Is Tino Sunseri the answer at QB for Pitt? Of course not. Is he the best option this season? Yes.
The argument in favor of Trey Anderson is basically this: 1) Anderson knows this offense, because it is like what he ran in high school; 2) he showed more command of the offense, poise, confidence and efficiency late in the game against 1-AA Maine; 3) Anderson has more mobility than Sunseri; and 4) Anderson is not Sunseri.
After Sunseri threw two interceptions and took a beating in the first half, Anderson was given a chance to start the second half. Except those who choose to revise history, I think this was overwhelmingly met with approval by Pitt fans. The score was only 6-3, and it was hard to imagine Anderson doing any worse.
Anderson managed to pull it off. He was completely overwhelmed by the Rutgers blitz. The speed of the defense was clearly so much faster than he had expected. The O-line was not able to give him any more time than they gave Sunseri. It was obvious that he wasn’t able to read the action in front of him fast enough to make decisions. On the second possession of the half Anderson threw a pass right into the bread basket of a Rutgers linebacker inside the 20. That was the end of Anderson’s day.
Will Anderson have another shot this year, beyond a series or two? Possibly. He also needs to show that he can handle the speed of the game against 1-A teams.
Some may have lingering wishful thinking that number three QB Mark Myers will magically get his shot and reveal himself to be magnificent, but that just isn’t going to happen. He doesn’t fit the style of the offense. For as strong an arm Myers has, there has not been one beat writer or observer of practices to suggest that he could make the reads and deliver the ball faster.
Sunseri comes in for a lot of blame. I think he has earned a good deal of it. He still holds the ball too long. He can’t throw a deep ball in a game situation. For not being a tall QB, that side-armed throwing motion makes it easier for his passes to be batted down at the line. His inconsistency makes everyone a little crazy.
At the same time, the other issues can’t be ignored. Not every one of the 28 sacks Sunseri has taken has been the result of him holding the ball too long. This O-line was barely average when Nix and Jacobson were in the line-up. It is also an O-line that struggles with pass blocking.
The help from the wide receivers has also been an issue. Not even talking about the drops. Shanahan and Street are both big receivers and targets. but they both have issues. Street is easily jammed and knocked off his routes. Shanahan will run fine routes, but healso lets himself get jammed too much to affect the timing of the plays. Neither has great bursts to pick up yards after the catch. And worst of all, both tend to give up on the ball if the defender is going for the ball. It may not result in an interception, but they just don’t put up much of a fight to make the reception.
Saddler simply lacks the spurt he had before blowing out his knee. He can’t accelerate after the catch as he is needed in this offense.
Carswell’s two straight offensive pass interference calls were maddening, but at least he was fighting through the attempt to jam him off the snap to make a play.
As optimistic as everyone was feeling after the USF game, the depression after losing like this to Rutgers sends things the other way.
“You’re frustrated,” Graham said. “When you execute, you see what it looks like against South Florida. We took two giant steps forward against South Florida. And, no question, we took a couple back [last] week. Our guys know that and they’re focused on getting those things corrected and getting better.
“We showed what our potential is. We have the potential to be a very good football team. We have the potential to win a championship. We’re going to go to work to get things corrected to get there.”
Inconsistency has been an issue all season.
I don’t think it will stop being an issue on the offense.
And going beyond that, they have no real open competition for the QB job, in not one August camp….. but two now.
That is the ONLY ANSWER there can be to that question, of why, why, why, Sunseri has been handed the job on a silver platter and no real competition has been allowed.
I mean what is so hard to understand here. You aren’t like 12 years old with wide eyed eyes wandering around the forest with Hanzel & Gretel leaving a trail of white pebbles.
My point about Tino being a good practice player was based on logic, and it’s just an opinion.
TG is in the biggest, highest paying job of his life. He’s not going to blow that over some loyalty to a guy he probably doesn’t even know very well, coaching fraternity or not, especially if that guy was rejected for the job he has. I really didn’t buy that rationale with Wanny either, even though he had much closer ties to Sal.
The ESPN and other commentators, the ND color guy being one, who made the comment about Tino’s ability also have no real reason to patronize Sal. He’s not Saban, just one of his assistants. Yes, son of a former Pitt All-American and college coach makes good puff stuff. They all love to talk about it for any player who has that in his pedigree. But you and I know that the media guys who get the big reputations are the ones who are hyper-critical not the ones who are sappy. So, if they’re seeing these big flaws when they watch him practice, they’d be talking about them.
So, I keep asking myself, how does Tino keep fooling all of these people – Wanny, Graham, the commentators, the beat writers, etc.? Has to be that he looks good – great may have been an overstatement on my part – in practice, and only shows up occasionally at game time.
That’s just a theory I throw out there for conversation’s sake.
Why do some of you think Tino was handed the job? According to all reports from camp no one ever put up a challenge to Tino. Look, I don’t like Tino, he’s a below average QB, but all signs point to him being the best option. Graham doesn’t want to put kids out there who are in a position to fail, that’s what Anderson has done and probably what Myers will do, too.
It is indeed the way of the world.
I’m thinking TG would be very happy if he didn’t have Sunseri and his legacy to deal with.
If you saw in one of the post game mortems (think it was Reverand Zeise) TG was taking more heat from the media for the decision to yank Tino than anything else this past game. So…….
I think I posted that link or snippet yesterday somewhere on here.
ESPN is a business partner is all of this so what they have to say is not relevant. You know that.
ESPN was criticizing PITT’s decision to join the ACC, while they were making things happen behind the scenes according to the Boston Globe. And I’m sure non of this expansion stuff happens without their stamp of approval since they’re paying the bills.
