Is the negative experience of Saturday night starting to dissipate yet? No? Well tomorrow’s another day as they say in show business and they also say the show must go on. So even if we’d prefer the 2012 season to end right now as some PITT fans might, there will be more games. Its not me threatening you with this – blame Steve Pederson.
Tomorrow night PITT goes into Cincinnati coming off what can easily be termed the worst pure loss in its history because of the conference level of the YSU team being D-II quality. I say ‘pure loss’ because the 48-14 loss to Penn State when we had a shot at the NC game and the more recent come from behind loss to Cincy with a Big East championship BCS game on the line affected PITT’s season’s standings more than this YSU loss can. In reality the YSU loss means nothing in relation to the BE conference play. Psychologically though it was devastating.
So, the first and foremost thing PITT fans will want to see is how we’ll bounce back from something like that. I’m not calling for a win, you may have to be insane to do that, but I believe we’ll acquit ourselves better than we did last week. Put it this way, as disappointed as I was in the last game’s result I wasn’t shocked as I talked about it before the kickoff. Just as with that, I won’t be shocked if PITT wins tomorrow night either. I’d just never bet on it or publicly predict it.
We do have a few things going for us. Even if the six players are still suspended, Paul Chryst has said that hasn’t been determined yet, the shock of that action to the rest of the team is already over so there’s that one distraction gone. Some of the drastic problems we had last year didn’t show up. We gave up no sacks after being last in the nation in 2011 when we gave up 64. Sunseri had time to pass the ball which helped also. If he’s not being hurried there is less chance he’ll panic out there as we saw last season.
Our KO return man in Layfaette Pitts did very well in averaging 30 yards per return. Hubie Graham and Shanahan did well with their routes and catching the ball. There were other bright spots also but really they were overshadowed by the negative play we saw out there.
However, I’m not sure our OL did that well when you look and compare the play last week to the rest of the schedule we have yet to play. Granted no sacks given up is a good thing but we weren’t really opening holes in the run game. 4.6 ypc is nothing against a D-II team. We continue to do that we’ll not help out the passing game either.
What I think may assist with that lack of rushing production is Graham having a full game under his belt. He was very cautious out there and moving around a bit behind the LOS instead of going north-south. He did well under the circumstances but last season he was decisive as hell out there and because he’s still testing that leg he wasn’t on Saturday. I expect a better showing from both he and Bennett this game.
Street must improve his play; if not sit him down. He isn’t so good to the point where he can’t be benched. Play Brinson, Ifill or Felder in his place or perhaps even the true FR Wuestner. Put anyone out on the field but a player who continues to make mental errors, drop passes and fumble the ball.
Sunseri threw the ball 30 times on Saturday. For all the PITT fans who thought Chryst was going to handcuff him and rely strictly on our running game, think again. Lest we believe that the passes were called because we were behind that isn’t necessarily true. Chryst called 17 pass plays, over half the total of attempts, in the 1st half of the game when we were either tied or four points behind. He wasn’t playing catch-up football at that point.
Chryst will continue to call passing plays at a normal rate as our passing game executed pretty well all in all, at least Chryst thought so:
“I thought protection was pretty good, I thought guys made some plays, and there were some good runs after the catch,” coach Paul Chryst said. “There are some things we can absolutely build on in the passing game, and that’s a credit to the guys. They put in a lot of work, and you’d like to be able to see them do that in a game.”
Of course Sunseri could have played better in spots also. His problem of overthrowing receiver when they are wide open persists as does his inconsistency from pass to pass. He’ll throw behind a receiver coming out of the backfield on one play then later on throw a perfect 35 yard line drive between two defenders for a TD. It is maddening as hell wondering why he can’t pass like that all the time.
He completed 19 of 30 passes and a hidden stat is that 10 of those completions went for 1st down. We only had 11 1st downs total so our passing game was effective in that sense. His yards per attempt was 8.0 with a 12.6 yards per completion rate which are both fine. We also had a 54% 3rd down conversion rate which is pretty good also. I truly believe that given half a chance our offense would have produced on Saturday.
