Here we are at the one third mark of the 2013 season and we are still not sure of what we have in the way of a football team. We sit at three wins and a loss and that should make us feel pretty good, yet it is as if somehow the other shoe is going to fall on the season. PITT fans, not the most optimistic of people in the best of times, have the tell tale marks of nervousness not just about the upcoming Virginia Tech game but of the rest of the season also.
One of the nice things about college football, in my opinion, is the week to week inconsistency by both the teams and units within those teams. One truly never knows what you’ll get week to week unless you are a powerhouse program like Alabama or LSU. Most times you can point to one part of your team after camp finishes up and feel pretty good about it or know that it will let you down. That really hasn’t been the case with PITT this year, with a few exceptions.
After watching some summer camp practices and scrimmages I felt like the strength of the team was going to be our experienced defense, especially in the backfield that played so well last season and which carried over virtually intact. Last year that unit ended up 20th in the nation in Pass Defense giving up only 194 ypg, 15 INTs and 15 TDs through the air. A real show of solid play was PITT’s Pass Efficiency Defense which was very good at 113 (21st nationally). Our pass defense was pretty solid all around.
Fast forward to this season and we get a different story with those measurable aspects dropping to 219 YPG given up, eight passing TDs allowed and, worst of all, we are 89th nationally in Pass Efficiency Defense at 142 YPG. That drop in the efficiency of our pass defense is what has really hurt us so far.
At this point I’d have to say that the change over in Defensive Coordinator has helped that drop also. I’m not on the “House Sucks” bandwagon as some are but I do feel that he has an awful lot of learning to do to be successful in that staff position and unfortunately that learning has to come on the job.
We can compare each unit on the team and its current 2013 stats to last year’s but I think we can all see that despite our 3-1 record we haven’t seen much notable improvement overall with any unit on the field. Perhaps our passing game is better than last season, at least statistically it is. However, those numbers are skewed by that fantastic showing by Savage against Duke where he threw for 424 yards and six TDs. Would that it happen like that every game, yes?
One thing this is nicer than last year is that we PITT fans don’t have to hold our collective breaths every time the QB drops back to pass as we did for the last three years. That and when it looks like a deep ball will be thrown it is exciting more than dreadful. Now hope springs eternal when a WR’s long route is in the making.
I’ll say that our receiving corps is better than last at least at the WR1 and WR2 positions. We really can’t complain about them at all especially when Boyd, as a true freshman, is making spectacular catches on some poorer throws. They can score points and Savage can get them on the deep routes so that combination with the deep game surpasses 2012 for sure.
Frankly our season to date is also like that, inconsistent and basically uninformative. The offense is swinging between hot and cold without a way to identify its strengths and weaknesses that might hold for the rest of the year.
With the offense scoring 107 points against NM and Duke in succession then dropping to 14 (on lucky turnovers mostly) against VA we still scratch our heads and feel like every game it could be night and day from the game before. Perhaps if we fans could point to the OL and say that it was progressing each week we could extrapolate that to more positive offense in the future but the OL hasn’t been consistent either.
Well, we got used to inconsistent play in Paul Chryst’s first season at PITT with our ‘win two, lose two’ results but somehow it felt different then than it does now. We have every chance to tighten things up and have our offensive and defensive units start progress each game. The thing is that there is no certainly whatsoever that will happen.
Thus far, there are reasons to be both optimistic and pessimistic. I agree that we should really know something after this week.
One note however … many of us were not too alarmed with the output vs UVa mainly because it was a win. This game may prove to be the exact opposite … a really good effort but an L to a pretty good team.
a better o and we will know for sure abought the d
after this game but all and all a better team this
year.
so i feel good i am drinking the koolaid and loveing
it.
I feel like I want a cold IPA. In a Glass.
Pitt wins 17-14.
That being said, we’ve got potential!
The other intangible that goes hand in hand with that first fact is that these young bloods have taken ownership laready and they want to place their stamp on this team. You can see it in the way this year’s team competes. No matter how poorly they play or how many mistakes are committed, these guys put out 100% and play hard.
Lastly, they don’t like to lose.
Look for an upset tomorrow!
If we win the ones we are supposed to, split the close ones and win one upset it will be a great year.
If not, it still looks like Chryst is the man to build a program.
A close loss will not hurt too bad unless it is
covered with stupid and careless mistakes.
Wanny could never get a good game after a week off which I think reflected on his coaching.
School is out on Chryst. I like Savage at QB if they can keep him upright and actually feel confident about a Pitt win.
Like Pitt’s chances a lot better than that other team we share Heinz Field with! HTP!
We’ll know a lot more by then.
Which is a good thing, since they haven’t been tinged with some of the lack of leadership of seasons past.
