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December 1, 2014

Not Taking It Well

Filed under: Football — Chas @ 8:32 am

I guess by the transitive property Miami partisans feel that they too lost to Akron.

It was a theme at halftime.

It was a theme by blogs and beat writers.

This embarrassing 35-23 defeat to a 6-6 Pittsburgh team that had lost by 11 points to Akron –– Akron!!! — was a new low, but also a clear indication that change is needed.

Yes, it happened. Pitt lost to Akron. No one is proud of it. No one feels particularly good about it. But we are living with it. Just taking it day by day.

I would think that they would be more bothered that Pitt won a game on their home field for the first time in 51 years. Or the fact that Pitt finished in the Coastal with a 4-4 record — better than the Canes 3-5. Not losing to a team that lost to a MAC team. But sure.

Miami under Al Golden has hit the Randy Shannon level.

Saturday marked the first time since 2007 that the defensively challenged Hurricanes ended their regular season with three consecutive losses. The last time they did that, under Randy Shannon, they finished 5-7 and didn’t qualify for a bowl.

At .500 overall and 3-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Canes have already earned the right to play in the post season.

Al Golden’s 4-year mark is 28-21. Randy Shannon’s was 28-22 and led to his termination. Al Golden will probably get another year, at least. There’s the change of their college president coming. Too much change at the top for them to add to the turnover — this year. An assistant coach shake-up could be in the works.

Let me just finish this thought on Miami and Al Golden. It is clear that Golden learned well the lesson of sticking with a gameplan. No matter what.

Tyler Boyd had 190 kick return yards and 72 receiving yards. Yet, the Canes kept kicking it to him and left their cornerback without help the entire game. Not even bothering to kick it away from Pitt’s most dangerous playmaker. The guy they had to have gameplanned for.

It’s mindblowing. Oh, and the special teams coach for Miami. Head coach Al Golden.





@@@@

The Canes are like Pitt a Skelton of its
former self. Worst Miami team I rememeber
seeing. However their major supporter
is in prison. A coincidence?

Hoping for the best bowl possible not
in Motown and an opponent from one
of the major conferences.

Also a huge push in the recruiting
front.

Comment by JR 12.01.14 @ 8:43 am

AS much as you want to blame Golden, I think it is apparent that the U has serious diva issues. This team lost a heartbreaker to FSU 2 weeks ago. I can understand the letdown last week to UVa, but no excuse for final home game.

But the key is, despite all of their talent, if you smack them in the mouth and don’t back down, they will retreat. I personally thught he key to the game was Boyd’s 52 yard return after they came out in the 2nd half and drove it right down the field for a TD. After his return, we did the very same to them … and regathered the momentum.

2 other keys:

– our run defense was very good
– our QB was much better than theirs (even with his ilness)

Comment by wbb 12.01.14 @ 8:52 am

Note that Al Golden was probably Stevie’s top choice to replace Wanny .. but was already grabbed by Miami. I believe he was the first that our AD contacted back then

Comment by wbb 12.01.14 @ 8:56 am

Certainly we fall into the middle class here…and we definitely are benefitting!

link to cbssports.com

Comment by Tony77019 12.01.14 @ 9:32 am

Something to salivate over: College Football News latest bowl projections have Pitt, Penn State meeting in the Detroit Lions Bowl (quick lane?)

link to cfn.scout.com

Comment by Tony77019 12.01.14 @ 9:39 am

ILOVE IT! I have absolutely no sympathy for Miami. The one thing that this team does very well is run the ball. couple that with better quarterback play and a stronger defensive performance and this is a much better team than the one that was losing close game in the middle of the season. Great win for the Panthers. Yes I realize Miami wasn’t Alabama, but when things were bleak, they put together two very strong performances to close out the regular season.

Comment by Justinian 12.01.14 @ 9:39 am

They seem to be in denial.

Their QB is HORRIBLE. Talent? What talent? Their secondary is HORRIBLE. And who coaches special teams?