Our defense has to give the offense a chance to score points, that is fundamental. If you take away the two possessions that ended in PITT fumbles we scored on three of six series, 50%, which is actually very good. I’d say we would have had at least a FG if not for Graham’s fumble on our first drive also.
I just looked over our offensive play against BCS teams in 2011 and we had an average of 14 offensive series per game! Man, that can’t be over stressed; how the fact that our defense gave up four double digit play drives kept our offense off the field and unable to even attempt to make it a game. Here’s the real telling point though, those four long YSU drives accounted for a whopping 26 minutes of possession. That’s 6:30 per drive and you needn’t look further than that if you want a seminal cause for the loss.
How was YSU able to do that? We let them do it by giving the opponents a 70% 3rd & 4th down conversion rate. If we keep doing that we’ll never win another game. I think that if our defense had been able to get our offense its average 14 series per game against YSU we’d have won walking away. Of course, that didn’t happen.
To me these are the keys to tomorrow’s Cincy game; lowering that opponent’s conversion rate and getting the PITT offense on the field more often. I think if we can do that and give the offensive players a chance to actually play offense we’ll move the ball and score. Accomplish that and we could win this game regardless of how poorly we played last weekend.
Insane yes.
Im also a Raider fan; you have to be insane to be a Pitt and Oakland Raider fan.
Coach Chryst – You are in no way, shape or form going to win relying on Tino. The only thing he has in common with Russell Wilson is his height or lack thereof.
Offense
Keep Brinson on the field. Not hard to tell he’s the homerun hitter — Pitt’s version of Mike Wallace.
Give Shell some carries along with Bennett and Graham. Let’s see if he’s any good.
Defense
Replace Gordon with somebody with a motor who can disrupt the offense by getting across the line to make plays. Graham benched Gordon last year. Chryst should have already seen enough to do the same.
Play Lippert. He was about the only D-linemen who seemed to get close to making plays as the game went on. Find somebody off the bench to play the other side who can move just a little bit. More than one player wearing a 90s number looked too slow or too out of shape to get off blocks to make a play against YSU.
Start Ezell next to Donald. Let’s see if all the talk during camp about Ezll was warranted.
Start Hendricks. He did fail to pick up the tight end on the fourth down TD pass. Other than that seemed to make more plays overall than Vinopal who had the one TD saving tackle before giving up the TD pass.
Playcalling
No more sweeps on fourth and ones.
Unless the defense somehow transforms itself I see loss number 2. I hope I’m wrong but the way the defensive line was just manhandled by YSU really makes me think UC will do whatever they want from an offensive standpoint.
If you remember, the YSU QB had 2 overthrows on the very 1st drive that would have most likely resulted in TDs — they scored anyway, just like Pitt did in the 4th qtr after 2 overthrows.
Tino of course will never make us forget about Marino, but like any other QB, he will be sufficient given proper time. What remains to be seen is if he has improved in clutch situations from last year.
The discipline…
What do you mean you don’t know if they are playing?
You delve out the discipline… 1 game sit.. fine.
If the disciplined players are not going to play in game 2… tell them up front and let them practice with the scout team instead of the 1’s or 2’s.
Jerking the team around also by what he is doing.. not just the 6 players.
He also had a couple decent punt returns, not in terms of yards but making some people miss
My bet is Huxtable is gone after this year.
Tino is Tino, generally any win is likely to be in spite of him, not because of him.
And it is definitely time for Street to turn it up. Yes, he was woefully overthrown on one play, but it’s apparent his routes are not consistently sharp — and, when you have the chance to make a big catch, you have to make it. Combine his inconsistency with Tino’s inaccuracy (even being just a hair of on simple throws at times) and it’s not making either of them look any better.
With all that said, if the defense can’t get off the field, it’s moot. I know Cincy is reloading a bit, but I’m not optimistic about Pitt’s defensive personnel (at least what we saw last week) against a spread attack.
Pitt winning or in the game at half time, stupid play in 3rd quarter, flood gates open.
I’ve seen that movie once or twice!! LOL
So, does that tempt Chryst to come out passing to set up the run?
