Let’s put this in context right away. This is not a call for the benching of the QB. Not even close. This is also not a comparison to Tom Savage’s predecessor. While Tom Savage worries me for stretches and at time outright scares me, he does not create the game-long feeling of dread and inevitable disappointment of the QB of the previous few seasons.
This is merely an attempt to try and explain what does make me worry and nervous about Tom Savage when he drops back.
The positives. He is always looking downfield. He has an excellent arm. Solid accuracy. He’s willing to stand in the pocket to throw.
The worrying thing to me is related to his locking in on a primary target. The prime example was the first play and interception. There were three New Mexico players around the receiver, including one in front. That meant there was some much more open somewhere on the field, but Savage still decided to make that throw. He never looked anywhere else on the field.
“I saw the guy there,” Savage said. “I thought his shoulders were turned the other way, and he flipped on the last second.”
But Savage said his mistakes in the first two games won’t stop him from taking chances with his strong arm.
“I need to understand the game, but I’m not going to be afraid to take shots downfield. I have the receivers to do it.”
No one wants him to stop doing it. We’ve been complaining for about 6 years or so about the lack of a vertical offense that stretches the field. So no. By all means, don’t stop taking shots downfield. That isn’t the issue. More interceptions will happen when you do that, but that is an acceptable trade-off.
Devin Street is a fantastic route runner. Very, very underrated in that aspect. Boyd is a spectacular talent. None of that is in dispute.
It is not seeing the whole field and quickly noting if there is anyone else getting open. Justin referred to it as tunnel vision, and in a way that crystallized my concern.
It isn’t just that he is focused on one guy downfield. It’s that his tunnel vision has him oblivious to what is happening around him. When the pocket is collapsing. When a defensive player is closing in on him. He’s not aware of it and that he needs to throw the ball. Or at least step up in the pocket to try and by some time if he is going to wait.
Again, I understand that a vertical passing game requires holding the ball longer while the receiver gets to the spot. And there will be more sacks as well. That does not mean that Savage shouldn’t be checking his other reads. That doesn’t mean Savage should stay unaware of what is happening with the pass protection and whether he needs to adjust.
This was part of the problem at Rutgers. Yes, there was a bad offensive line — but Savage contributed to the volume of sacks and hits he took by being slow to make his decision to throw. By waiting for one receiver to be open.
Pitt’s O-line is improving. I think it is already better than last year’s O-line. But it still has a lot of problems. Especially in pass protection. Savage has to do a little more to help them and himself. Otherwise we will see more of Chad Voytik simply because they are carting Tom Savage off the field.
could be a lot worse..
did you see Drew brees(voytik) out there in the 4th? He can barely see over the line!
Surely not.
Take him for what he is gentlemen. It’s only one season. And as Chaz already pointed out, it’s still an upgrade from the last three years. Interceptions and all.
Watching the tape, it’s going to be pretty apparent to opposing DCs on how you defend this Pitt team and its quarterback.
The answer is… TAKE AWAY BOYD.
To counter this, Savage is going to have to prove himself capable of making QUICK decisions on whether to throw to Boyd or not… and if the answer is no… how quickly can I locate the other receiver being ignored by the defense.
One thing for sure, Savage ain’t running away from any pressure to buy himself time. This is going to limit his ability to either find anothher receiver or buy an extra second or two to give #23 an opportunity to break free.
The saving grace that might put off this test for Savage for another week is the apparent trouble Duke has with stopping the run… that includes a little someting called a jet sweep.
On the corner blitzes from FSU, he should have thrown the ball away. From my angle, right behind him, on the second interception against NM, it looked like he should have thrown the ball away.
I think there is some truth to what you are saying but let’s not blow it out of proportion. The most important thing is he throws the ball accurately and with zip. We are very lucky he is here. The game should slow down for him as the season goes on. The line should get better, and play action will work with a good running game.
The kid is not going to be Peyton Manning, but he gives us a chance to win.
To me he is the least of our worries.
As for his only mistake, he was like a batter who decides to swing at the first pitch believing it will be a fast ball and is fooled by a curve. A pass on the first play should have been open but he got fooled as they had it covered. No question he should never have thrown it but the rest of the game he was all we could ask for.
Heard about Shai’s injury and can only wish him the best in his recovery! Will mention that a guy named Shady had an injury in HS which made him pick the Panthers because we hung with him. Hard work ahead kid but you can do it!
