LINK: Pitt football trio honored by ACC

PITT’S GRIGSBY, MADDOX AND OLLISON
EARN ACC PLAYER OF THE WEEK ACCOLADES

PITTSBURGH—Three Pitt players were honored by the Atlantic Coast Conference today for their performances in the Panthers’ season-opening 45-37 victory over Youngstown State.

Senior outside linebacker Nicholas Grigsby was named the ACC’s Linebacker of the Week, sophomore cornerback Avonte Maddox was named the Specialist of the Week and redshirt freshman running back Qadree Ollison was named the Rookie of the Week.

Grigsby (Trotwood, Ohio/Trotwood-Madison) had a high-impact day against YSU, compiling 10 tackles, two quarterback sacks and three total TFLs—all career highs. His TFLs went for 19 lost yards and he added one pass breakup and one QB hurry.

Maddox (Detroit, Mich./Martin Luther King) made one of the game’s crucial plays on special teams. After Youngstown State pulled within 17-13 with a pick six late in the first half, Maddox took the ensuing kickoff 89 yards for a touchdown to put the Panthers back up by double-digits. It was Pitt’s first kickoff return TD in four years and provided a huge swing of momentum back to the Panthers.

Maddox, who battled leg cramps during the game, averaged 46.7 yards on three kick returns (140 yards). From his corner position, he had six tackles—including a key stop on 4th-and-1—and three PBUs.

Ollison (Niagara Falls, N.Y./Canisius) entered the YSU opener as Pitt’s third-string tailback. He finished it having achieved one of the most dazzling debuts in school history.

Ollison ripped off 207 yards and a touchdown on just 16 carries—all in the second half. He came off the bench when James Conner and Chris James left the game due to injuries. Ollison set a Pitt record for rushing yards by a freshman in a season opener (eclipsing Dion Lewis’ 129 yards vs. YSU in 2009).

Ollison’s first career carry was a 46-yard sprint and his third carry was a 71-yard touchdown. He later added a 52-yard dash during which he broke multiple tackles, tight-roped the sideline and then dragged a defender several yards to the YSU one.

VIDEO: “The Best of Ollison vs. YSU”

The Panthers (1-0) play at Akron (0-1) this Saturday at 6 p.m. The game can be viewed online via ESPN3 and heard on the Pitt IMG Sports Network and radio flagship 93.7 The Fan.

A lot of us came close or were exact margin of victory which was 8; I said 220 so mine was 7. Almost all of us were way under the amount of points scored.

link to pittblather.com

Will have the next one up Thursday or Friday…

link to sbnation.com

There is one for Iowa & everyone else on Pitt’s schedule. But after the third game, preseason write ups are old history.

Which suggests he’s had much more success running an offense with a QB who can also hoof it. As opposed to one who can’t.

For ESPN3 the answer is no. All you need is an internet service provider that provides ESPN3. If your internet is through any of the major providers (i.e. Comcast, Verizon FiOS, etxc.) then you are ok. You will need to add your ISP account credentials. If you want to get fancy you can buy a Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, etc. and then watch it on your big screen. I use a Chromecast because it was cheapest to buy.

The 2nd way is via an xBox. You’ll need a gold subscription. Don’t ask me how to do this. I have an xBox One for the kids and don’t even know how to turn it on.

Plenty of additional info on the interwebs.

A ton of information – thanks for your efforts (along with Chas and Justin).

Are you going to the Akron game?

I was told by the Alumni Assoc. that they have around 150 people signed up for the Pitt alumni pre-game event.

Would be such a relief to see a crisp passing game against the Zips – and no turnovers by Pitt.

Go Pitt.

Firestone Country Club.

Do they still call it that, even though Firestone is now owned by Bridgestone ?

Justin is doing an in-depth article about the up coming game… but I’m sure it won’t be the same format as the SB Nation. I have to say for as much info Bill Connely puts out there it gets kind or hard to sift through… I’ll wait for our superstar writer to post his take on Akron tomorrow morning.

