(This is a weekly series of articles entitled “Monday Morning Quarterback”. I will try to post them two days after the football games are played so as to have our wilder emotions under control by then. It will be my take on the positives and the negatives we saw happen and a chance for commenters to agree or disagree and to add their own thoughts.)
We met the enemy and they are us. After some games this season it has been kind of hard to find three positives to list in this series’ articles. Today it is virtually impossible.
POSITIVES
1. The holder on our PATs. At least he didn’t fumble the ball. Seriously.
2. Our Running Backs. A while ago I mentioned ‘every RB not named James Conner’ in an article. I’ll do that again here. Ibrahim, Bennett and James all had good plays to try to keep us in the game. Ibrahim (3 carries for 66 yards) took a handoff down the left sideline for 50 yards to set up a Conner TD; Bennett, although he was one of the now-record breaking PITT fumbling crew, took a beautifully thrown wheel route from Anderson down the right side for a 35 yard TD and Chris James contributed a nice show of yards after the catch on a short dump pass from Voytik that James turned into a 23 yard gain.
I have to mention James Conner here also I guess. He had an absolutely horrendous fumble on a beautifully blocked and run 75 yard gin early in the game… only to put cruise control on the last ten yards and had the ball stripped for a GT touchback. Honest to God – that is the second time this season that Conner has let up at the end of a long run and he’s just not fast enough, flat speed fast enough, to believe he can’t be caught from behind. He had three TDs and came back into play after getting banged up so his was an up and down day.
Jaymar Parrish continues to shine as the FB in our offense. His blocking is a big part of why we get yards on the ground. Look at the 75 yarder by Conner again and focus on #31. Here is a nice block on the four yard TD by Conner and a great lead block to spring Ibrahim on his long run. He’s quietly becoming just as good a FB as Hynoski IMO and he’s only a SO this season.
3. I’m sort of reaching here because of all the obviously negative play yesterday but I think the Offensive Line played well. We ran the ball pretty well yesterday getting 198 yards on 31 carries for a good 6.4 yards per carry average. Even being completely overshadowed by the GT running game shouldn’t dampen our appreciation for the work the OL did. They did give up two sacks but one of those was Voytik’s running into a defender. More on him below. On the other sack Clemmings just got beaten by the GT DE who, by the way, had both sacks.
NEGATIVES
1. Boy, where to start with this section? Saturday’s game was such a poor showing that we can pick just about any unit on the team or coaching staff and point to them as being a contributor to the loss. I’ll start with the coaching staff. Last week I praised them, this week is a different story.
Two things jumped out at me as I watched the game. First was that regardless of where GT had the ball in the 1st quarter they ran all over us to scored 28 points. Granted, some of those were short fields (PITT’s 38, 14 and 35 yard lines) due to our fumbles but there was just no apparent defensive scheme that addressed the speed of GT’s ground game. That is on DC Matt House. That speed wasn’t just owned by their RBs and QB either; GT’s offensive line was quick and efficient in their blocking, especially on sweeps.
The second was that very poor and momentum killing decision to punt the ball on a 4th and 4 on the GT 44 yard line with two minutes left in the first half. I think every PITT fan and all the media types had to look at that decision and criticize it for playing it safe in a game where safe didn’t mean anything. If you look at the drive that the punt was the last play of you see that it wasn’t a great series. Voytik was sacked on a 1st and 10 to lose yardage, but then Ibrahim ripped of a nice 14 yard run that put us back on track. We had been moving the ball prior to that also.
We could have made that 1st down. Voytik was completing his short passes and our running game was effective. A pass to Holtz or a swing out pass to Parrish would have given those big strong kids a chance to get the yards needed. But even if we had failed it would have shown the players that Chryst was confident in their abilities and that Chryst was willing to take risks to win.
I’m of the belief that the players are the crucial parts of a winning team on any given game day. That opening five minutes wasn’t Paul Chryst or Joe Rudolph’s fault; it was on the individual fumblers. Some fans are saying that Chryst ‘didn’t have the team ready to play’ and I think that’s kind of silly given how the game started. Losing four fumbles in the first six plays is the biggest momentum and emotion killer there is and we saw that happen in a huge way yesterday.
