It was a win. It snapped a 2-game losing streak. It was the first road win of the season. Pitt didn’t lose to a MAC team.
Really not a lot to say about this game. There was a lack of energy from both sides. It permeated the small Buffalo crowd and the announcing crew for the game. Everything and everyone seemed to be going through the motions. Pitt wasn’t particularly impressive, but a win is a win.
The O-line continues to make me cringe. The D-line struggles to contain. The lack of available linebackers has me thinking Pitt might have to stick with a nickel package as their primary defense.
Coach Chryst seemed to echo the sentiment that it was a win and little else.
“It was good to get a win, obviously there’s a lot of things as we look at the tape that we have to clean up and get a lot better at,” Chryst said
To put it mildly.
Even the “we can build on this” spin was tentative.
“We’ll see if it carries over,” he said after Pitt improved to 3-4, still three victories from bowl eligibility with five games left. “By no means was it a perfect game. Seldom are they. Hopefully we can grow from that.”
There’s the rally cry for the rest of the season.
Pitt struggled to run the ball well. The passing game was minimized. The one good thing was that Kevin Harper had a good game kicking.
There just wasn’t much to the game. Not really negative or positive. There was nothing that made me think this team is coming together or falling apart. To have a game that empty midway through the season. When there should have been a bit more of a sense of desperation or urgency after the past two losses, was a little disappointing.
That there wasn’t more emotion. At least some frustration and anger by the offense after being forced to settle for field goals in two of the first three chances on offense. Especially when Pitt had first and goal from the 6. Yes, Buffalo is bad and there was no real sense of fear that Pitt could lose the game. It just seemed that Pitt never really showed up for the game.
If this had been the first game of the season, it would have been fine. Chalk it up to everyone getting used to the new coaches in a game. Learning as they go. If it had been the end of the season, it would have been a bit understandable.
That is a “Coaching” issue…
unable to motivate or put people on the hot seat.
I saw most of the game..
a win is a win… an ugly one at that.
But, C’mon man…
I did not expect to be at ground level, but if you are going to actually go to a game like that is lousy weather, then better to move around as opposed to sitting on cold wet metal.
You are aware of the impact of TV cameras making an event appear to be lighter than it actually is?…Tiger Woods at Firestone playing by headlights some years ago…
It was friggen’ dark and plain nasty. There is plenty to criticize about thus game, but effort and interest ain’t part of it. The only people there truly interested were the players.
The quotes from the camera man were priceless and if the announcers had to stand outside as opposed to being in the class enclosed, heated and dry press box, I suspect the whining would have driven viewers/listeners over the edge. Now there is a thought.
Winning games is paramount and style points are worth shit. Pitt was as interested in this game as any team could be.. Bitch about the coaches or the waffles you had for breakfast, but it was alot more than going thru the motions.
And when it comes to recruiting, my point about Saban and the others was that they set out to get the best players and not just pick out “their” type of player. By the way Jimbo Fisher’s first recruiting class was a top 10 class and Urban Meyer’s first year at Florida was number 11. I’m certainly not expecting a top 10 recruiting class but he should be able to get a top 30 recruiting class and out recruit a team like Virginia. Recruiting is turning into a huge problem.
Temple? Now it is a “must” win. With ND
coming up Temple must be beaten; however
Temple will be ready to play.
Last word on UB game what depressing
environment! Difficult to get your team
“Up.” Take the W and get ready for
the next game.
As I previously posted, I know how that cold, unrelenting, penetrating, wet wind chills a person to the bone. Who would even want to be out in that mess, let alone throw their bodies against one another in a football game is the prime question.
Pitt won the game and that is enough for me. Glad to learn from your first hand observations that the team kept their heads and hearts in the game. With those weather conditions and Pitt’s inate ability to play down to their compitition, we could have pooched this into another loss. Then there actually would have been plenty for critics to jaw about.
NEXT!
But, the assertions from some don’t make them facts. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
BTW, the refs sure as hell did not want to be there either!
Next year, I expect 7-5. Tom Savage is sounding like the real deal in camp from what some buddies have told me. The defense is basically coming back, which is a positive. I have never really been too worried about that unit despite their struggles (maybe its bc im used to offensive woes, but maybe its also that I know this group can perform well when they are on their game). We are set at tight end and running back. We can only hope the line is better. WR is a question mark depending on whether Street goes to the league. TE seems fine to me. It’s all about the line for me next year.
Home Games
Villanova (1-AA) — August 31 W
Notre Dame — November 9 L
Virginia (divisional) W
UNC (divisional) L
Miami (divisional) L
FSU (cross-over) L
Road Games
Navy — October 26 W
Georgia Tech (divisional) W
Duke (divisional) L
Virginia Tech (divisional) W (based on our success against them)
Syracuse (protected rivalry) W (Nassib is gone)
Wake Forest (cross-over) W
For now Pitt, please beat Temple so my buddies over there don’t give me hell.