Emel & guys… It isn’t just me saying that there is a competition (however it shakes out) between the two QBs and that Peterman’s gong to get more PT – here is Cardiac Hill’s take on Narduzzi’s thoughts re: the QBs:

link to cardiachill.com

I still think it will be Voytik when the dust settles. My thing about Peterman all along has been 1) that he’s much more talented than you guys thought when you said he’d be coming to Pitt only to be the 3rd QB for depth and 2) that the coaching staff, especially Jim Chaney, really likes Peterman and his deep game.

It is evident that the staff still isn’t 100% sold on Chad Voytik though so I do think it’s good that the staff is making them play each other for the job. I think this is the fun thing about college ball. Good teams do this all the time when the incumbent isn’t

Akron Week

PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO: Narduzzi Akron Preview

PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT (HTML LINK): Narduzzi Web Transcript

Opening Remarks:

“Just to give you a recap on the Youngstown State game: sitting in here, meeting with our team last night, we’re happy to be 1-0. The kids did a good job finishing the game off. It’s not really about how you start, it’s about how you finish. We went back and watched the offensive, defensive and special teams playing, and you can pull things from [each phase]. There’s a lot of positives that can come out of it. As coaches, we do try to focus on the positives to start off with. Then we can evaluate and work on the negatives.

“When you look at it offensively, any time you talk about a football game, you look at rushing the football. You have to rush the football—325 yards. It was quite a day on the ground and we could have had a lot more. There’s attention to details, as far as getting the right block, pulling tighter as we run some of our outside runs. We had 11 explosive gains. Coach [Jim] Chaney is always talking about how we have about an 85-percent chance of winning if we have eight or more [explosive gains], and we had 11. If we continue to have 11 explosive gains we have a great chance of winning the game.

“Some of the negative parts of the offense: we still need to sustain more drives. There were too many three and outs and just not staying on the field and winning that time possession. Those explosive gains happening. One play, bang. Second play, bang. It’s tough on the defense but then we’ll have a three and out. We just have to sustain more drives and pounce on the defense and tire them out. A couple other things we have to focus on is keeping control of the football. We had three turnovers [on offense] and our defense did a good job in those situations. However, we can’t turn the ball over and give them short field. They won the field possession more, I think by 32 yards, so we need to get that down as well.”

“Defensively there’s a lot of positives—a lot more than I thought on game day. There’s a lot more positives than negatives on game day. In the fourth quarter, there’s those two big plays that get us up in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter has to be our best. We gave up a big pass and run and you can’t do that. It’s just little details.

“When you look at the positives, the first half was very solid. We had five sudden-change situations. I had a pretty good feel of what was happening during the game, watching on the sidelines. [YSU] had the ball four times across the 50-yard line: the 40, 37, 46 and the 9-yard line. They also had it at the 46 which came from a 54-yard drive. Fifty yards or less came up five times and they only came up with six points. That could have very well been double-digit points easily, and I thought our defense stood up to that challenge.

“One thing you’ll notice on a sudden change situation is we’ll gather our defense together to say, ‘This is what we play for.’ We can’t give up big plays in the fourth quarter, or any time really. When you look at it offensively and defensively, we only had two penalties—which I thought for an opener you typically have a lot of penalties. We had one on defense, I think it was a [pass interference] and then we had a procedure on offense. So for the most part, our offense, defense and special teams felt pretty good. Special teams, we had three penalties there. Two delay of games and we can’t have those and we can’t burn timeouts. I had to use a timeout in the end, in the two-minute situation, to stop them. That’s where we are team-wise.”