The upperclassmen still on the team are mostly all or fully all ‘on board’. Yes they still aren’t very consistent, but they are giving a better effort. Well defensively they did against UVA.
They need to play better tomorrow, as I don’t expect Va Tech to be quite as inept offensively as UVA. Plus they’re playing at home, so they’ll draw some on that.
We will know a little more about whether the defense is getting better or that was just due to the ineptitude of the last opponent.
If they just let Logan Thomas sit in the pocket with all day to pick out a receiver, I will be very disappointed.
Offensive we need to get Tyler as many touches as humanly possible. At least 10. I’d like to see him the backfield a few times to get swing passes, which are very safe, almost long handoffs, just to get him the ball. I also think Garner could be used like this as he was supposed to be more of a H-Back. He’s too good of an athlete to be not used more.
Let’s go Pitt !
Ibrahim showed an ability in the last game to get outside and made some huge plays at the end of that game. He might be the speed guy we need along with the power running of Connor.
Both those games were strange and somewhat unsatisfying, but the bed-crapping didn’t happen. Pitt won. That alone, to me, is progress.
I wouldn’t say all is lost if we come up on the short end tomorrow. I feel like this is one of the 2 most difficult games remaining on the schedule. For sure Pitt could play a decent game tomorrow and still lose.
On the flip side, boy how good would a win be? Last years win over VT felt like an aberration after the way Pitt stunk it out against YSU and Cincy. This year, sitting at 3-1 a win would put Pitt in the driver’s seat in the Coastal. That’s difficult to fathom…but great to dream about!
Savage has been sacked 14% of the time he drops back as opposed to 10% for Sunseri.
As the P-G’s Sam Werner says about Tom Savage; “He’s a tough guy (he has to be, since he’s about as mobile as a utility pole)”.
Dan 72 – I just yesterday looked up DW’s record after bye weeks and you are correct, it wasn’t very good. Paul Chryst put up two wins last season coming off over a week between games with the VT and RU wins, so that is good I hope.
Iron Duke – I’ll say the same about watching this year’s version of PITT football. Part of that enjoyment is finally having someone different under center if even for just this season. That plus the extraordinary number of redshirt and true FR Chryst has been playing – 18 at last count with 12 of them seeing substantial playing time.
It feels like a fresh start in many ways.
Hail to Pitt!
But that doesn’t belie the fact that ‘poor’ Tom was sacked 7 times 2 weeks ago and it was all the OL’s fault; whereas, when Tino was sacked 2 years ago playing in front of an OL that was not recruited for and had no clue how to play the offense, it was of course all the QB’s fault.
titleman, you claim Reed’s street cred is on the line, yet he even brought facts that Savage had a higher sack percentage despite the fact that he always played in a pro-style offense. On the contrary, I think it’s your street cred that’s on the line.
Fact is that despite Savage’s obvious physical talents, he lost his starting job at RU to a QB who was much less talented … partly because he was sacked a lot while waiting for the WR he was locked into became open.
I do believe that some fans have been overestimating Tom Savage since he set foot on campus specifically because because he isn’t Tino Sunseri. That’s fine if you feel that strongly. I don’t do that for a variety of reasons, one of which is that he hasn’t shown me much either in camps or in-season with the exception of one outlying game against a poor defense.
In his three games other than Duke Savage is 41/76 for a 53% completion rate (his historical career rate), with 209 yds per game and 4 TDs to 6 INTs. We are currently 93rd nationally in third down conversions with a 35% rate at 17 for 38, which is poor.
Lets put aside who the last QB was. Does that sort of production from the QB make you jump up and down with joy? It doesn’t for me. Much like in the last three years PITT is finding ways to wins football games by other than QB play. That is exceptionally frustrating to me because Savage has loads of athletic talent yet doesn’t maximize his use of it.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m wrong about how well Savage can play if he starts actually producing against the better teams on our schedule – and of course we may see that as soon as noon today. That was the point of the article above, the season is still young and things can get better.
I hope he brings it around as I think we are really going to need solid and consistent production out of that position, especially with the running game being so hot and cold – but IMO we haven’t had that yet.
HTP!!
Big Ben gets sacked a lot too, not always a bad thing if you are making the big play often enough.
Anyway the story on Savage is yet to be written, we know what the other guy accomplished. Savage has the potential to win the big game with his arm, whether that happens remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t bet against it.
Love to see it happen today.
Hail to Pitt!
I’ll give you the sack numbers, facts are facts; but I don’t get the sense of impending doom that I always did with Tino. Tino’s would freeze and duck every time the rush was on. He played behind some horrible lines, especially two years ago, a combo that led to what seemed like 200 sacks (what was it, 60ish?), but he never…ever helped.
