The next six games combine for probably the hardest stretch of a season Pitt has faced in a long time. All six opponents were bowl eligible last season (Miami didn’t go to a bowl due to the sanctions). All six could possibly be in a bowl game this season, even UNC, who has the talent to get hot and finish 5-1 down the stretch against a much easier slate of opponents. Three of their five losses were to teams currently ranked and they don’t play a ranked opponent the rest of the way. Navy and Syracuse appear to be inferior to Pitt on paper, but history tells us you can’t trust that.
It is not inconceivable for Pitt to drop five of their last six. Hell, they could win five of their last six too. There are still a lot of questions about this squad and how those questions are answered will determine how they fare. Instead of focusing on the questions, let’s focus on what we know right now.
1) The offense needs the running game to work. When Conner, Bennett, and Ibrahim get yards on the ground, the offense is capable of dropping 40+ points. When they don’t, they’ll barely top 10 points. Against FSU, Virginia, and VT, the running backs had a total of 57 carries for 176 yards (3.1 yards per carry and 59 yards per game). The result? 36 total points, an average of 12 points per game.
Against New Mexico, Duke, and Old Dominion, the RB trio dominated: 103 carries for 708 yards (6.9 yards per carry and 236 yards per game). The result? 132 points scored by the offense. That’s 44 points per game! If the offense can move the ball on the ground, they’ll do just fine. If they don’t, it’s not pretty. Navy, Syracuse, North Carolina, and Miami all allow over 150 yards per game on the ground. Notre Dame and Georgia Tech are top 30 run defenses and present an issue.
2) The run defense isn’t bad but pass defense highly susceptible. The defense is allowing an average of 136 yards per game on the ground. This isn’t great, but it’s top 35 in the country. The pass defense is aaaalllll the way down at 75th with over 235 yards per game allowed. This is stat is boosted higher than it deserves thanks to New Mexico, who had 57 yards through the air and didn’t even try to pass. Take them away and the secondary allowed 274 yards per game against teams that actually include the forward pass in their playbook. That number would put them worse than the 100th ranked pass defense in the country.
Teams that are capable of scoring through the air will continue to rack up points on this defense, but teams that rely on the ground game do play into Pitt’s strength. This bodes well for Navy, GT, and Syracuse, but looks bad for Notre Dame, UNC, and Miami. This is especially critical because it means Notre Dame, UNC, and Miami are fully capable of coming from behind even if Pitt has the lead.
3) Tom Savage needs time to be effective. This coincides with the running game, but teams capable of rushing the passer have caused this team fits. Savage does not have a quick release and while the coaches very obviously pushed short passes against Old Dominion, the results were very mediocre (11/18 for 104 yards 1 TD). Teams that can rush the passer will cause issues. Savage had plenty of time to throw against Duke and New Mexico and his stats were impressive. Against Virginia and VT he was under pressure and the results were horrendous.
While sacks aren’t the perfect way to measure the effectiveness of a pass rush, it’s the best stat I’ve got without deep tape analysis and HbgFrank hasn’t started paying me yet. Navy, North Carolina, Notre Dame, and Georgia Tech all average less than 1.8 sacks per game, which puts all four in the bottom half of the country. Syracuse and Miami, however, are two of the best teams in the country at sacking the QB.
4) Pitt still can’t come from behind to win. One of the stats fans like to bring up to bash Pitt’s former QB was the lack of come from behind victories. In three years, Pitt had zero, none, nada, zilch victories when trailing at halftime. This trend still holds true and Pitt is 0-2 in games when trailing at halftime. This will hurt against every opponent and early leads will be a huge key to victory going forward.
5) No road wins in an actual road environment. Three of the final six games will be on the road: Navy, Georgia Tech, and Syracuse. Duke was hardly a road game, more like an exhibition. Pitt’s worst attended game of the past decade was still better than that game. While GT and Syracuse aren’t the roughest environments, there will still be a decent amount of fans in attendance. If GT and Cuse were coming to Heinz, it’d be a lot easier to favor Pitt.
Under Chryst, Pitt is 3-5 on the road and the wins are against Duke, Buffalo, and USF. Buffalo and USF were 7-17 combined last season and as I mentioned, Duke’s stadium was empty. If Pitt expects to go to a respectable bowl game, they’ll need at least one road win.
Here’s how things appear the rest of the season.
Navy plays well into Pitt’s strengths and weaknesses. Pitt can stop the run but Navy can’t. They can’t rush the passer either. Navy’s only advantage is home field, but if they lead at halftime, Pitt is in trouble. If Pitt takes an early lead and establishes the run, this will hopefully end up the most complete victory of the season.