On James Conner’s injury:

“As far as the health of our football team: we came out of it a little banged up, to say the least. On Saturday, James Conner came out of the game early in the second quarter. We thought he was O.K. He came out and was jumping around, being fun and enthusiastic saying, ‘Coach, I’m fine.’ But after further evaluation, doctors looked at him on Sunday, and he has a knee issue that’s going to need to be repaired. He probably, or he will, it’s so hard to believe, but we’ll lose him for the season with an MCL [injury]. There’s nothing [good] about this as a coach to come up here and just feel awful for him. There is not a guy that worked harder than him during camp. I don’t think he missed a single snap, play, practice. I don’t think there’s anyone hurt more than him. I’m disappointed for him and his family. It’s tough to say [this news].

“I have confidence in the rest of those guys, though. You saw what [Qadree] Ollison did in the game. He rushed for over 200 yards, highlighted by that sticker on your helmet [awarded] from College Game Day, which is exciting for him. Chris James, Darrin Hall, we have them back there stepping up and making a play after a guy goes down. So we feel good with where we can go with that. Obviously we feel sad for James and everything he has to go through. It’s tough but our kids will stick with him and he’ll continue to be a big part of this football team this season.”

On Akron:

“Next on deck. They took a defeat to a Top 20 team, Oklahoma. Both are good football teams. I watched both sides of the ball just to see the new stuff as opposed to [just watching] the old stuff from last year. They’re loaded up. They’re a good football team. Defensively, they’re very similar to Youngstown State as far as transfers, defensive ends, and are very well coached by Terry Bowden. Their defense is very similar to what we do. They’re very well coached and will be a challenge. It’s a road game for us so we’ll get to travel out to Akron on Friday and take our game on the road.”

On Conner’s specific injury:

“It’s a torn MCL. I’m not a doctor, but there’s different ways to deal with this. When you look at it, for his sake and health, the doctors make that call, and ultimately James. It’s certainly not the coach making that call. It’s his best interest to get it repaired now. You can brace it up for five or six weeks and see how he comes out of that, and maybe we’ll only lose him for half a season. But I don’t think that’s right for him, as a player and his future self.”

On if getting the surgery was suggested by Conner:

“I don’t think it was suggested. He had options, but he didn’t suggest it. The doctors gave him options and there’s no question about what the right thing to do was. I think he needs to get it fixed.”

On the difficulty of telling the team this news:

“I didn’t tell the team. It was difficult telling [the media]. I didn’t tell the team. James went around, after lift last night, and told some guys, so they got to know. I thought he should be the one to tell his team. We’ll talk about it [as a team] probably tomorrow.”

On if losing a player like Conner brings the team closer together:

“It could be whatever the coach lets it be. It’s going to pull us a lot closer because guys are going to have to step up like they did on Saturday. That’s been our motto all of the time, all year. We’ve had some crazy instances happening, ever since the summer when Jaryd [Jones-Smith] went down. It’ll pull us closer together—that’s our jobs as coaches to keep it that way. Our guys have a lot of confidence in each other.”

On if Conner is going to have surgery this week:

“Yes, probably.”

On Chris James:

“Chris is going to be fine I think. He’s another one of those guys who left the game and we expect to have him on Saturday.”

On the running back depth:

“I mean, you wish you had the ACC Player of the Year. You feel a little less [good] about [the depth] than you normally would, but there’s no doubt that we have guys that can make great plays. We have an offensive line that created some holes for all the backs on Saturday.”

On James Conner’s current mental state:

“He’s a great player. He’s a tough one. Obviously, he’s disappointed. He’ll come out with a statement, but he’s a guy that wants to play. That guy is a football player. He wants to play the game. If he could tape it up and go, he would.”
On what it means for Conner’s NFL Draft prospects:
“That’s way ahead. We don’t have time to talk about that right now. He needs to just focus on the issue at hand and that’ll eventually come.”

On Chad Voytik’s performance Saturday:

“Chad had a good game. I mean, obviously he maybe had some first game jitters or whatever. It’s not his first game, but it’s a new season and a new system. I think he made a lot of good decisions with the things you don’t see. With the mental part of the game, he does a great job. Obviously we’d like him to throw it a little bit better. He threw a quick three step to those guys, it’s those turnovers we talk about. He’s got to keep getting better every game, and it’s a work in progress.”