In another vein, here’s a question I’ve been pondering – anybody have a theory for why thus far Pitt is a first half team? Similar to ’11 under Toad. 96 first half points this year, 38 second half. Been out scored in the 2nd half of every game. Depth? Coaching? Not a big enough sampling size?
Must have to do with conditioning, maybe adjustments made at halftime, but not so much. Need to take advantage of the o-line depth. Bennett sure could help if he gets it going.
Today is a telling game for Savage (We won’t even go there with House).
In the Trib Review, Legendary Dallas Cowboy Exec Gil Brandt states that he sees similarities between Savage and Troy Aikman. But, those similarities don’t include athleticism since Aikman was first a running quarterback at Oklahoma before ending up at UCLA.
To that end, Brandt predicts VaTech wins today 31-28 (an eerily similar score to Dan’s Dream)
If Savage can somehow avoid getting sacked and throwing picks to roaming D-Backs today, then Brandt’s surprising evaulation will have a little more evidence to back it.
Pitt will also have a chance to pull out a nearly impossible win in Blacksburg.
And then of course there is the formidable Pitt D.
OUTHOUSE or EN SUITE complete with BIDET… we find out today.
I am feeling a loss today and a 5-2 record going into
the game with GT. A win over GT, UNC, and the cuse
leaves us at 8-4 and a huge step into recruiting and next
year.
Wish Savage was coming back. Don’t want to comment or read anything about the pain our former QB created. Let’s move forward.
My guess… that someone is Dorian Johnson.
When he’s good, he’s really good.
And when he’s bad, he’s still better than a plate of overcooked spaghetti.
Hail to Pitt!
Savage always played in a pro set which of course is his strong suit. He never was made the sacrificial lamb by being placed in an offense he never played in and was uncomfortable in, surrounded by an entire offense that had no experience playing the offense.
And still he has a higher sack percentage than the other guy.
Last year, Tino had 8.4 yards per attempt. That was by far his best year, with just 6.8 the year prior. This year, 8.4 would put him at about 31st in the country. As a junior, he wouldn’t even be on the radar. That 1.3 yards per attempt adds up.
If there’s any bias in how we view Tino, it’s because his final season just couldn’t be good enough to wash away his previous seasons. Comparatively, we have Savage in his senior year only, where he’ll be the most developed. If we only had Tino for one year (last season), I think it’s safe to say we’d have a higher opinion of him… but that doesn’t mean he’s as good of a quarterback as Tom Savage is.
It is that my contention has NEVER BEEN who is the better QB. I have never once put an opinion out on that specific subject and I have never said the Sunseri was better than Savage. That line of discussion has been evolved by other commenters, not me.
My whole argument has been, ever since 2013 spring ball, was that we were not going to get the actual PRODUCTION from the QB position this season than we did last year. Somehow that was morphed into a “Who is the better QB? or “Who is more talented” argument.
The reason I started that ‘production’ line of discussion wasn’t just the athletic or talent merits of one kid vs another but how the QB would help the offense overall with one player or another at the helm.
Of course everyone knows Sunseri played pretty poorly his first two years. No one would dispute that. The gist of my stance though was that Sunseri’s 2012 season was going to be hard for the 2013 PITT QB on to match, albeit Savage, Voytik or Anderson. That said, my emphasis was on Savage as I knew he was going to be the starter the day he signed with PITT.
I really think PITT fan’s negative bias and personal dislike toward Sunseri, certainly not unearned in some part, really colored how they viewed Tom Savage when he came to PITT. I remember reading many, many times, that ‘the QB position is an automatic upgrade in ’13’ even before Savage took a snap in the 2013 spring practices. Personally, I could see right away that he wasn’t going to be the savior a lot of PITT fans wanted him to be. I scratched my head at those fans then and still wonder how people can say that now given we are almost halfway through the 2013 season.
Anyway, I’m sure this argument will go on and on all season but I just wanted to remind all my fellow commenters that my original premise wasn’t so much a pure comparison of the two individual player’s respective talents and merits but what the offensive production out of the QB position would be from last year to this year. That took into account factors like sacks, running game, etc as well as the individual output from the QB’s play itself.
It is a bit frustrating to me than when the “QB vs QB” argument gets really rolling on here it seems to point back to me with commenters thinking I’ve been saying that Sunseri was a better QB than Savage is and that isn’t what my argument was at all really. To that point I think they are almost polar opposites in some way. Each has strengths and weaknesses that make them two completely different QBs IMO.
As the coaches say, each weeks preparation can be entirely different. It is what makes college football great to follow and watch unlike the pros.