Georgia Tech can stop the run but they can’t rush the passer. Their pass defense is still good (only 200 ypg, top 25) though, but they struggle passing the ball due to the triple option. GT has home field advantage and the ability to stop the run. If Pitt wants to win, they’ll have to break through GT’s defense somehow and hopefully Savage can succeed without the running game if he has time. The defense should be ready for GT’s offense after seeing it against Navy.
Notre Dame can pass the ball and stop the run. What they can’t do is rush the passer or stop the pass (245 yards per game, 13:6 TD:INT ratio). The key to this game will be mistakes by ND’s offense. Tommy Rees is highly suspect and makes boneheaded mistakes. Notre Dame is a better team on paper, but they were last year too. This game is a huge wildcard.
North Carolina can pass the ball, but they can’t do anything right on defense. They can’t stop the run or the pass. If they get a lead, they can’t run the ball to try and hold it. The bad news is they really can pass the ball which has presented problems for Pitt. That’s UNC’s only advantage against Pitt because every other matchup favors the home team. Stop the pass and the Cathedral will be lit up.
Syracuse is great at rushing the passer. This is necessary because it’s the only way they’ve stopped opposing QBs, who otherwise do well, averaging over 240 yards per game. That includes only 88 yards from GT in the air. Take that away and their pass defense looks like Pitt. The run defense is suspect and they aren’t lighting it up through the air either. Cuse’s two advantages are pressuring Savage and home field. If Pitt can establish the run and not let the crowd affect them, bet on Blue to stomp the Orange.
Miami has an advantage over Pitt in pretty much ever facet. They can rush the passer, they can throw the ball, and they can win on the road. The only hope Pitt has to pull off the upset is Miami’s run defense. Pitt will have to absolutely dominate on the ground and control the clock. Otherwise, Pitt fans will head home early for some leftover Turkey.
Friendly reminder I won’t be tweeting too much early on. My wife and I are headed to some Baby Expo thing at the Monroeville Babys R Us. If you see a guy in an old blue Palko jersey staring at his phone, that’ll be me.
If we can dominate Navy, and take care of GT – I see no reason we can’t beat Syracuse & UNC. I’m not feeling great about ND & Miami, but with this team, you never know.
I’m just hoping for a scenario that gets us in the Belk Bowl (as I live in Charlotte) but we’re going to need to win quite a few of the remaining games to make that happen.
I suspect it wll be UNC – with potential to make the Duke game look low scoring – and Syracuse. We really got lucky with Navy right before GT though, and we should be very competitive there as well.
I actually suspect the ND game to be very competitive. They’ve had some injuries and we match up well against them. The home crowd will be raucous – especially if we can pull of the GT win. I hope I’m wrong but, barring a blizzard I think Miami will be a repeat of FSU.
All in all, 7-5/8-4 are firmly within reach. Hopefully the coaches keep us moving in the right direction. Hail to Pitt.
8-4 with 3 losses to ranked teams? Not bad at all for a team with this many issues headed into the season.
Now, this was evidenced against Va Tech which has a top defense; we’ll likely see more opportunities in the next month.
7-5 puts smile to my face.
8-4 brings out the champagne.
However, if you listen to what Jim Hueber has been saying… he thinks they’ve been playing well with a few breakdowns mostly due to mental errors.
Now if you think Hueber is a straight shooter… which is what many here have posted… then you have to think the real problem is not the line.
I’ll stop there.
Gotta get win #5.
It’s important for Pitt, for recruiting to get to a bowl game.
We laugh at some of the stinky bowls, and I admit there are way too many and they don’t mean much.
The one thing they do mean though, is you are one of the 60 or so teams that made it to a bowl game.
Much better to be in that category, than in the category of one of the 60 or so that did not go to a bowl game.
You’ve gotta be able to say you went to a bowl game, just to start off with your recruiting.
So, I digress, gotta get #5, then as Justin says, we could lose all 5, or win all 5 of the remaining games.
Somewhere in the middle I’d guess, win 2 or 3 of them and lose 2 or 3 of them.
That would get us to 7 wins or so, and a bowl somewhere.
I say we beat UNC, Syracuse and Notre Dame.
GTU gonna be tough.
Miami tough, allthough, day after T-giving, who knows, cold, wet, snowy, I don’t think it will be the same as the FSU game.
Hope the coaching staff has them fired up to play tmrw.
H2P!!
It’s not just the sacks. What is the most troubling is how inefficient the Offense seems in comparison to how it looked a year ago.