Expanding the recruiting footprint to the south and southeast was one of the things I liked most about Todd Graham. For all the guy’s faults, I did like the fact that identified those areas and began working them almost immediately.
I appreciate the value in building up the local base and pulling what you can from Big Ten country (Michigan and Ohio). I know the Virginia/Maryland areas should become priorities as well, and I like that Chryst wants to establish a foothold there.
But I agree with you. In the long-term, if Pitt is going to want to do anything of note in the ACC, they’re going to have to make much more substantial inroads in those southeastern and southern states.
Those high schools play a different brand of football in that they emphasize speed and athleticism, and that goes for both offense and defense. As some pointed out here during the Louisville game, Louisville had as many Florida natives on its two-deep as Pitt had on it’s entire roster.
There are only so many spots on the Florida Gators or Alabama Crimson Tide rosters, and not all those kids want to stay in those areas anyway. If Chryst & Co. can sell the opportunity to play the way previous coaches did with guys like Antonio Bryant, Clint Session, HB Blades, etc., it can help bring some of that talent up here.
As much as I’d hate to say it, a kid who may be an afterthought at a program like Florida, Bama, LSU or even Florida State could still be significantly better than even the top players that are coming out of the more local base.
and the blind sheep was for burgh 72 and his frends who get on people like me and dan and EMel becuse we see some bad things and point them out
he got all over dan and me go back and read the old post he got personal becuse we dont think chryst is god or every thing is sunshine.
you were never a blind sheep no one put tino down like you can could be ablind sheep
go back and re read my post slowley i was counting
you amoung us dan and emel and myself.
To pull off Chryst’s style of football you need a herd of big, TALENTED players in the trenches on BOTH sides of the ball. I’m just not seeing the effort going forward to rein in those kinds of recruits either last LOI signing day or in this current recruiting class. Dorian Johnson would be a HUGE get if he commits but I’m not convinced that he has Pitt as his ultimate choice.
I’m cutting Chryst some slack “on the field” for this year but he has to show up in the recruiting arena big to keep me off his back in the future. Having Corey Clements decommit is awful anyway you cut it.
Chryst has to find his MoJo when it comes to selling kids on Pitt. Great school, nice football facilities, deep storied football history and moving to the ACC. Now sell on top of that, anybody that is a four or five star recruit who commits to Pitt is putting themselves in a position to play early and often! That also means making an immediate impact by your presence here at Pitt. Shell got that concept and look at his contributions already as a true Freshman.
Lets go Paul, start selling it!! We need to fill out this recruiting class with a bunch of blue chippers. Johnson and Foster would be a good start.
but see how he got on DAN one of the best posters on here and you will understand.
i dont attack any one unless they attack first
you know that
what i did was no different then what you just did above as you pointed out no real amount of OL men yet which is what i have also done.
read the attacks on dan then you will under stand
go back to old posts
and you will agree dan is one of the best i think
I’m not a psychologist by training, but I do know a little something about family dysfunction. Wannstedt was obviously not much a disciplinarian and Fraud was a little tyrant behind closed doors on the other end of the spectrum. Then you have PC who is somewhere in between.
Am I saying the players are soft? Possibly. But what I’m really trying to say is that for as hard as those kids work every day, the fun and enjoyment and excitement of playing the game has been whittled away at times and hammered out of them the rest of the time.
I take Chryst at his word, when he says he will only recruit players that LOVE playing the game. Not like it, not think it is a means to an end, but REALLY LOVE playing the game. (as an aside, makes me wonder if he would have recruited Curtis Martin).
Aside from the fact that I don;t really have a choice, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and at least 2 if not 3 recruiting classes to see what he’s really all about.
1) Extremely conservative game plan in really adverse weather -> no turnovers -> easy, but boring Win.
2) Really great to see Todd Thomas and especially Dan Mason back starting and playing well in spite of the injuries they had to overcome and the injuries to others that put them back in the lineup.
Ha! Buffalo was as far away from San Diego as one could possibly get without snow (well, there were a few flakes, but at 40 mph, they felt like sand). No turnovers was key for us.
I was falt out stunned at the field goals by both kickers…admittedly with the wind at their backs, but if you saw how the wind impacted the punts once airborne, you would shake your head.
Both critical plays this week were in the kicking game….the fake field goal attempt was a disaster…Pitt’s sidelines picked up on it immediately….coaches shouting, players shouting, etc…especially when the kid proved he could master the wind. Take the points..
Next, Shannahan making the fair catch of a poor punt to give us good field position was huge.
Last observation from the game. Shell is running right at me on the screen pass (I left the safety of the camera man at just the right time).
I am waving him in….he slowed down and tried to make a move on a guy being blocked.