What the coaching staff failed to do was to be able to get the kids calmed down and emotionally up to complete the rest of the game. Honest to God – at one point my wife turned to me and asked “Are the PITT players sure they are facing the right way?” That’s how bad it was on Saturday.
2. Our defense. What can really be said about this? I expected GT to come into town and rack up rushing yardage. That is what they have done all year and what they are great at. I figured we could hold them to around 300 yards rushing and a couple of TDs and then shut down their passing game.
What I didn’t figure on was that our defense was going to be so shell shocked after those first two fumbles and subsequent GT scores that they would give up the farm on a short pass to a WR in the right flat and a 79 yard YAC… on a 3rd and 9 obvious passing down. We bit on the fake sweep left and the receiver had a straight sprint to the goal line. That play made it 14-0 and showed that GT could score both ways.
The rest of the GT passing game, used very sparingly with only 10 attempts was efficient with 29.4 yards per completion but only one of the other completions actually led to a score. But really, with the running game traipsing over us like the Von Trappe family marching up the mountain it hardly mattered.
While I stated that the concept “getting the kids ready to play” is pretty vague to me as it is so hard to actually gauge, having a correct defensive scheme and making sure your players adhere to it is another matter. Our DC Matt House failed to do that yesterday. Vinopal had an interesting quote after the game …
“Senior safety Ray Vinopal indicated he didn’t recognize the defense that he was a part of only a few days ago. “Guys were not in the spots they were in all week in practice,” he said. “That’s how you get beat, and we got beat bad.”
This would lead one to believe that the coaching plans maybe weren’t so bad but I think that isn’t true. We know that House made adjustments in his defensive personnel prior to the game to get more speed into the LB corps but I discount that also because everyone on defense wasn’t ready to play – no matter how fast or slow they were.
With three rushing TDs in the first five minutes of the game House should have understood that his players were not disciplined out there and immediately made corrections. We ended up scoring 28 points and I’ll bet we would have scored more had we not had that horrendous start – House’s defense being able to hold GT to under 30 points would have made it a game but obviously that didn’t happen.
House didn’t realize that we don’t have the athletes on defense to ‘react and cover’ to that GT speed and system, an aggressive defense, albeit a gamble, would have at least given GT some concern out there. He screwed up this one big time.
I give Matt House an “F” for this game and as a punishment he has to write “I sucked as a DC this week” 612 times.
3. The officiating. I know that isn’t actually part of the PITT team but I thought it was so poor that it affected the level of play by the Panthers. Boyd’s fumble was miscalled. We were down 21-0 at that point and Boyd had just caught an 11 yard pass to get our series going and was stretching for that last yard to ensure he got the 1st down. That TO gave GT another seven points and in essence put the game out of reach.
However, the refs also killed our momentum later in the game when the GT QB bounced a pass to his WR for a 1st down. Obviously the refs didn’t like the new “Script” helmets. On a different note PITT only had two penalties called against the team so that was a improvement.
Ying & Yang
This is a special weekly section dedicated to the quarterback play of Chad Voytik so that we can look specifically at how he’s doing, whether he is progressing or not, and what his impact on the team and games are week to week at this point in the season.
Against GT Voytik was 15 for 20 (75%) for 193 yards, a 9.65 ypa rate, 0 TDs and 0 INTs for a 156 QB rating. Sounds pretty decent right? We’ll discuss that later on…
It’s no secret at this point in the season how I feel about Chad Voytik’s play at QB. I think it’s time the PITT fans see things for what they are and we all quit the wishful thinking that he’ll show any solid week-to-week improvement. That hasn’t happened and it most probably won’t.
Reading the news after the game and then the associated blogs and message boards I am rather surprised that some people felt that Voytik played a good game Saturday. I don’t, although I get that the numbers seem that way. I also don’t think he lost the game or gave GT chances to score save those two fumbles, and they scored only on the first one after opening play Voytik’s nine yard run.