Now, Emel made some good points about the emphasis being placed on throwing to the WRs.
That’s fine. But it’s not what the Chryst Offense is predicated upon… not last year at Pitt or in the previous six years at Wisconsin.
It’s about timing… and it’s about getting everyone involved including TEs and Backs.
Why aren’t we seeing it this year? Well…. it ain’t coaching. That would seem to defy logic considering the coaches haven’t changed.
We have had relatively few injuries and the key players that we would be dead without, like Donald and Savage have been able to go every week. Let’s pray that the trend continues, we are way to thin at almost every position to be competitive if the injury bug pays Pitt a long hard visit.
Hope you had some wood laying around to knock on!!
15 TEs, 9 RBs, 65 WRs
these are completions, don’t have the stats about pass attempts
I don’t buy the argument that he is the reason for the majority of the sacks though. the Oline is weak sauce. Hueber isn’t kicking a bad unit while it’s down.
2 deep:
Zanna Randall
Young Artis
Patterson D Johnson
Wright Jones
Robinson Newkirk
Devin Street – 50 targets (26 receptions, 52% reception rate)
Tyler Boyd – 49 targets (31 receptions, 63.3% reception rate)
Manasseh Garner – 16 targets (9 receptions, 56.3% reception rate)
Kevin Weatherspoon – 11 targets (8 receptions, 72.7% reception rate)
Isaac Bennett – 8 targets (5 receptions, 62.5% reception rate)
Scott Orndoff – 5 targets (2 receptions, 40% reception rate)
JP Holtz – 7 targets (4 receptions, 57.1% reception rate)
Ed Tinker – 3 targets (1 reception, 33.3% reception rate)
Rachid Ibrahim – 2 targets (2 receptions, 100% reception rate)
Jaymar Parrish – 2 targets (1 reception, 50% reception rate)
I like the Luther verbal. I’m told he is smooth.
What’s the deal with Jeter?
Personally I enjoy a QB that can throw to the wideouts. When you have a good running game you don’t have to throw to the backs as often. Only 15 catches by tight ends but aren’t four of them for touchdowns?
If Conner is healthy, we should have a real one two punch.
If only we had the QB that POD dreams of.
Justin’s stats show that Savage has not padded his completion average with abundant passes to the backs.
No shovel passes this year.
We probably won’t win four more this year, but the games will have way more entertainment value.
Mostella is not enrolled and at the very earliest will play in the 2nd semester. Again, this remains very vague but don’t be surprised if we don’t see him until next year.
Randall is not dressed, not sure why
Don’t understand why Durand doesn’t
Get more minutes. Best 3 point shooter
I’m the team.
c Satchell Pierce, Kiski School
f Mike Young, McKeesport
f Ryan Luther, Hampton
g Shelden Jeter, Beaver Falls
g Maverick Rowan, Midland
Didn’t watch or listen just a guess.
Regardless this was to a Division 2 team who was wait…..10 wins 17 losses last year. Haven’t had a winning season since 2009. Had to look them up since I’ve never even heard of the….
University of California at San Diego Tritons.
Not to be confused with San Diego State Aztecs or the University of San Diego Toreros. (the Aztecs play in the Mountain West, while the Toreros play in Gonzaga’s conference).
Found this interesting piece on San Diego’s all-time leader scorer and assist man though.
Seems this guy is serving time in a Federal prison for point shaving. Don’t seem to remember this being mentioned on the 24/7 sports network much or any of the other seemingly 24/7 coverage of sports. Go figure…lol
Wow we had to play our starters (well 4 of them) over 30 minutes to win this game.
Patterson 36 minutes-16 points-4 rebounds
Zanna 32 minutes – 17 points – 11 rebounds
Robinson 31 minutes – 10 pts – 6 assists
Wright 35 minutes – 5 pts. – 4 assists
Johnson 19 minutes – 6 points – 3 rebounds
Subs:
Young 18 minutes – 11 points – 4 points
Newkirk 12 minutes – 3 points -1 assist
Chris Jones 8 minutes – 1 pt – 1 rebound
Artis 7 minutes – 0 pts – 1 reb.
Nwankwo 1 minute – 3 pts
*Pitt only shot 62% from FT line (20-32). Some things never change !
* Pitt only had 3 more FG’s than UCSD
* Difference was the FT’s, Pitt shot 32, them 11
* UCSB made 10 3’s even though Wright is supposed to be an upgrade on defense on perimeter.