Comment by JohnRamella 12.01.14 @ 9:54 am

Miami’s Brad Kaaya praises Pitt’s defense: “They had our patterns figured out pretty well…”

link to miamiherald.com

Comment by Tony77019 12.01.14 @ 9:57 am

For those of us who love the game of golf, a horrible round of golf stinks no matter how you slice it, but righting the ship for the last few holes going par, par, birdie, to finish, feels totally different in the bar afterwards than letting a mediocre round further degenerate by limping home double bogey, triple bogey, double bogey.

Pitt has salvaged a debacle of a season with these last two season ending wins while Miami, in a death spiril, is just about ready to impact the ground in flames! Glad we could help.

Just like last season, this impending minor bowl game that Pitt has earned the right to play in by coming back from the dead, is going to be an extremely important game to rescue this program from future implosion. The difference is that this young team, by next year won’t be so young or inexperienced any more.Just consider some of the major players for the Panthers this season, James, Amara, Maddox, Blair, Wriggins, Jennings (did I miss any true freshmen) were all finishing up their HS studies at this time last year. Now they’re the seasoned Pitt guys who have valuable game time under their belts going into 2015. Same situation concerning game experience goes for a slew of underclassmen that saw their first significant playing time this year as well.

Now, even though we squandered what could have easily been a 8-4 regular season record by not showing up ready to play for EVERY GAME, hopefully these lessons will not be forgotten by these guys who experienced that heartbreak first hand.

Football is such a game of momentum and emotion. Saturday Pitt had both on their side and never relinguished them. That’s how you win football games. What ever bowl game that the Panthers get rewarded with, we need to win that game. This just might be the corner that we’ve all been waiting to turn during HCPC’s tenure.

Don’t forget how we let Iowa back into the game in the second half or how we got pounded by a lessor foe when Akron beat up on us. Remember how easy it was to let both Duke and UNC out of the bag to steal victory from us when we took our I off the ball at the end.

Those memories are invaluable and can serve as building blocks for next season’s campaign. There is hope for a good to great year in 2015 but first we have one more game to win this season. One game at a time.

Hail to Pitt!

Comment by Dr. Tom 12.01.14 @ 9:58 am

Losing their big tight end to injury early in the game also played in our favor. He was eating us up on third down in the first quarter. Bring on PSU in any bowl game. We can beat them. Why wait till 2016? H2P!!

Comment by Panther Fan in Hoopieland 12.01.14 @ 10:06 am

Anybody else realize our four conference wins were against Cuse, BC, Miami and VT. We’re Big East Champs guys!

Comment by Pabs 12.01.14 @ 10:07 am

@ Pabs re 4 BE wins

That doesn’t speak well for BE vs ACC football.

Comment by 9-2,8-4,11-1,11-1,11-1 12.01.14 @ 10:11 am

Dr. Tom and wbb, Excellent comments! Let’s hope the Panthers can keep things moving in the right direction and build on this strong finish. Hail to Pitt!

Comment by Justinian 12.01.14 @ 10:14 am

Our downfall this season was not being able to finish against Iowa after dominating them in the first half. This caused us to come out flat and mail it in vs. Akron. That was Voytik’s worst game, when he missed wide open receivers. Also the O-line and Conner could not get it done.

Using Conner’s legs against Va Tech, probably saved the season and is when our O really started to play well.

The 5 fumble game set a new low point. Also started the woes on D. Had no answers for three games in a row. Lucky that Syracuse flat out is the worst and our guys just wanted it way more than Miami.

Interesting that we beat all old Big East teams, but I think the most telling is we lost to 6 teams with quality QB’s. Mostly due to no pass rush, but also to the ones that could run.

I hope that we use this win to recruit some guys that can get to the QB cause that is the greatest need.

Comment by gc 12.01.14 @ 10:47 am

I meant Voytik’s legs against Va Tech.

Comment by gc 12.01.14 @ 10:48 am

John Ramella, what talent you ask? The talent to should have beaten FSU a couple of weeks ago in one of the few games that FSU was likely primed to play. In fact, if it wasn’t for a freak pass deflection that ended up in one of the Noles receiver’s hands for a TD, they may have beaten them.

The talent to beat the living crap out of UNC and Duke, two thing we couldn’t do.