On Darryl Render’s status Saturday:

“Darryl Render could’ve probably gone if we wanted him to. “He was down pregame and went, and could’ve gone, but it was one of those things where we felt good with those other guys. We didn’t need to put him out on the field and get him hurt. He’ll be fully ready to go this week, he’ll practice all week without a doubt. It was nice to be able to get the win and be able to hold back a couple of players. You know Tyler Boyd will be back this week, so it’ll be nice to see 23 out there running around, and Rori Blair as well. They’re two guys that will help us a bunch.”

On which play James Conner was injured on:

“I couldn’t give you the play number, but it was sometime in the second quarter. He was on a carry toward their sideline, and it didn’t look bad on tape. He felt pretty good afterwards.”

On the offensive line rotation:

“What rotation? (Smiles.) It was good. Artie [Rowell], we kind of held him a little bit early just to make him feel good. He had gotten hurt a year ago to the day, so it was just good for him to take it in. Then he looked good in the second half. I think he played the whole second half.

“Yeah, so he went the whole second half. It was good to get his feet wet, and he felt good. It was good with [Adam Bisnowaty] being out there and [Alex] Bookser and Brian [O’Neill]. We had a good rotation going and we’ll probably get a couple more guys in there as well.”
On redshirt freshmen offensive tackles Alex Bookser and Brian O’Neill:

“We’re going to use both guys. If you look at the amount of reps out there, we’re going to have to rotate guys, period. So it’s good that they’re able to play, move around and play different positions. We’ll continue to try and shuffle those guys around, give guys breaks and try to play our best seven or eight players out there, and then rotate them through.”

On how the team communicated on Saturday:

“Pretty good. We talked about the delay of games, we used at least a timeout when we had a headphone problem. We burned a timeout and I didn’t want to burn another one on a field goal or a punt, so we took those delay of games. It was five yards, you figure we’d still be able to kick a field goal through the uprights. But the communication was good, like I expected. We practiced that in the scrimmages, so that wasn’t anything new for us.”

On Tyler Boyd in the return game this week:

“He’ll be returning punts, and kickoffs. He’ll do it all.”

On his impressions of Akron:

“Defensively speaking, they have two explosive defensive ends, as I said already. Their front seven is nasty. They came in here last year and got the best of us, so they’re very sound defensively. They play a lot of two shell, corners coverage, so they’ll get their safeties active in the run game. When you rush for 325 yards in the opener, they’ll be geared up to stop the run. But we have [Tyler Boyd] out there and Dontez Ford. I think having two of those guys out there on either side, wherever they may be—maybe they’re on the same side—that’ll open things up a little bit. They can’t pack the box too much with those guys out there.

Their defense has been stingy. They’re aggressive, they attack. The defensive tackle Cody Grice is an explosive guy inside, so we’re going to control him. He’s a penetrator and tries to cause havoc in the backfield. Then offensively, they played few quarterbacks. One rushing the ball for a little bit more yards than the other guy. They’re really just kind of moving guys in and out of that position, so they’re still trying to find themselves at that position.

They have a very good tailback that ran for a lot of yards on us last year and some very good receivers out there. They’re going to be a Baylor-type offense. They’re going to spread the field and they’ll have receivers lined up on each sideline, so we’ll have to prepare for all of their splits and some of the tempo.”

On how the receivers played on Saturday:

“Well, when you rush for 300 yards, you know. Obviously if they stuff your run game up then you’d get back out there a little bit more. First of all, I know one thing, if you’re going to run the ball you better do a good job blocking, and they did. They ate some blocks down field as well as sprung some blocks. George Aston played very well as a fullback, getting up and blowing people up. The receiving core as a whole did a pretty good job. Some of those 50-50 balls we didn’t come down with. But overall, we have to do a better job of getting them the ball, really.”