Re: our drives. Our first drive we went 50 yards in five plays before the graham fumble so we were moving the ball.
There are a million fingers to point I suppose but IMO the defense let us down in every aspect of thier play, including as you point out the rushing defense.
Our offense never had a chance Saturday night.
reed, cmon. it was Youngstown State…not Ohio State.
Can we still do that? We’ll see how they play tomorrow but I figured we’d be 3-3 going into the 2nd half of the season – I just didn’t think we’d lose so quickly.
Scott – I think you have to look at our offensive chances that we actually had again. Two fumbles killed two drives. Those had nothing to do with YSU’s defense really. So that leaves six drives left and we scored on three of those.
That actually isn’t a bad percentage unless you feel like we should have scored every time we had the ball of course. You can only score points if you have chances to do so. Our defensive failure precluded that from happening.
If you re-read what I wrote we averaged 14 series per game last season. If we had scored on 50% or seven series per game we’d have put up great scores. Instead we put up 24 points per game.
I’m not saying the offense played great or anything but they weren’t as nearly as bad as our defense was. I think it is a matter of putting the offense in perspective.
Put it this way – as the season goes on I think we’ll feel better about how the offense has played rather than the defense. If Graham can be more aggressive and stay healthy that will help a lot and, IMO, if Sunseri can play the way he did on Saturday – and as I said – given more series per game, then we’ll score points.
but anyone pointing at Sunseri for the loss doesn’t know anything about football.
– No QB is going to hit 100% of his passes..
What I saw… Sunseri didn’t hurt Pitt.. no fumbles, no sacks for losses, no interceptions.. all in all… an ok game…
It was the defense from the 1st series…
I’ve said all along… the Dline.. with 3 of the 8 no playing (1st and 2nd team).. not a chance.
And the “D” just couldn’t tackle…
keep calm
hail to pitt
i don’t know the reference but i’ll try to keep it my motto as long as i can.
Here’s one name that can’t be overlooked… No.96 Kris WILD-MAN.
If there’s one thing this defense needs is some “Live Action!”
Hopefully Ezell can make a difference in the defense. What is Cummings status for Cin ?
Keep Calm and Carry On was a poster produced by the Government of the United Kingdom in 1939 during the beginning of the Second World War, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the event of invasion. It had only limited distribution, so was little known. The poster was rediscovered in 2000 and has been re-issued by a number of private companies, and used as the decorative theme for a range of products.
I am glad to see the Pitt kids have adopted a version of this motto. It did work for Britain. Of course they did have one of the greatest head coaches ever, Winston Churchill.
I read the Kris Wildman reference and couldn’t help but think of a blue-and-gold-clad Ed Orgeron barging into a Pitt team meeting with a baseball bat, ripping off his shirt, getting one side to yell “HAIL TO PITT” and the other to yell “WILD BOYS” before challenging the entire team to a fight.
(For those who may not know, the legend goes that something very similar to this allegedly happened during Orgeron’s first team meeting as head coach of Ole Miss.)
Reed — solid statistical analysis, however, lost in the numbers are the trends within the numbers…Tino hit three yard outs like they was goin’ outta style, but the net gains were quite modest overall, and made Pitt take a long time to score. Because he offers no consistent credible downfield threat, we get no easy scores, except broken plays or amazing Ray Graham runs. Because of this, teams cheat and make everything that much harder for our blockers.
Its like guarding a guy who can’t go left with his dribble — you know what he’s going to do and his life is that much more miserable for it.
predicting a close game… Pitt +4…
over/under total points of 48.5
keep calm
hail to pitt
Odd players out, Gonzalez and freshman Davis. Both had previous suspensions.
Chryst is going to soon lose his patient with Gonzalez. You’re probably seeing the reason why Chryst has not considered him at quarterback.
Wouldn’t surprise me to see Chryst cut him from the team in the even of another necessary suspension.
Davis certainly not earning any points this early into his collegiate career.
“LIVE ACTION”
Let’s go catch us some Bearpussy.
the rest of you will have to entertain me tomorrow.
have a good night all.
Graham was thinking not running…he will be better on turf but he is about 70%.
