting on the O-line. His hometown paper couldn’t be prouder.

As for the defensive improvements in the ND game (I know, overshadowed by the 4th quarter drive). Simplifying and coping.

Q: What did the defense do better against Notre Dame?

ZEISE: Two things — the Panthers generated a few turnovers and also coaches simplified the coverages some and the pass defense was improved from the Iowa game. They still were gutted some in the middle of the field by Notre Dame’s tight end and some of the underneath routes but that, I fear, is something that is just going to be a recurring theme. But the deep coverage has been good, the run defense has been good and the Panthers have been able to get some pressure on quarterbacks and if they continue to do that, they will have success even if they give up some underneath passes.

The underneath coverage depends on the linebackers. We all are well-versed in the problems. The experienced players lack the athleticism and talent, and the younger players simply have not understood what to do.

By the way this Q&A had a great bit on the failed spread offense installation of 2002 that played a huge role in the loss to USF. The confusion was not just with the players trying to learn it, but the coaches themselves.

So… despite Pitt blowing two 4th quarter leads and being near even in points with Maine and Buffalo in the 4th quarter, the conditioning is solid.

Pitt is averaging 79.5 defensive snaps per game, significantly higher than last year’s 64.3 for the entire season.

Fatigue?

Junior free safety Jarred Holley says no.

“I don’t think we are getting tired,” he said. “Coach Gris does a great job getting us conditioned. We just have to be mentally tough and understand what we are doing.”

Players never claim to be worn out, but they sure have looked like they lose a step in the game later. Not even blaming the strength and conditioning coach. Coach Griswold said as much back in July.

Griswold says it usually takes more than a year to get into the proper shape to run this style. There is no way he will be able to do what he did at Tulsa last summer.

“The amount of volume and conditioning and limited rest intervals was outstanding,” he said. “I looked back at it today and said, ‘Can you believe we ran this kind of stuff? That’s how good a shape they were in.”

Taking the first steps is important, though. Not only do the players have to get into the proper shape, their minds have to operate at a faster pace, too.

Mental fatigue was apparent in the Iowa game when players were getting lost on coverages.

Not long until gametime.