Savage is a joy to watch and I’m not talking about the look or throw, I’m talkin about he’s not running to sacks or holding the ball forever like some other idiot did waiting to be sacked. Hail to the Panthers. UPone
As for his only mistake, he was like a batter who decides to swing at the first pitch believing it will be a fast ball and is fooled by a curve. A pass on the first play should have been open but he got fooled as they had it covered. No question he should never have thrown it but the rest of the game he was all we could ask for.
Comment by letterman 09.16.13 @ 10:28 am
……………..
Well said, bitch bitch bitch.
Finally, a Pitt QB who can keep a Defense honest with his arm..sets up the run.
Yeah, lets nit pick!
Here’s the thing about Savage: he TRUSTS HIS ARM and ability to make throws – and I’m ok with that. Pitt Dad provides some excellent examples of successful QBs who trusted their arm. Of course there are some bad ones too, Jay Cutler…
I disagree though that Savage doesn’t sense the rush – I don’t see that at all. I think he’s done a good job of moving away from pressure and buying time. If anything against FSU, his issue (or the offensive line’s) was recognizing the blitz.
With the line’s improvement and Savage’s willingness to take some shots, I think it is unlikely that he is sacked more times than Tino last year (38), which was a monumental improvement over 2011 (63).
Maybe if our most recent QB was named Marino, I could find more fault. After the last 3 years, I am singing young Mr. Savage’s praises. I enjoy watching him play, I like the offensive overall. Heck, we might actually be able to come from behind once this year!
– So many of you obviously know what plays were called on every passing down.
– So many of you know Paul Chryst’s play book inside and out. You know the primary receiver on the plays as well as the check downs.
– Best of all, you have some kind of bionic eye. You can see, from the stands, what exactly Tom Savage’s eyes are focusing in on.
You all need to be on the coaching staff because I am sure that since Tom Savage has been at Pitt that Paul Chryst and Brooks Bolinger have never once coached him to look off a receiver. I am sure it has slipped their minds.
Seriously?
I’m happy we finally did to a team, what was expected and what the fans were hoping for.
What if this had been a 17-16 nail biter??
What if we lost??
We certainly don’t want to get over hyped, but, they looked pretty good against a lesser team. That hasn’t always happened lately with Pitt.
I didn’t like the defense so much in the second half, and would have been happier with a few more scores (keeping the foot on the gas pedal).
Overall, hard to complain about this one.
Time will tell and all we fans can do is hope the interceptions drop dramatically because this team won’t win consistently if it keeps losing the turnover battles.
I haven’t seen many quick slants to WRs nor did the TEs seem to have much of a role except for around the goal line in the first two games. Bollinger/Rudolph may be developing their playbook in real time, but it seems that Holtz, Orndorf, and Garner are going to waste if the TE position isn’t targeted 8-10 times a game.
T. Thomas was very good on defense last week, but he may be the worst special teams LB I have ever seen play football. They need to find some speedy tough guys who want to make a name for themselves on special teams (like Taglianetti did) or Pitt will lose at least one game this year solely because of special teams breakdowns.
Also, Bluitt may have an accurate leg, but so far he hasn’t shown he has a big leg on kickoffs, which I find really disappointing based on his pub.
Reporter asked him about the touchdown catch at the end of the half.
“We want to score there, we’re not taking a knee. We want to score and score, then score some more”!!!!
Thank you Mr. Boyd.
H2P
in the pocket to block. No use him peeling off if
they aren’t going to look that way.
Against N>M. the second interception was a great throw but his own man overplayed the ball. knocking it up int he air.
The out patterns and the pass over the middle to Boyd were better throws then Ben can make now.
Most college QB’s lock in on a receiver ‘s and interceptions are part of a college QB’s learning curve as he moves on.
Let’s compare Marino’s college record. When you have a strong arm you take risks.
Fresh yr. 58.6% com. 10 TD 9INT
soph 51.8% com 15 TD 14 INT
Jun. 59.5% com 37 TD 23 INT
sen 58.5% com 17 TD 23 INT
Also Marino played behind one of thest offense lines in the history of college football and had 2 all-american wide recievers.
Not one year over 60% completion rate. Savage is going to need to step it up to meet Dan’s senior interception numbers.
Tino,Volychik, and the rest of the DII qb throw only safe passes/ high percentage rates, low numbers on the scoreboard.
Just stop the uniformed crap.
We are blessed to have Savage who will improve during the year and it is my guess just as I saw Adams as a top 15 pick Savage will be the highest QB pick out of the ACC.