Defense is the key. Last week was so bad…coaching, effort, etc…is was impossible to fathom. How could we be THAT bad? How could a D1 coordinator get smoked so badly and ARE there adjustments this week?
Wexwill know very early whether the D has any hope. Me? Man, I have no idea.
But, I will be watching from Pedophile State. Have a conference at the conference center (go figure) that has pictures of Pedophiles of days gone by.
I want to win. Screw playing well. As my brother in California tells me “Pitt has the reputation as a team that plays just well enough to lose”.
Time for Pitt to flip the world a big old bird and be mean, nasty mother fuckers.
Joe D. Find any ambiguity there? I didn’t think so.
His name is Chryst, not Christ, and he is by no means a miracle worker.
I’d love to be wrong.
I emailed the PG and Trib beat reporters to ask Chryst why Gonzolez is not kicked off the team… it’s his 2nd suspension.
Since the pressors are powderpuff… I figured to feed questions to the media to ask.
Jerry of Trib responsed… good question… but we don’t know the nature of the infraction…
I said… who cares… it’s his 2nd suspension!
Lets free up a scholarship!!
powderpuff Questions.
ask if they are ever going to ask chryst any hard
Questions,
like what the is wrong with your D.
Chris Davis and Gonzo need to be kicked off the team to free up 2 scholarships.
Frankcan…
this was the response to pooh pooh questions..
hear ya, but I think it is really unfair to assume he doesn’t know how to motivate players by what you saw in one game. You don’t see him around his players on a day-to-day basis. Head coaches aren’t the only ones who motivate. He has been an assistant for more than two decades, so I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt
I don’t want to say this is a lost season yet but someone posted a few blogs back that red-shirting Price and other decisions show it is all about the long term and next year. They may be more right than I thought.
Looking at the number of plays each player got (as best I could tell) it is amazing how young this D was. RS freshmen and true freshmen a lot at cornerback, rs fresh and soph at lb., etc. The only real oddities for this theory are Tino and Lippert. But that may say more about how ready their backups are than anything else. At least I HOPE this is the case: We are just really young on d and not really that pathetic.
I agreed with Reed early on that we were very young on d and would take some early lumps. I never would have imagined this lump though. I still think the potential is there to be a good defense (barring injuries) by week 7, 8 or 9…
Have to agree with Joe D on several accounts. Gonzalez may have burned his last bridge or is close to it. Also, Tino wasn’t great but he was at least average or above average. The place for improvement this week is on defense, coaching and attitude.
I would just love to see a Pitt team take the field that played their hearts out and just want to stomp and dominate the their opponent physically and emotionally. Haven’t seen that in a while.We need some attitude!
But as far as the ‘three yard outs'” Both Sunseri’s ypa and ypc numbers were very good in that game – good enough that had he done it all last season he’d be in the top rankings of national passing stats.
8.0 ypa is very effective as is 12.6 ypc – and this was done without any big ass passing plays to skew the numbers (darn it!).
I really don’t care if he’s throwing the ball one yard and the receiver gets 12 more on the ground or if Sunseri throws it 13 yards. It’s all the same as the primary purpose is to move the LOS forward.
We all want to see passes thrown for 15-20 yards and completed on a regular basis but he’s not that type of QB.
That is what kills me about that 35 yard TD pass. People who complain about Sunseri having a weak arm just are off the mark. He can really zip passes sometimes as we saw. He’s just inconsistent with that as he is with everything else.
Guess humor is needed in times like these.
Got my chastity belt on right. Pulling into state college.
If you play tennis vs a guy with a huge serve, you back the hell up in order to have a chance at it…which makes his spin serve or change-up serve that much more effective, right? His 35 yard td pass was a nice throw but he frequently can’t make the deeper pass that requires loft or touch, or accuracy — and you can’t fire passes straight line through defenses and not have many of them tipped or intercepted…probably worked in high school but kids are too athletic in D1 for that.
At least you’ve finally conceded that Tino is what he is, and allowed for the possibility of a change…which I consider a victory for Reason, not blind adherence to the known evil.
I must be high; Pitt wins 28-21