If one were to chart the results of the 2012 PITT football season you would have had the graphics of a perfect sine curve up until the Rutgers game yesterday afternoon. Far from being just a coincidence that sine curve is the symbol of what it is to be a PITT fan. We don’t get too high on a winning streak because a losing streak is sure to be at our back door.
We started off with two killer losses. First we had the 31-17 loss against a FBS Mountain Valley Conference Youngstown State team who beat us like a drum at home in racking up 381 yards of offense. This was Paul Chryst’s debut in a long line of recent head coaches at PITT. He made his first impressions by suspending six players, including three starters, for undisclosed reasons then went out and lost what should have been a rather easy win. Needless to say it was an inauspicious debut.
We followed that up with a 34-10 ass kicking road loss against a BE opponent in Cincinnati. This game set the tone for the season IMO. We could believe that the YSU game was something of a fluke but to play so damned poorly against someone who we have had great and close games against over the years was adding insult to injury. It didn’t take a Lydia Callis to show us how screwed we were.
Plus we permanently lost the Riverboat Trophy. Even though Darrell Strong, who was intimately involved obviously, and I are the only PITT people who actually liked the trophy it still would have made a nice addition to the rest of the PITT bling down at the Southside Complex. Oh… it would have been a needed win also.
But wait, there’s more!
Chryst and the players righted the sinking ship in grand fashion by throttling the #13 ranked (yeah, sure!) Hokies of VA Tech 35-17 and playing the way we fans felt this team could. It had all the elements for a big game – uncertainty in regards to the ability of the staff and team, a great offensive showing in putting up 581 yards and 35 points and a defense that stifled the Hokie offense. Sunseri threw for 283 yards and three TDs including the missing deep ball; Ray Graham continued showing us how well he could do even after that injury (that first cut was amazing); Devon Street played the way we have been waiting for him to play and Rushel Shell gave us a glimpse of the future.
We played very well and kept the Hokies from singing their victory song in the locker room after a win. If you think “genac, genac, genac” is weird take a look at this:
Techs, Techs, V.P.I.
Sola-Rex, Sola-Rah.
Polytechs – Vir-gin-ia.
Rae, Ri, V.P.I.”
Speaking of fight songs here’s a PITT one I found that I had never heard before. So, win number one under the belt, a following tune up against the weakling Gardner Webb (a 55-13 victory) and we are ready to tackle the rest of the season in fine fashion having shown what we can do. Right?
Not exactly the way things played out though. Standing at 2-2 and with a two game winning streak we followed up with a 14-13 away loss against a struggling 1-3 Syracuse team. The fact that we missed a relatively easy 1st quarter field goal attempt just made it that much harder to bear. What was scary about this loss was the return of the “4th quarter Sack Fest” that Sunseri gets an invitation to every week. He did make a nice play under intense pressure when he hit Shanahan for a big gainer while getting hit.
OK – we’ll get ‘em next week. We played pretty well against SYR and just didn’t get the breaks we need for that close loss. We are 2-3 and have a lot of football left to play. Next week’s a win, take it to the bank… sure Louisville is ranked #18 but didn’t we just beat a #13 team two weeks ago? Well, that thud you heard after the Cardinals racked up 21 unanswered points in third quarter was the PITT fan’s expectations for the rest of the season. Who the hell is Senorise Perry anyway and where does he get off playing like that against us?
That was how it played out in the beginning of the season: two losses – two wins – two losses. Regular as can be and the only consistent thing we had done all year. It was too much to bear and got us fans thinking that the season was a complete write off at that point at that point. We have Buffalo and Temple up next. OK, but we just lost to YSU and SYR so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
We pulled those next games out with another two game winning streak, the second one of the season, and we were back at .500 ball. But let’s face it, going into South Bend and playing the #3 team in the nation is a sure loss. Well, it was a loss but there was nothing sure about it. We outplayed the Irish for 3.5 quarters and took them into triple overtime before the dust settled with ND on top by a score of 29-26.