Are you privy to the closed practices?
Tino could very well be better, does he have a bigger upside. Tino has hit his ceiling. Anderson can only get better being 17 years old and he does know that this offense is based on making quick decisions and he does know how to run the Triple Option read. All he needs is more reps.
I do disagree with him regardless. As I said a couple of times already, I think the turning point was far earlier in the game – that balloon of a pass by Tino to Shanahan that got intercepted. Totally gave Rutgers momentum and told their D that he couldn’t beat them deep.
Bring up the Safeties, and pin your ears back boys. It’s party time in the Pitt backfield!
That game (RU) was lost in the 1rst half. High Octane has been performing it’s best in the 1rst half of games sans the ND game, of course ND had elite talent so….that’s more understandable.
High Octane, Low Octane Tino produced 3 points in the 1rst half. Only reason I see Zeise writing that is maybe he saw that Trey got no reps with the 1rst team last week, so therefore you’re throwing him in there literally unprepared and to a hungry Rutgers defense.
But then again the media gave TG heat, for placing too much apparent blame on Tino in previous weeks as well. So…dunno
Ran the spread in high school. Learned the ropes of the spread offense from one of the most efficient QB’s in the Big Ten, Dan Persa. Did the only thing Dan Persa couldn’t do in high school and that was win a state title. Just as mobile, if not faster than Trey. Not as small as Trey. And he isn’t Tino Sunseri.
Oh and an added bonus he threw the ball to Devin Street throughout high school so chemistry is there.
I think he just got himself behind the 8-ball on the learning side and in the doghouse with the coaching staff for his little incident over the Summer.
Graham was also brought in to bring discipline and leadership to the team and Gonzalez knew that. Graham couldn’t make him the leader of the offense in waiting after that, at least without paying a heavy penalty first.
He’s getting time as a TE, so at least Graham knows he has talent that needs to be utilized somehow. Don’t know where he stands in terms of his understanding of the offense. Other guys here pay close attention to that stuff, so maybe one of them will weigh in.
Like the Utah coach said yesterday, changing from pro-style to spread is a lot more difficult than going the other direction. We all remember how slow that reverse process was when Wanny first came in, and we had a good QB then. IMO an up-tempo, spread-type offense is absolutely the way a program like Pitt needs to go if they want to be able to compete at the highest levels in CFB today, and it’s a ton more interesting to watch even when it’s not working. So, this is the right direction, but it’s going to take a few of years. Pitt fans need to be patient and roll with this, because things are only going to improve when we get the right personnel in there to run this offense. Moving to the ACC will help that recruiting immensely.
Walt Harris may not have been the best head coach in many ways, but when it came to playing the game he had the right ideas in terms of where the college game was going. IMO, bringing in Wannstedt and devolving the program back to a 1970s pro mentality was a huge mistake in the first place, and we’re paying for it now. So, settle in, it’s going to be a long, bumpy ride.
I think he learned his lesson. I’d hate to see his talent go to waste like Austin Scott.
“…he dirties his pants when faced with a blitz. I would like to see Trey get two weeks as starter before I count him out.”
Sounds good to me. What is it going to hurt?
I recognize we collectively almost cannot come to this conclusion, but the possibility that Todd Graham will be a Jim Kragethorpe-type bust has to at least be considered. Based on the first 6 games, the signs are certainly not positive. After all, he was hired by Steve Peterson, right? And it would certainly not be the first time a coach that was successful at a lower level tried to step up and fell on his face.
And you know what…no one is writing “All this negative rap” at all about Myers. What people have been writing, ad nauseum, is that he isn’t the type of QB that Graham will play in this offense. That says as much about Graham’s decision making as it does about Myers’ physical skills.
Here’s an example: Anderson’s quick decision and release is what is required in this offense. If you’ve watched him out there that is what he’s done, hit the “one, two go” mark well, ineffectively for sure, but that’s what the offense is built on. So is Sunseri’s ability to, physically, move from pressure or take that run option. Now, without sounding too rude to either kid, Myers is much more like Pat Bostick then Anderson or Sunseri out there. His ‘quick twitch’ muscles lag far behind… you have to be able to escape a rush before you can run a 310 hurdles during a game. As said 100 times earlier, that is fine for a drop back, stay in the pocket QB but not for a triple-option one.
But you have to add to that the fact that Myers has pretty much checked himself out of the competition since camp, because of the circumstances and the writing on the wall, and that’s another reason I think we’d see Gonzalez switch back to QB before Myers plays… Why do you think Graham answered the ‘Will Myers see time?’ question so quickly and forcefully right after the game last week? Because perhaps one of the reasons is Myers really ain’t getting his head where it should be and is already mentally gone. You don’t have to be a fortune teller to understand what the beat writers and Graham himself have been alluding to since summer camp.
BTW, I posted a short article this am in case anyone need more reminding of how badly we sucked.
Sal’s influence is because he is in the Coaching Fraternity along with TG. That is how things work in professional fraternities. And he has some influence at Pitt as a former All-American LB and as an asst. coach for several years. And that influence, while it didn’t garner him the Head Coaching job, it was significant enough…to get him an interview for that job. I don’t think SP wanted another Pitt man after Wanny. (well obviously he didn’t as he hired, not just one non-Pitt man, but two (Heyward). That didn’t sit very well with former Pitt players who are now coaches.
As you remember Pederson took a lot of heat from influential alumni (like Bill Fralic) when he didn’t hire a Pitt man. Um,I believe Sal & Terryl Austin were the ONLY two Pitt alum interviewed. (if Austin was even interviewed)