There really weren’t a lot of surprises in the game. I said in my Know Your Enemy column that this game shouldn’t even be close due to the talent disparity and thankfully I was right. It was 42-6 early in the third quarter and the team lost a little intensity at that point. I don’t want to say they were slacking, but it’s hard to play with 100% focus when you’re up by 36 points. That’s a lesson to be learned, but overall, the team did what they were supposed to do against an inferior opponent: won handily.

I’ll start with the defense because it’s a lot easier. The defense held their own and was as close to perfect as you could expect until they joined in the team nap late in the 3rd quarter. In the first quarter, the early Savage pick game the Lobos great field position and they proceeded to go nowhere and miss a long FG. After a special teams mishap, New Mexico got the ball they went 7 yards on 3 plays followed by a FG. In the first quarter, they had their backs against the wall thanks to mistakes by the offense and special teams and they held New Mexico to 2 FG attempts. In the second quarter, they again were put in a tough situation after a turnover on a Lobos punt (more on that later). They did allow 32 yards on 8 plays and a FG, but you can’t expect a defense to not allow a single productive drive. That was their “bad” in the first half and I’ll take that any day of the week. Even more impressive is that this FG drive got all the way to the 1 yard line. New Mexico went backwards and settled for the FG.

By the time the defense really made any mistakes, the game was 42-6. The coaches can use this as a teaching moment, but I’m not worried about it at all. They were very disciplined in the 1st half. There were 4 troublesome penalties: 3 offsides and 1 stupid pass interference by Vinopal when he was on the WR a good second before the ball. The most troubling play I saw was from Anthony Gonzalez. Late in the 1st half, there was a 29 yard gain by the Lobos’ TE Aho.  Gonzalez went after Aho, then when he saw the QB running he bit hard and left Aho wiiiide open. If Gonzo plays the TE, Shane Gordon has the QB accounted for. If Gonzo does something like that against Georgia Tech, it’ll hurt a lot more. Thankfully Aaron Donald stepped up with 2 big sacks later in the drive and killed the momentum.

A few players had fantastic individual efforts. Aaron Donald doesn’t require superlatives anymore. The best way to compliment Aaron Donald is to say he looked like Aaron Donald. Todd Thomas has several huge plays and has safely earned his right to stay on the field as a starter. I was very impressed with how physical Lafayette Pitts played. On a couple of WR screens his way he powered through the blocker to make a play. Lobos WRs had 7 catches for 35 yards. It’s safe to say the CBs did their job. Hendricks made a good play on a deep ball to break it up and also did a great job with contain. He kept long runs in front of him and didn’t let a big gain turn into a huge one. Ejuan Price had a few impact plays and showed his athleticism when he jumped to deflect a pass while rushing the QB. Ezell clogged up a lot of room in the middle.

Special teams were not exactly special. The long return, a delay of game on the kickoff, and the lost fumble after it allegedly hit Pitts were big killers. First off, no way in hell did that punt hit Pitts. Regardless, that’s 110% on the punt returner, K’wuan Williams. Williams needs to alert Pitts that the punt is short and to get the hell out of the way.  The long return and the “fumble” were huge miscues that could’ve been a huge swing if New Mexico were a better opponent. Those mistakes can’t happen again this season.

The offense was actually concerning to me. Well, I’ll be more specific. Tom Savage concerned me. Other than Savage, the rest of the players on offense all had good to great games. James Conner is a monster and in my opinion, should get more carries than Bennett at this point. He’s bigger, stronger, and gets more yards once he hits the open field. Bennett danced a little bit too much in the backfield and did not look as effective to me (stats back that up, but I hate stats). I can’t help but wonder if Bennett’s knee is still not 100%. He’s not hitting the hole as hard as I think he should be able to. However, Bennett is finishing his runs. I loved his touchdowns. He threw his shoulder into a Lobos DB and plowed into the end zone both times.

At WR, Street is running incredible routes. There were a couple of  times where he cut and the Lobos DB probably got queasy trying to turn his head quick enough. When the ball was close, Street caught it with ease. He had the quietest 6 catch 80 yard game I’ve ever seen. He now has 12 catches and 221 yards on the season. He’ll be in 1st place in several career receiving categories if he keeps up this pace. I’m sure NFL scouts would appreciate a 70+ catch 1300+ yard season.

Then there was some guy named Tyler Boyd. I suppose he had an OK game or something. Haha, not. I said during practices that he looked amazing and that I was confident he’d be an impact player. Against FSU, the coaches were a bit hesitant to unleash him; they didn’t want to put too much pressure on him. Once he showed the coaches that he could take what he did in practice and do it on game day, they took off the training wheels. How did Boyd respond? 8 total touches (2 rush,  6 catch) for 173 yards and 2 touchdowns. His rushing touchdown showed incredible speed. His touchdown catch showed incredible athleticism, concentration, and hands. Every time he touches the ball, something magical can happen. I won’t dwell too much on him because anyone who saw the game knows words cannot do him justice.