No, it was the non-apparent aspects of the game; those plays and the decision making that can’t be measured by statistics that defined his play on Saturday. It is so very frustrating as a PITT fan to watch this QB drop back and make the same mistakes over and over. Bailing out of the pocket at the first hint of defensive pressure; missing wide open receivers and constantly throwing shorter more high percentage passes rather then keeping his eyes downfield and looking for a deeper completion, and finally, not having the poise or show of confidence that a D1 QB has to have to be successful.
He has developed a fear of attempting the deep pass and I’m not sure exactly why except that he’s not that good at doing it. That sounds silly but a QB has to attempt to go deep a few times a game because 1) Hell, it could maybe possibly happen right? And 2) it keeps the defense from crowding the LOS. But time and again he went directly to the shorter routes and hoped we’d get the YAC needed. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen one of our WRs or TEs cruising downfield wide open while Voytik is preoccupied elsewhere.
As we have done in the past, up until today and will into the future, we continually debate how good or bad Tino Sunseri was as a PITT QB. The one constant thing that I hear from his detractors is that ‘stats lie’ and his overall play was so poor it cost us football games. In a real sense that is exactly what we are seeing from Chad Voytik so far this season.
If you look strictly at the numbers you might think that for a 1st year QB his play isn’t terrible although some production numbers jump out as being poor. His yards per game at 154 and his yards per attempt at 6.8 are very sub-standard but everything else could be looked at as OK I suppose.
That isn’t the case. Voytik’s season and his play has been very “Sunseri-like” if you are the type of fan who believes that stats lie and can’t be trusted. It is getting almost weird that Voytik is finding ways to screw up his play enough to negatively affect his offense just like Tino did.
Look, the bottom line for Saturday was that the conditions were ripe, for various reasons, for Voytik to have a big passing game and that didn’t happen. GT had a poor pass defense coming into the game so right there we had a small advantage. Then when we were behind by a large score Chryst still didn’t trust Voytik’s skill as a passer enough to have him throw the amount of passes that we should have been throwing in the 2nd half of that game.
Instead he yanked Voytik for our 2nd string QB Trey Anderson who promptly went out and played well, and carried himself well and looked like a confident and competent D1 QB. Here is a telling difference: Voytik played 50 minutes and threw 20 passes. Anderson played for 10 minutes and they called 15 passing plays for him.
Anderson responded with a 8 for 15 passing for 135 yards (53.3%) for a 9.0 ypa rate, 1 TD and 0 INTs for a 150 QB rating. But a real hidden gem in there is that his yards per completion rate was at 16.8 ypc and that is excellent. On the season Anderson is carrying a 14.0 ypc rate which shows he’s not afraid to go out and throw deeper passes.
Yes, it was late in the game and yes, the score was out of hand but watching Anderson comport himself out there has to raise some eyebrows of those PITT fans who automatically assume that he can’t play ball at this level only because he walked on at first.
Voytik has had his chance to show what he can do as a starter and now maybe it’s time to start getting Anderson some practice with the 1st string offense and put him out there to show what he can do given the time and opportunity to play more regularly. Let’s not forget that Anderson will be a senior next year so if it does work out the dividends could payoff longer than just the rest of this season.
Let’s don’t throw Voytik to the bench and forget about him but if he’s not getting the job done as it should be done then let’s look elsewhere. If that fails, and it could, we can default back to Voytik and keep our fingers crossed.
There is one way that fans can make the script the de facto logo for Pitt. Stop buying the other stuff and only buy script Pitt gear. Stores won’t stock what doesn’t sell. Sooner or later the message will percolate up to the AD.
For Pitt’s sake, let’s hope not.
The BLOCK PITT actually looks BETTER than the SCRIPT!
OK, let me have it.
And we’ve learned that HARD WAY that it has no inherent MAGICAL SPELL to grant a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
At this point, my feeling is to pull out the SCRIPT once a year with the OLD Mesh Dark Mustard and Royal Blue Unis on HOMECOMING.
Let the Kids today carve out their OWN TRADITION.
PS… I do realize Pederson had everything to do with the BLOCK PITT just as he did with the tearing down of the Old Pitt Stadium. But, remember it “Pittsburgh” and not PITT that was his first choice.