OK, OK, OK! Hold on! We lost that game but hey, didn’t we look great in doing it? We have UCONN coming up next and we all know how badly they suck. A 3-6 record is terrible and that means something doesn’t it? No, it really doesn’t and they had their way with us in grabbing a insurmountable 24-0 lead in the 1st half.
A crap 24-17 loss to a poor team and we’re back to the 4-6 W/L rotation. Not going to get any better next week either. Maybe we’ll buck the trend and lose to make it three losses in a row. It can’t be any other way. Except the Vegas money men saw things differently. They had PITT giving points in this home game and somehow that turned out to be the case with a 27-6 PITT win.
It was a satisfying win on many different levels. One of which is that it put us within reach of a bowl bid if we can beat a pretty poor 3-8 USF team at their place next week to finish at 6-6 for the regular season. Secondly we beat RU in our last BE game together with them going to the Big Ten and us to the ACC, that feels nice. Lastly it showed that this team can win a football game again.
So now we sit at 5-6 in a 12 game season, with 6-6 being the best we can do at this point. It’s been a roller coaster ride this year, down/up/down/up/down and now up again, and leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions moving forward. Can we finish the season on a high note and beat a team we are supposed to beat? If we do that will the Bowl officials look at PITT and be convinced they want us in their post-season games? Can we actually get through this season with a winning record after all the poor and inconsistent play we put out on the field?
However, perhaps the most important question to be answered in the future is this: Will we be able to look back on 2012 and see that it was a season of growing pains a new head coach went through for things to get better in 2013 and beyond or will we look back and say that 2012 was the harbinger for the remainder of Paul Chryst’s time at PITT?
Personally, I think the former.
Heck I even have already scouted out Birmingham. lol
But we got to start beating these teams we should beat, as JR mentioned above we could very easily be 8-3 right now, and you could say ND doesn’t fit into the category of teams we should beat, but then could substitute Uconn. This was the easiest schedule in PITT history and it should be 8-3 right now going for win 9.
And wouldn’t that have changed on the vibe on this blog the past 6-8 weeks.
I am very happy we beat the fraud that is Buttgers in our last go round.
Now let’s do it to South Florida !
Let’s Go Pitt !
(gives me another chance, since I just watched the Sweet Carolina video at last year’s USF game to say:
Let’s Go Pitt !
As for this win, jeeze I’m glad we won, but this makes me sick. We are a better team then 5-6. We should be ranked right now. When they play this well, with a subpar roster, man I’ll tell you, wait until Chryst gets his guys in the system. Our defense is better than Rutgers, hopefully we recruit guys to make it even better.
And wait until his offense really clicks. It’s scary. The ACC isn’t much better than the Big East. We can roll if we become more consistent and the playera learn the system. Chryst is a good offensive mind. There is a reason Wisconsin isn’t ranked right now.
That’s why you don’t see all the pessimists on these blogs after a win. Because even they know Chryst and Pitt could be real good, I mean really good. We should have beat ND. H2P.
of the league mention WVU’s MBA program
and how easy it is to earn a degree if your
father is a major stockholder in a company.
Also since WVU does not play defense
and needs to score 50 points to win a game
leaving the Big 12 is a no brainer!?
‘
Pitt is an 8-3 team with a worse record because of coaching. The team didn’t show up multiple times this year including recently at UConn. It is easy to get the team up for ranked opponents but the good coaches don’t lose to lesser teams. The verdict on Chryst’s first season can’t be made until season is over. I mean if Pitt dominates last two then it looks good. But if Pitt loses to USF how can you not say the first season of Chryst was bad because the team under performed.
Pitt
Btw- if those 6 schools did leave we could expect an aggregate buyout if 300 million. Not a bad payday.
WVU seems to be having a little indigestion about being alone in their new conference . Travel must be a pain. Wishful thinking about a demise of a cofnference that refuse WVU admission. Now WVU is locked into a conference with a 12 year media rights handcuff.
After the Syracuse and Connecticut games, where they followed good games with poor ones,I’m a bit cautious.