Russell, lower your shoulder next time and rive his ass into the endzone…you got caught thinking to much….
Instead of criticizing posters comments, why don’t you add something to the conversation, instead of popping on once in awhile to criticize.
Go ahead, join the conversation, don’t just stand by the sidelines.
If you’d listen to 93.7 after the game and when the subject of Pitt comes up, you’d be sure to think that Pitt gets over 100K a game.
Not speaking of people who can’t make it because of illness, very elderly or out of town.
Right here in W.Pa., 25 to 50 years old, good health, willing to mouth off, but don’t back it up.
I know, I got about 4 of them at work.
“Same old Pitt”, “Pitt fans are negative”,
And then yo say, “oh, what section are your season tickets in?”
“ah, hmmm, ah, well, I don’t go to the games, I, ahh, ahh, “
So, we’re wide open, let’s hear some great prose from some people in the stands.
C’mon, board is wide open, let’s hear some great Pitt talk from those that just stand in the shadows.
Show us how it’s done.
i am not seeing the effort to get thoes kind of players eather last LOI day or in this current recruiting class this is all most word for word from what DR TOM WROTE.
AND THIS IS WHAT I WROTE 2 DAYS AGO
chryst is not haveing any more luck recruiting OL men then wanny did may be not even as good.
the message ftom me and DR TOM is the same
but you got on me and not him but we are saying the same thing.
the point is if dan or i point out what is bad we suck but if outhers do it is okwe have as mutch right as DR TOM to say thoes things so does dan and EMel and JD and some times tex panther if you dont like them dont read them no one makes you
and dont read panther prey becuse he says all most the same thing we do.
Under a 1rst year head coach, that shouldn’t be that hard to do. I would think at no other time, are players more motivated and more trying to impress, than in a head coaches first year. Especially those that are underclassmen and are looking to establish themselves as the starter for not only this year but in future years.
Btw this is NOT your father’s Temple team (plus at various times Temple has given us fits, the 76-0 game non-withstanding, that was eons ago), they are 2-1 in the BigLeast and 3-3 overall. The Owls have scored 41 points this year against Nova and 37 against USF and had Rutgers shutout at halftime last week 10-0 before folding in the 2nd half. As former Pitt recruit Gary Nova of RU threw 4 2nd half TD passes. And to think he might be playing at PITT now instead of,,,oh I regress.
Oh, Temple blitzes a lot and gave Ped State & Rutgers some problems with it, so PC, JR,& Sir Tino better figure someway to deal with it. Those two teams (PSU & RU) and more aptly their coaches adjusted to Temple’s blitz package and won pretty easily, after they did.
Will PITT ? That will be imo, the determining factor in this game. As our run game is not up to snuff.
First meeting between Temple 2nd year coach, Steve Addazio (former OC & asst HC of Florida under Meyer) and Pitt’s 1rst year coach, Paul Chryst (former OC of Wisc).
Temple was 9-4 last year including a big win in the New Mexico Bowl. The Owls have played in 2 straight bowl games of only 4 total in their history.
This program is clearly on the upswing and Addazio was a very good choice, being an ethnic guy in a city like Philadelphia is a good thing and he was part of 2 National Championship teams at Florida with one of colleges best HC’s.
Hail to Pitt!
DAN good to see you are on tonight also.
Keep the faith, basketball is almost here.
Are you guys having a Pity Party? 🙂
This board would be pretty dead without some of us who aren’t willing to accept the annual excuses that a culture soaked into accepting below average performance(not only in sports, but by our so-called leaders in both business, education & politics as well) as being normal. This is exactly why we have the problems we do, not only with the Pitt football program and those in charge, accepting the way below average performance of the AD and almost ignoring his incredibly bad decisions over the last few years that have negatively impacted this football program. This type of thinking or actually non-thinking seems to permeate not only at PITT but our corporate and political world as well.
becuse he was picked on for sticking fo me when i was off line
becuse they thought we should not say any thing
bad abought tino
or any thing bad abought recruiting our say any thing bad abought coaching, we are the bad men you know .
I can’t speak for any time prior to 1988, but absolutely nothing has changed in the past 25 years. Sure the stadium is more full for big games and when the team is doing well, but that’s just as much the opposing team’s fans as it is the casual Pittsburgh fan. I remember major complaints in the early 90’s about Notre Dame fans buying Pitt season tickets and tossing the other five or six tickets before the whole seat licensing program.
There are a few folks on here who I think are batshit crazy and absurdly unreasonable with little or no short- or long-term memory, but for the most part, everyone is thoughtful and most importantly crazy about Pitt sports and wanting them to be successful. Unfortunately I don’t think that is the case for a surprisingly large number of Pitt grads as a whole.
The post I wrote in the game thread the other day was a general response…basically me talking through my initial reaction to some of the comments I was reading on the blog after the win.