And though I have hopes for Bertke, I think its time to switch to Trey and if he plays well, give him the inside track on next year as well — but no matter what, absolutely open the QB competition wide open next year, including for the kid from Philly coming in…tall, lefty, and throws a very accurate pass judging by his tape.
Also agree that if OPEN COMPETITION works for other BETTER Teams than Pitt… why not give Anderson a try?
It’s Chryst and that LOYALTY thing.
LMAO
So based on one (1) game, you are going to give up on the script. Wow.
Using your rationale, we would have given up on it after the first game using it way back in 1973, cause we tied Georgia.
And since you like to quote Congemi, Congemi said the script was clean and classy.
So lay off the script huh.
Even most of the guys who went to Pitt after 1996 who post on this board liked the idea of Pitt script.
And dare I say 100% of the people like me who went to Pitt from 1973, and even earlier, to 1996 wanted the script back. Since Pitt was always Pitt and will always be Pitt, regardless of what clown AD they hire that has a little dictator complex and who never even went to Pitt.
By the way when in the hell did you go to Pitt ?
And Pitt football tradition includes the Pitt script.
As other than the Jock Sutherland and Pop Warner years of pre-World War 2, which most folks don’t and won’t even think about, as it’s almost 100 years ago.
The most glorious era of Pitt football in recent memory was from 1973 to 1983. In case you forgot Pitt won it’s most recent (and looking like the last) national championship in 1976.
In that glorious era, Pitt wore the script on their helmets, on their uniforms and it was painted nicely at the 50 yard line at our own stadium.
Now what don’t you understand wanting to tie current Pitt to it’s most glorious recent era ?
Perhaps some of those great former football players who wore the script proudly might re-connect with the Pitt football program. Seems to me we should be using Hugh Green and Ricky Jackson among others to recruit some better players from the south.
Not disrespecting and in fact alienating them.
Coaching experience preferably at the NFL level.
Pitt has several such candidates from their glory years.
Russ Grimm who was an all-American at Pitt tough as nails and member of the 33-1 team. Super bowl winner and member of the notorious “hogs” of the Redskins. NFL Hall of Fame. Offensive coordinator of the Phoenix Cardinals that went to the super bowl.
He has is currently waiting for the right coaching offer. NFL coaching experience on a super bowl team, NFL Hall of Fame player and super bowl winner, temperament Pitt needs to restore. From the area. Although never big fan of Sal Sunseri, all-American from Pitt coached at top schools in SEC, connections in W. PA. consider for Defensive Coordinator.
I do not know if Grimm would be interested but put the money out and play on him restoring Pitt.
Grimm has never failed in anything he did and has the blue collar in your face that W. PA. football plays. Pitt will never be a west coast team, thank God, so get the best of the HOG’s and keep the top skilled players and respect 7 and 8 wins can be restored.
In each case if they would be interested in coaching at college level it would be a step up: Grimm from OC to head coach; Sunseri from position coach to DC; and Van Pelt from position coach to OC.
If more money boosters could be sold on the fact that only a Pitt man can win at Pitt and each of these men are excellent representatives of the school with connections to the pros.
I often disagree with PittofDreams but probably never as much as his opinion that block Pitt is more attractive than script Pitt .. but beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, I guess.
I would be interested in seeing Anderson play in a more pressure situation, as opposed to in a late game situation against the back ups when the game is already decided. He looked great on his first drive the other day but curiously not the second drive when he threw 2 passes that should have been picke and then followed with some overthrows. But he looked to have a good arm with a grasp of the offense.
Sadly, I have no answer for the other side of the ball, though … and it’s scary to me right now that we are losing our 3 best players next year.
Can anyone really watch how he’s played so far this year and honestly say that the young man is a good decision maker out there? He’s hesitant before and after the snap and can’t execute any progressions at all hardly to complete passes for maximum effect. That’s why I put it in football terms:
“I’d say that both Sunseri and Stull had a better grasp of understanding and playing QB in college football than does Voytik. With Savage I think we had to really dumb-down the playbook.”
Sorry if you don’t like what I said or if you think its harsh but he’s playing rather poor football in a position that demands in-depth knowledge of what he’s supposed to do the ability to make correct and decisive actions.