If so, maybe staying till the lights go out somewhere aint a bad idea.
it worked for the guys who sold the Pacers to the NBA.
every one knew some thing.
this time very few posts a lot of them repeats of some bodys posts.
so this time the lips are sealed tight.
Ya, half the teams go to bowl games, I’d rather be in the half that goes.
link to atlanticcoastconfidential.com
ESPN would lose money by letting the conferance disolve they would never let that happen after the season ends in a couple weeks i bet they add teams.
However, we can’t bury our heads in the sand, or I should say, Swofford can’t bury his head in the sand.
We (including me) keep saying, “oh, that won’t happen”.
It’s happening fellas. It’s not a sky is falling comment. It’s happening.
Nebraska, then Texas AM & Missouri, Utah & Colorado, the Syracuse and Pitt, now Maryland and Rutgers, and I’m sure some others I missed.
This isn’t a case of chicken little, this sh*t has happened and is happening.
Delaney wants big state schools, why wouldn’t he want UNC and UVA??? Would be a nice finish to make an even 16 in the Big Ten.
Hey, I wish it would all just go away, and they’d leave things be!!!
It didn’t scare Maryland at 50M. Surely they think they can get it lowered. They also have to know that there is a possiblity, that they could not get it lowered and have to pay 50M.
They still went.
This is all sickening!!
If they pay these things over time, and have the conference they’re going too, kicking in, and future tv money kicking in……….
They are in a bind. Until the BTN, only ND could distribute its own product. ESPN help create the monster, then fed it, then the monster grew up and broke through the cage.
Now, EPSN has competitors from within the industry. If the ACC would start its own network, ain’t nothing ESPN could do about it except worry.
Now, will colleges kill the golden egged goose? I don’t know, but the goose better have her will ready because if all you got is the playoff, then you ain’t got much.
Pitt has been consistently inconsistent this year!!!
The guy from http://www.eersauthority is clearly making it up and probably hoping it will be believed and become reality…something that doesn’t stop just because the political silly season is over. Of course on the theory that even a blind pig finds an acorn occasionally or if you have enough monkeys and enough typewriters(damn that makes me sound old…do all of you even know what those things are?)…he shouldn’t be more than 99% disregarded.
My thoughts on what is happening in the conferences realigning are based solely on my own logic (or lack of) and what I have read or heard in the media including this blog, certainty not on any sort of research or inside knowledge. That hasn’t stopped any of us on this blog so far so here goes.
Rutgers and Maryland going to the Big 10 has Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa and Purdue doing their happy dance. Clearly this decision wasn’t driven by the schools being football powers as well as reputable state universities as was the case with Nebraska and Penn State. While both Rutgers and Maryland are reputable state universities, they have rarely (in Rutgers case probably never) been football powerhouses. However they are in major media markets where the big 10 is unrepresented. So what is going on appears to be driven by the TV sports networks, i.e. $$$. This action may have been precipitated by the ACC’s reaching a cooperative agreement with Notre Dame. (Nothing new here, I think some of you probably made mention of these goings on in this blog.)
Here are some suggestions for an ACC/ESPN strategy and approach. Notre Dame has its own sports network. Could this become the basis for a combined Notre Dame/ACC Network possibly including Notre Dame coming into the conference as a full member? To work it would have to create a bigger financial pie with a bigger slice for everyone and NBC and ESPN would have to play nice since NBC is Notre Dame’s media partner in their network. It is essential to the ACC and ESPN to hang on to Georgia Tech since this gives us the lucrative Atlanta media market. In fact the ACC and ESPN need to hang on to everyone in the ACC if possible since most or all have a state and at least some regional and/or national following in addition to whatever their local media market is. This calls for bigger pie slices as well.
Expansion is fascinating. The one outlier suggested by a poster on this blog is having Navy as a football member and Georgetown as a basketball member thereby giving the ACC a big footprint in the Washington/Baltimore TV market. (Navy although not considered a major football power anymore has a huge national, even worldwide following.)