I guess I was just taken aback by the general mood of the board after the game wrapped up. Yes, it was by all accounts an ugly, ugly game. There wasn’t much to take away from it and it was tough to really even point to signs of significant progress. So that being said, I didn’t think I’d come here after a game like that and see people doing cartwheels. Like I said, I guess I must have expected to see a little more paid to the fact that it was a win.
So that said, I certainly didn’t mean for that post to be any sort of attack on specific posters here. If some of you may have taken it that way, I sincerely apologize…that wasn’t my intent. I’d never criticize someone for being a fan of a team and it’s certainly not my right to tell anyone how they should invest their own emotions in something.
Ultimately, I think we all want what Outlaw and some others described above – for Pitt football to ascend back to the elite levels of college football.
Perceptions of the state of the program and expectations will vary, as well they should. At the very least, that’s what fuels the discussions here, and it would be boring if we all constantly agreed and did the sports forum equivalent of sitting around the fire singing Kumbaya. I may disagree on things from time to time with some of you, but please don’t take it to mean that those opinions are valued any less simply because of that.
Hail to Pitt!
My “sour grapes” comments were not meant to be directed at anyone in particular but rather a general observation of the negativity that has come to dominate this board. I am a passionate Pitt fan also, however, I am willing to give Chryst more than half a season. Afterall he took over a program in dissaray with a roster, albeit with some talented players, lacking talent and depth at many positions. Although I no longer live in Pittsburgh or even the state of PA, Pitt is still my team. In fact the only team, collegiate or professional, that I really care about. If my previous comment was taken personally, then I apologize.
I think what pisses me off the most, is the fact, that I would guess, between 85-95% (if I had to pull numbers out of the air for arguments sake) are very pro, positive, Pitt.
Then, you make a couple comments about the crowds at Heinz, or recruiting, and suddenly someone sees those comments, and tries to hang a “negative” tag on you.
For God’s sake, just a day ago I posted before anyone, something to the effect of,
“big game against Temple, let’s get a win, and hopefully, Notre Dame beats Oklahoma, so we can sneak up on them and pull out an upset over a #4 or so Notre Dame, nothing would be sweeter especially with some ND fans in my family”
“could be another 13-9!!!”
I mean, what could be more friggin’ more positive than that????
Also, was pro Tino, going to better this year, because I believed Coach Chryst would help him devlop a little more.
Promoting and cheering for Tino Sunseri to have a good year, and someone’s gone throw “negative” at me?????
Hence, my comment, about reading the whole book, before mouthing off at people.
Wanna pull my finger???
Just frustrated. I know there can be some negativity on here, but, look at the past 30 years, and even more to the point, the past few, it’s hard brother.
No, nothing against you, or Burgh72 from the other day.
We’re all Pitt fans, and should enjoy this site.
I was being childish. Again, though, when your comments are mostly positive, then you make a couple negatives, and get tossed into the whole category of being a “negative”, it’s frustrating.
I apologize to anyone I’ve offended.
I feel I’m mostly postive, been gung ho for the ACC ad nauseum, have stated Paul Chryst and any coach for that matter gets several years before we should be jumping on him.
If I make a comment about the crowd or the uniforms, please don’t toss me into the negative group. Make sure you know everything I’ve posted.
I also apologize to any fans that didn’t go to Pitt, Lord knows we need all of you, and if you grew up hear loving Pitt and didn’t go to college or didn’t go to Pitt, but still love Pitt, you have every right to enjoy Pitt as much as anyone that went there. Maybe even more, if you’ve lived here all of your life, and someone only spent 4 years there. We need you!!
Those were a couple cheap shots, and I apologize.
Also, allthough pretty cheap, I know everyone can’t afford season tickets, but, at least try to get to a game or two if you can to support the program.
I allready stated, those that are ill, very elderly or live out of town are excluded.
Guess I’m just used to dealing with some people in the office who dis Pitt all the time (Pitt fans), but never go. Even if I offer them some tickets, they have excuses not to go.
So, no problem Floyd, and Burgh72 wherever you are, I publicly apologize for my poor banter with you.
“look Timmeh, I’ll dip the way I want, and you dip the way you want” LOL!!!
Hey, your schedule above, other than the dates, is that going to be the schedule for the most part???
Sweet schedule if so!! ND, VA, UNC, FSU adn Miami all at home???
I’m going to both the Pitt and Steelers games this week. Now I live in DC, & graduated from Temple Dental School, so I have game day clothing for ALL the teams. I get to cheer every play no matter what occurs. I still can’t decide Redskins hat/Steelers jersey or the other way around. Just kidding, my heart is 100% Pittsburgh all the way.
Hail to Pitt!
as upset as you all are at how things have going
if you remmber i thoght we would be 10 and 2 this year. it is just killing me the way things have turnrd out.