* After having some big offensive numbers in the scrimmages, Wright comes back down to earth with a thud….5 pts in 35 minutes against a scrub team
* Pitt only outrebounded the scrubs by 4 (33-29)
Know it’s only Pitt’s 1rst game and pre-season at that. But it was also UCSD’s first game AS WELL.
Trends are carried over from early games, pre-season or not, as 2011-2012 season indicated.
Also more than alarming even if a pickup game.
UCD’s front line was 6’4″, 6’6″ and 6’4″. Yet we only outrebounded them by 4 !!!
UCD’s next couple games are against : Grand Canyon, Daemen College, St. Katherine College, Academy of Art and Humboldt State.
Yes these teams actually do play basketball or some form of it. As the robot use to say;
Danger Will Robinson !
(maybe we can change that to:
Danger James Robinson )
Oh I was up to get a energy snack, btw ! lol
We were led to believe we were going to run more this year.
This is the type of team you should have been able to score 100 points on, yet we barely got above 70 points. Against a D2 scrub team. Really ?
Needless to say, this team needs a lot of work.
there were many substitutions and many combinations played
I don’t remember any set plays … everything seemed to be pass and create
What that shows me, and we all knew this already, is that if you ain’t a WR you ain’t getting looks from Savage. He just isn’t the type of QB who can make those quick progressive decisions once the ball is snapped.
The staff isn’t playcalling for shorter passes to the TEs either because with the habit Savage has of telegraphing which receiver he’ll go to it would make it ripe for INTs and pick 6s as the TO would be o close to the LOS the interceptor would be past our offense very quickly.
What jumps out at me in those percentages is 1) how very nicely Boyd has made to being a Wide Receiver who catches a good majority of the passes thrown to him and 2) we need to get Weatherspoon more playing time. Hes averaging 14+ yards per completion which is solid production. He’ll be around next season also.
As to the sacks – IMO what we are seeing is very much akin to what went on with our OL/QB over the last two seasons also. Both positions have to share the blame equally when looking at how many sacks we have. Some games (VT especially) Savage just didn’t have much time to throw. Other games his penchant for holding the ball waiting for that primary target to get open led to sacks also. As in anything football related it isn’t ever just one person’s fault when things go wrong.
I expect a good day for Savage this afternoon. If not then I think we’ll be hard pressed for a win.
We can’t lose today now !
@ wbb
The 4 starters I listed played huge minutes, they’ve all played together for years, well 3 of them and Robinson started all last year. The subs other than Young & Newkirk played minimal minutes. Artis 7 mins & Jones 8 mins.
That doesn’t suggest many substitutions at all.
They basically played 7 guys.
@ Justin
Not panicking (yet)! lol
Just a very perplexing performance at home against a scrub D2 team, lacking height, any top, middle or even 2 star recruits and 3000 miles from home.
Up early for the baby expo eh. Doing your prep work so you can get in & out quick ? Good idea.
Enjoyed reading your article, good luck today dude !
May you be back home for at least the 4rth quarter. 🙂
I look forward to your stuff every morning.
How can that be viewed?
Hiding under his seat?? That makes it easier to track, a Pitt fans last friend.
I’ve been there before. Youngstown St., Ohio, Toledo, Bowling Green etc. etc!!!
LOL
Have a great day Dr. Tom, and let’s get a winner!!
H2P!!
Time to get the tailgate going. Hail to Pitt!
Worse even under and misused their is no Adams or Birch in the future for Pitt.
The 5 stars and most 4 stars are going to avoid a program that played the #12 selected NBA pick who will probably be a started by playoff time or Birch who was the conference defensive player of the year after transfering from Pitt. Finally Taylor promised to play the 4 at 6-9 220 lbs, moved to center forced to gain 20 lbs that ruined his game and health.
Should still get the 12 wins by January but ACC does not have as many bottom feeders as Big East so winning 50% of confernce and getting into the NCAA may be a thing of the past.
Consider Zanna at center. Please
Pitt BB was successful in the BE and will
be successful in the ACC. Pitt does get
the 5 star guys however plays exciting
style of hoops in one of the best
arenas and student section in the country.
In Annapolis. Great FB weather. We need
a W today.
But you would think Pitt will wear down Navy and win. That is my hope.
Let’s have a good day today fellow Blatherites!!!
H2P!!!!
Luv Annapolis and wish I could have been there. I even have a friend who lives in Dover DE (about an hr away) who is attending, but just couldn’t get away this weekend
HTP! Submerge the Middies!
1) Navy
2) Cuse
3) UNC
4) GT
5) ND
6) Miami