The TEs/H-Backs were quiet today. I had someone tweet me that they were concerned about the lack of TE production the past 2 games, but upon my second review of the game, I’m less concerned. While Savage didn’t look off of his top target often, the goal was very clearly to push the ball downfield against New Mexico and it worked. After the first touchdown in the second half, Garner had a great 1st down catch in the 2nd quarter that put the team into the red zone. The only big mistake I saw was by JP Holtz immediately after that Garner catch. Savage was in a bit of trouble and had Garner wide open so he tossed it his way. Holtz had to be out of position or something because his location did not make sense in comparison to Garner’s route. Holtz thought the throw was a bad throw to him and tipped it, resulting in an interception.

Blocking had a few issues. On the 3 and out drive in the late 3rd quarter, Holtz and Orndoff both screwed up. On 1st down, Holtz went out and let the DE run right past him. Judging by the fact that there was no one there for him to block and that Clemmings went upfield, I’m thinking it was  Holtz’s fault. Then on 2nd down, Orndoff gets beat on the left side and Savage can’t get off a clean throw, which goes incomplete to Street. For the most part though, the TEs were solid in blocking.

The big uglies had a great game. When your QB consistently has all day to throw, things are going well. When he was sacked, it was a coverage sack. I believe he was hurried twice.  The real concerning play was in the late 3rd quarter when TJ Clemmings got beaten badly inside. That forced a rushed thrown by Savage and an incomplete pass that killed the drive. It was only a 3 man rush. You can’t get beaten immediately inside by a DE. Rotheram tried to slide over and help but he was too late. It may have been a double team call, so it could be Rotheram’s fault as well if Clemmings was expecting inside help. No matter what, someone screwed up badly and a 3 man rush was the best shot they had at Savage  in the pocket all night.

You can’t really complain about the running game. RBs had 30 carries for 240 yards and 4 TDs. You don’t average 8 yards per carry unless there is plenty of open space. It’s not like a huge run skewed the numbers or anything either. Even without Conner’s 38 yard run (longest run of the day), the running game still averaged 5.3 YPC. The OL opened up plenty of room and the RBs thanked them with plenty of quality runs. What’s good about this game is that the OL had  fewer mental mistakes and absolutely dominated the smaller, less athletic Lobos defense. It’s definitely a game to build off of.

After 1,500+ words, I get to the one player who made me very nervous in the dominant win: Tom Savage. Don’t get me wrong, Savage wasn’t awful. Take away his pick and he only had 1 bad throw (albeit it was complete to Street, but a good throw would’ve been a touchdown instead of just a big gain). His other incomplete passes were due to OL pressure and Holtz’s aforementioned mistake. 2 bad throws in 17 isn’t a bad number at all (unless you’re Jameis Winston, currently 40/45 on the season). However, my concern wasn’t his accuracy, it was his tunnel vision.

On almost every completion, Savage threw to his primary target. He dropped back, he stared right at him, then threw it when his guy got open. Granted, almost every time that guy was open, but he would stare for 2+ seconds without even thinking about going elsewhere. When I rewatched the big play to Street (the underthrow that should’ve been 6), I’m pretty sure it was a designed look off. The play was designed to look like it was a quick hit to Boyd and New Mexico bit hard, leaving Street wiiide open.

His throw to Boyd at the end of the first half was a great throw. The problem was his decision making before that. There were 14 seconds left on the clock; that’s plenty of time for 2 plays. Instead Savage runs around for awhile then chucks it up to Boyd, who was open and made a fantastic catch. Boyd bailed him out for taking so long. If that’s an incomplete pass, points were left on the field. From the 34 yard line, Blewitt would’ve had a shot.  If Savage checks down after 3 seconds and gets 6 yards, you’ve given Blewitt a make-able FG.

To summarize, when Savage’s primary target was covered, he made mistakes. On his first throw, he forced a throw into triple coverage and got picked. On the Boyd touchdown, he took too much time off of the clock. Thankfully there weren’t a bunch of examples because of the fact that New Mexico’s defense is atrocious. It’s still very concerning because outside of Old Dominion, New Mexico will be far and away the worst defense we’ll see.

We’ll learn a lot about Savage and this team over the next 2 weeks. This team could be 3-1 headed into VT looking to make a statement, 2-2 and still wondering who they are, or 1-3 and hoping to salvage the season. Duke and Virginia are teams Pitt has the ability to beat comfortably. Duke is missing their starting QB and Virginia may be searching for a new coach after the season. Pitt’s in a better position than both. As of right now, all we know is Pitt is better than New Mexico and worse than FSU. That puts them anywhere between #100 and #10.

PS, this is over 2,000 words and I’m too lazy to edit right now. My apologies for any glaring mistakes.