Lost – Grimm can’t coach at PITT until he gets a degree and he never has. That is a requirement to be in any staff coaching position… in all sports if I’m not mistaken.
I like the Script but am not in love with the rest of the old uniform, the blue and mustard gold. I really like the uniforms we have now, classy, clean and simple, and I thought the Script on the helmet is a nice touch.
BTW – if anyone actually believes that SP was the sole decider or even the strongest voice in the decision to tear down the stadium and move the team to Heinz Field they are mistaken. That decision was far over his head and was between the Chancellor, BoT, certain donating Alumni (not just Peterson) and the City of Pittsburgh itself (along with the Steelers actually since they actually hold the full Heinz contract until 2031). All of them had way, way more input into the concept and decisions that were made then the AD had.
Also, let’s not forget that the South Side Sports facilities also came about with the decision to do away with the stadium. That shared facility is a huge draw in recruiting and is the jewel in the Athletic Department’s crown. It was conceived and constructed with UPMC so there is another player in the decision making mix.
So there was a lot more going on than just tearing down the stadium.
You guys tend to endow much too much power onto the AD at PITT. He’s an higher level employee yes, but like any other employee anything that is going to affect the University in a dramatic way and in it’s national and international reputation, have to be vetted by higher authority then approved or disapproved.
Emel has often accused his buddy Tino of padding his stats against lesser opponents (although I suggest that he look at what Tino did against the best 5 opponents Pitt played in 2012, two of them BCS teams.) Then he should look at the stats Savage padded against New Mexico and Duke, and then look at what he did the rest of the year.
I could only imagine how much ridicule he would have had at Savage, if Savage was unfortunate enough to be the QB here in 2011.
I bleed blue and gold just like most folks on this blog. I have come to the realization that coaching at Pitt is not a destination job. Just look at what Johnny Major’s did to us just after he orchestrated a National Championship.
GA Tech is my other alma mater. Comparing programs, Pitt is on par with Tech. Except that Tech has deep pocket donors. Several years ago, a Coca Cola heir donated over 41 million dollars just to their football program. Some of this money is being spent at Nike where Tech has over thirty different uniforms (like Oregon). Now, does a uniform (or logo) a team make, certainly not. But it brings a smile to its fans. That’s what sports should be all about. Football is entertainment.
For the most part, like GA Tech, Pitt is a middle of the road football program. Tech has standards as does Pitt. Unless Tech and Pitt turn into a UNC or FLA State or Penn State, they will stay that way and that’s okay with me.
Coaches will come after Chryst but don’t expect anything different from Pitt’s football program. Just take a deep breath and enjoy the bumpy ride. Hail to Pitt.
As always, my opinion.
If you think what SP did just on a one month period from about 12/8/10 theu 1/10/11 was not an unmitigated disaster, that would have gotten him fired from just about any school THAT CARED, then I might just as well end this right now.
Firing someone is just half the job … and he even botched that. Yet, he didn’t have a fucking clue who was available in the market or what the prevailing wage was. He approached Golden and Holgerson first, but they were already gone … and then he went after two CUSA coaches whos totally scoffed at him with his $1.4M offer (400k more than what Wanny was making.)
AND THAT WAS JUST ABOUT THE SAME THING HE DID AT NEBRASKA ONLY 7 YEARS EARLIER … except he had deeper prockets then and still couldn’t hire a competetnt coach (at a reknown FB school nonetheless!!!!) He is a moron who has lowered the expectations of Pitt FB greatly in just a few years!
You may be right and he may rise to the level of all time greats but he is NOT there yet.
H2P!!!
Sometimes you just love to exaggerate a connection of UNRELATED POINTS in order to discredit a Point of View you disagree with.
Did you major in Philosophy by chance?
I still say putting him on defense is a much better utilization of assets because our DEs just aren’t getting it done. I’m not giving up on Soto yet, but he has been disappointing this year.
emel was dead on with his assessment. i’m not sure why you keep hammering the script when it is what clearly identifies pitt??
Anderson got a RedShirt last year. He has one more to go.