Comment by wbb 12.01.14 @ 11:01 am

TRUST ME – that team is loaded with talent — just no attitude. WE ahould call them the Miami Jonathan Baldwins!

Comment by wbb 12.01.14 @ 11:03 am

@ Tony, thanks for the Miami Herald link. I LOLed multiple times reading their fans comments about their,, coach, team and season. Many seemed identical to the woes us Pitt fans have expounded on for weeks now. Best comment concerned bowl projections for Miami, “we’ll probably end up in the K Y Jelly Bowl playing against PSU. They’ll present the Sandusky Trophy to the worst coach at halftime”. Frickin hilarious!

Comment by Dr. Tom 12.01.14 @ 11:28 am

dr. Tom…loved the golf reference. I just had that round…

Comment by Dan 72 12.01.14 @ 12:01 pm

Who didn’t almost beat FSU this year? C’mon. The Miami QB was HORRIBLE. He couldn’t hit open receivers if his life depended upon it. And that #1 Artie Burns… he sucked too. His best defensive play was grabbing the receiver!!

Sorry… I don’t believe *their* hype. It’s all smoke and mirrors.

Comment by JohnRamella 12.01.14 @ 12:23 pm

Miami almost beat FSU … c’mon, John R, get on the agenda!

They’re divas .. when something don’t go their way, they quit. Remember last year when the immediately scored on us a few times? They looked like the one of the best around.

This has been their history for past 12 years or so.

Comment by wbb 12.01.14 @ 12:58 pm

link to espn.go.com

FSU had to outscore Miami 13 to 3 in last quarter to win by 4

Comment by wbb 12.01.14 @ 1:00 pm

John Ramella,

Spent some time researching it this morning.

ELEVEN of Miami’s 22 starters were listed by Scout as either 4-star or 5-star recruits.

Duke Johnson was rated the 5th-best back in his class. Chickillo was the 3rd-best DE nationally in his class. OL Flowers and Darling were 4-star guys. Kaaya, Dobard, Harris, Perryman, Kirby, Burns and Carter were also 4-stars at their respective positions.

The rest were almost entirely 3-stars with high-level SEC, ACC, Big Ten & Big XII offers.

Those are just the starters; I didn’t look at the rest of the guys who played.

Outside of Boyd, Conner, Clemmings, Holtz and maybe Rotheram and Todd Thomas, I’m not sure anyone in Pitt’s lineup would have cracked the 2-deep on Miami’s depth chart, let alone start there.

Based on pedigree and experience, Pitt probably had no business winning that game. How Miami chose to play is their fault, not Pitt’s.

Comment by Stoosh 12.01.14 @ 3:23 pm

FSU did almost lose to:

Okie State (37-31)
Clemson (23-17)
Notre Dame (31-27)
Miami (30-26)
BC (20-17)
Florida (24-19)

None of these teams had a particularly good year.
Okie State has to beat Okla. this week to go 6-6.
Their only wins against rent-a-wins and the only 3 certain bowl-less teams of the Big 12 (Kansas, ISU & TT). Clemson while 9-3, got easily handled by any ranked teams they played, the latest 6-28 to Georgia Tech. ND, lost 5 of their last 6 to go 7-5 having most recently being routed by USC.
Miami, well, we beat them, nothing else be said. So did UVA, 30-13. BC, ditto. Florida played so poorly, they got their coach fired.

So John is right. Saturday’s game was strange in that Kaaya has the best QB rating in the entire ACC, had thrown 23 TD’s to only 11 picks.

But he was pretty terrible against us, when there really wasn’t much pressure even applied to him by our defensive front.

He actually made our secondary look competent. When we all know it isn’t.

Go figure.

Comment by Emel 12.01.14 @ 3:31 pm

Pitt of Dreams: Where are you, dude? You predicted the victory. Time to bask in your prescience.

You beat us all.

Comment by Tony77019 12.01.14 @ 5:29 pm

Glad the boys made right at the end of the year, but losing to Akron and botching the FG v. Duke; the lows the can’t be erased. Should be 8-4 and proud of it. Unfortunately the MAC ruins our season again, See: BGSU, Toledo, OU and now Crackron

Comment by Pauly P 12.01.14 @ 9:58 pm

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