Would Connecticut add enough to the New England and/or New York markets to be worthwhile? It is worth being open to other unlikely but potentially desirable scenarios such as Penn State being available (suggested by a poster on this blog). I have great respect for TX Panther as well as the rest of you but as great as it would be to have Texas and other southwest teams in the conference, the geography and travel time/cost doesn’t work very well.
Ok all that has to happen now is for the parties involved to make these things happen!
Now let’s get on to something really important and Beat the Bulls Saturday!!! HTP!!!
As I’m sure you guys were too.
I really thought, that there was going to be some stability for quite awhile.
We’ve had our sure of bs. We finally get a life raft, and band, here we go again.
I don’t know, Louisville, UCONN, and Cincy don’t do anything to cement the other schools to the conference.
They make an even number, back fill as someone said the other day.
Yes, I realize we got saved, but we’ve had our share of misery. So, I have no problem wishing for something else than the last of the Big East members.
I wish them all well, I really do, but adding any one of them, or all three, I really don’t see how that keeps FSU, Clemson or GT from looking at other dates.
We were on the outside, then saved to the inside, now who knows what happens.
You guys mentioned the ACC meetings. I guess that’s what we’ll be waiting on.
Ya, a rabbit out of a hat somehow.
If ultimately, these guys want to get to 16, and of course picking teams to provide tv markets and money…
I wonder what the Pac 12 fella is thinking. He doesn’t have 4 teams to go to 16.
His original idea, I wonder if he is on the phone to Texas, TT, Ok, and Ok St.????
That would be ideal for the ACC. The ACC would be one of the final 4 conferences of 16, and would be poaching the rest of the Big 12.
They were talking about it, admitted talking about it a year or two ago. I think Texas and it’s tv network was the killer to the deal.
Pac12 might me a little more lenient now.
Almost like whose gonna blink first.
I know the Big 12 has contracts for tv now, but, if we’ve learned anything over the past couple years (like we didn’t allready know it), these contracts mean jack!
The Big 10 is solid, the SEC is solid, and the Pac12 is solid (only from the fact, geographically, none of the Pac 12 teams are going to leave).
So, you have the Big 12 and ACC playing cat and mouse.
ESPN is going to have to get involved even moreso financially, if it wants to keep them together.
ACC can’t stand another bombshell, the leftover mice will be scurrying.
Hopefully the UNC and UVA is in fact just that jackass rumor monger from WV.
I’m just discussing it as a football problem for the sake of bs’ing.
I posted earlier, big game, lets beat S. Fla. and get to the bowl game. Even if it’s not such a great one, great for the coaches and players not to mention the extra practice time.
And as far as “half the teams go to bowl games anyhow”, ya, well, you want to be in the half that went.
HTP!!!! Good night fellas!
I hope you saw my public apology???
Anyhow, yes, I’ve always thought that too, and I think that is the conventional wisdom out there.
Guy at work came up with a thought that he had heard. “They will always be together, unless they both are safely somewhere else, like UVA-Big Ten, and Va. Tech-SEC????
Ok, now good night all!!!
Of course there could be more changes but Pitt won’t be out of a seat at the table. TV matters and Pitt games are draws and the Pittsburgh market is pretty damn big.
One of the laws and punishments in Pa that makes the most sense.
You get totally embarrassed in public, sent to school for several months and learn the value of human life being in your incapable hands.
But, your record is expunged and the chances of you doing it again are damn near zero.
My PSU friend of 40 some years went thru this a year ago.
Good Zeigler got nabbed before someone got hurt.
I think he will be suspended for a few games.
You’re right, SF, it happens.
This will tell us if PC figured out how to motivate the team.
For instance, this study shows that at least 21% of 1st time DUI arrests were arrested again twice in five years.
I luv ya, luv your work but my comparison is for those that go thru the PA ARD program, not the TN state program.
You need to compare apples to apples, not apples to ORANGE (get it).
Sorry for the bad pun.
game even if it is in B’Ham. 7-6 finish and
key wins in recruiting and we have hope
for better days ahead.
This team could easily be 8-3 had we bested
YSU, kicked a FG at Syr, and not gotten
homer by a pass interference call at ND.