So let’s put this to rest
It didn’t take a nuclear physicist to realize a major weak point from last year (actually the last 2 years)
WATCH THE CLIP.
link to pittsburghpanthers.com
Sure looks like to me that Savage avoided the defensive tackle that penetrated the pocket, which considering that he was locked onto the downfield receiver with his tunnel vision, how in the world did he see the defender in his peripheral vision (that he doesn’t have)???? Then he scrambled to the right and ran away from pressure, how can a guy with cement shoes and zero mobility possibly do that???? Then while in a full run Savage rifles the ball to a place in the endzone where only Tyler Boyd can come down with it. Maybe Savage isn’t so horrible after all?
I’ll taake Tom Savage everyday of the week over the other guy(with the same initials)that used to play for us at this position. That play would have NEVER EVEN HAPPENED with that OTHER guy in there.
Savage throws a good tight spiral that gets there quick, and HE CAN throw downfield. With continued game experience and solid coaching helping him to reduce his deficits, Tom will be just fine playing QB tor the Panthers going forward.
Yeah, so I’m agreeing with a lot of other guys who are protesting the subject of this thread, we are lucky to have the option of Savage at QB for us. Now go out and prove us right Savage, and send the Blue Devils with a second solid performance on Saturday.
Hail to Pitt!
he didn’t have tunnel vision in the TD throw to boyd
just what are these examples of tunnel vision
are you sure you weren’t just having a hallucination and thinking tunnel vision tino was still out there
savage made 1 bad pass and you have to just make up crap to find things to worry about, savage does not have a worrying degree of tunnel vision
he also has seen the football field in a live game situation 2 times in 3 years he’s not going to improve his flaws significantly in just 2 games
what ever his name was any day of the week.
must you bitch at every thing.
savage is the best QB pitt has had in the last 6 years or would you like to have thoes QB back not
me.
As Deep mentioned above, I think it is only fair to point out that prior to the FSU game, Savage only had 320 pass attempts as a D1 QB and it had been what like 1,000 days since the last one?
Tino had over 700 pass attempts before Chryst, Bollinger & Co got a hold of him.
How about we wait until he hits the 100 or even 50 pass attempts mark before saying what he is or isn’t?
Drew Brees had more pass attempts yesterday than Savage has had in the past 3 years combined.
Just curious, does anyone know if Chryst scripts any plays at the start of a game?
Terry got better after more game experience, so you would have to think so will Tom.
However, no risk no reward. With a dink & dunk QB, Boyd’s first catch doesn’t happen and of course Boyd’s TD catch doesn’t happen.
Risk gets reward.
You also get stung once in awhile with risk. (ie. interceptions)
Bradshaw’s TD to Interception ratio wasn’t great but he did have the habit of making the big throw at the big moment, which led to 2 Super Bowl MVP’s for the Bayou Bomber.
Another NFL QB who was known to take risks, to the point of his nickname being the ‘Mad Bomber’.
Can you name him ??
No I didn’t notice any of that. (especially the ball scratching)
And they’re use to PITT’s OC having to call all these dink & dunk passes to cover for the QB’s lack of arm strength and lack of accuracy of anything over 20 yards.
PC & JR aren’t game planning a dink & dunk type of west coast bs offense because of a candy armed QB. And if you’ve noticed 33% of the passes aren’t going to the RB’s as they did in seasons past. Or the length of the QB’s arm.
How long has it been since PITT had two 100 yard rushers one game, on so few rushing attempts ? Stretching the field vertically has to have some effect on that as well.
would you want the outhers back not me savage will
do just fine thank you.
BTW – Boyd is going to make a lot of QB’s look good in the next 10 years . He just might be Savage and CV’s ticket to a shot at the NFL.
What we are seeing out of Tom Savage is exactly what was reported by Justin and I after watching Savage in multiple practices and scrimmages in both the spring and summer camps. Great arm and accuracy on the deeper passes but combined with tunnel vision and hesitation in the whole passing game.
It isn’t “rust” that is making this happen. Believe me, I saw Bollinger and Chryst dramatically trying to get Savage to check off on his receivers during practices since the spring and it hasn’t taken hold. Personally, I believe that negative trait is going to bite him in the ass when it comes to facing faster defenses who are not at New Mexico’s poor level.
Savage will make us stand up and cheer for sure with his deep completions but in few cases do those individual plays win ballgames. They do act as a factor to open up other aspects of the offense and that is a good thing, but the play to play passing game’s success is completions that move chains for 1st downs or give us short yardage on 3rd downs. Against a good defense in the FSU game we were 2 for 8 on 3rd down conversions and 0 for 1 on 4th down. That ain’t going to cut it against the better defenses we’ll face folks and we have to improve on that.
To really make our passing game effective it is imperative that Savage be able to run through his progressions. We are hearing a lot of fans bemoaning the fact that our TEs are not being utilized as they should be. That is true but it isn’t the staff’s playcalling that is cutting them out – it is Savage not looking past his primary receiver. The TEs aren’t called to pass block on every passing play, they have been running their routes but Savage hasn’t see them. They are too good of a resource not to utilize by doing better at checking off.
Look, it is still too early to say that Savage will be ‘good or bad’ on the season at this point. He certainly hasn’t been bad out there and he’s made some very good plays obviously and is exciting to watch. But in discussing the PITT football team you have to start with the QB position and Chas, Justin and I are expressing some real concerns we have about how Savage plays the position overall, especially because he is doing the exact same things he did at RU and at PITT since he came here.
I love having a different QB this season and am still looking forward to watching Savage play each week because he makes things happen with the deep ball and there is no doubt in my mind at all that he gives us the best chance to win games. I just have real concerns that his overall game might be left wanting when we start playing our tougher ACC opponents and ND and I hope that he can correct those his problems so that his better physical talents can be maximized.
Let’s not root for him to fail to prove your prediction that we would miss Tino’s production.
The good news is he can learn and get better at looking off the receiver and checking down to secondary and tertiary receivers. It’s only the second game. He can learn to be more stealthy with his hand offs.
The good news is that he has a strong and accurate arm. This can’t be learned, you have to be born with this talent. You can learn to throw the ball away when necessary.
Hopefully he is in the film room seeing the things you are speaking of.
At Rutgers he had no offensive line to give him time to look to secondary receivers. As he plays behind what looks like a good and improving line, he will get better at refining his game.
Let’s root for him to succeed.
Where I disagree with you is that it is not to early to say he is going to be good, it is just a matter of “how good?”
also, I will live with some interceptions if he is going to stretch the field like he is. those are explosive plays in the passing game that pitt hasn’t had in years and that in term is creating explosive plays in the running game. however, if there are going to be interceptions, they MUST eliminate turnovers in other areas. fumbles and muffed punts are unacceptable. if they don’t have those turnovers vs new mexico that’s probably 10 more pitt points and 6-10 less new mexico points. they can survive an int versus duke and Virginia. they cannot survive and int, a fumble, and a muffed punt against them and surely not against the better teams they’ll play.
As you know, I related Savage’s tendency to have tunnel vision and susceptibility to being sacked in the weeks before Florida State.
Despite the hopes of some posters above, he’s never going to be mistaken for being nimble of foot.
But if Savage somehow succeeds in increasing his awareness and is able to put to action what Chryst and Rudolph are trying to get across… it’ll be awfully fun to watch.
I like having Savage on the field and, unlike some other fans, don’t at all like what the alternative would be so I yell and scream for him to succeed every time he drops back to pass.
I do think it is a bit ironic with your statement about “enjoying a victory” without criticism and I suspect both Bill Stull and Tino Sunseri would agree that will never happen with PITT fans.
Not against newbies at all. Everyone is a newbie at some point.
But bring something original instead of just coming out of the gate to criticize those who do.
By the way, a little self-congratulation isn’t so bad when you’re also willing to admit when you’re wrong.
I guess you would call that self-degradation?
So far, he is pretty much what I thought he’d be. But it is too early to compare him to anyone; let’s talk about this in November
Right now it seems that all you are doing is taking potshots at others who are willing to do their homework and express their personal opinions based on that on here.
This isn’t a silly assed message board but the best venue for detailed discussion of PITT football on the web. You can certainly pick and choose the comments you’d like to read but the sniping, given that it is from someone who doesn’t contribute all that much, is a bit misplaced.
Despite Savage’s success against New Mexico, there is reason for concern once Pitt again faces a well-coached talented defense.
Saturday the Lobos gave Savage plenty of opportunity to show off his ridiculous arm. The O-line also gave him the time to stand tall in the pocket and throw accurately.
Even on his perfectly thrown passes to Boyd, Savage appeared to stay totally focused on his primary target.
And the other thing… Savage has ZERO escapability.
Without question, Savage keeps his job for now.
But starting this coming weekend against Duke, it won’t be the Lobos anymore.
Here’s hoping that Chryst and Rudolph… and Boyd… continue to provide Savage with the tools he needs to succeed.
And, oh yes… that Wisconsin-like O-line that has looked pretty good and really good in two games now.