On if strong safeties Pat Amara and Jordan Whitehead showed something on Saturday the coaching staff didn’t see in camp:

“Not that we didn’t see in camp. Overall, it was just some little details. Just attention to detail. We lost the focus near the end, I think, of understanding where we were and why we played a good first half. Pat did some good things and some things, with the new defense that they’re learning, that we have to continue to learn. But both of them showed that they can play back on the hash. Terrish Webb as well. Don’t forget about him. He did a great job playing very well in the field safety spot. We’re still trying to figure it out. It’s an evaluation for them, for us as coaches, to really see where they were on the first game. It doesn’t matter what they did in the past, it matters what they did for the team on Saturday. We’ll continue to evaluate that position, like all. Just like [Mike] Caprara and Bam Bradley at the Money linebacker spot. They both played solid in there. We need to continue to rotate and keep guys fresh.”

On quarterback Nate Peterman getting a series moving forward:

“I think we’re going to put him in there. If he doesn’t come in and throw a pick, you probably give him another series [vs. YSU]. You kind of look at that and go, ‘Uh, oh.’ We have a lot of confidence in Nathan, we really do. We have a lot of confidence in both of those [quarterbacks]. Maybe we should’ve put him back out there and gave him a second chance. I think everybody deserves those, so Nathan is definitely going to get another opportunity to go out there and show what he’s got.”

On Reggie Mitchell’s health:

“I believe we have a chance [to play him on Saturday]. It’s a day-to-day thing. I can’t guarantee it like I can’t guarantee anybody coming back, but I think we have a good chance of getting him back. We’ll see day to day. We’ll see how he practices. He’ll probably be there, but does he practice all week? I don’t feel good playing guys that don’t practice, so we’ll see if he can practice by Wednesday and we’ll see where he is.”

On giving up big plays in the fourth quarter:

“A couple of [details]. Just alignment, just perfect alignments and stuff like that. Little detail things like that that maybe they forgot about how important they were. We sat here last night and I talked about, ‘Did you learn something?’ Then they’re like, ‘Oh yeah.’ You know? They get it, so that’s the important thing.”

On Akron quarterback Tra’Von Chapman:

“I recruited him [at Michigan State]. I watched him on his [high school] practice field. Obviously he’s a very good football player. We did not offer him at Michigan State, but I thought he was a very good, athletic quarterback that can throw the ball down the field and make plays with his feet. He’s a good football player. We’ll prepare for both [quarterbacks], and I think we’ll see both.”

A oh, Chuck Amato is still DC for the Zippy’s.

link to gozips.com

Have we ever beaten this guy in a game he’s coached against us ?

After being #19 in the country last year at 0.898

1) Lou and Hi’s Deli, West Market St — closed about 4 years ago
2) Blossom Music Center — nicer than Star Lake, which was modeled after it
3) Akron Children’s Hosp — you can look out of it and see AA minor league baseball
4) Akron St Vincent St Mary — HS of Jerome Lane and

H2P

One was firstrowsports although I think that one got taken down.

Here’s another one.

link to xn--vipbx-p29a.tv

You got to watch what you click on, and don’t download anything they suggest.

Aussie rules football is great. Watch it on FoxSports sometimes.

Love the Magpies !

The three teams PSU beat in their last 10 were Temple, Indiana, and Boston College.

Chris Dokish ?@ChrisDokish 22h22 hours ago
James Franklin’s best win so far at PSU was against UCF in his first game last year.

link to collegian.psu.edu

The Dirty O!

Oh wait, HCPN said he won’t select the #1 spot – the players will. Now I’m confused.

Forget what I said in the first two sentences.

Who is this “Roo” character we are to fear. I say we “Zip” him up in a punching bag and knock his lights out. I’m not sure “Roo” is a HE. Am I being politically incorrect? Again, confusing…

T.Boyd and Blair are both “claimed” to be back for this week’s game – please don’t change either of those two facts and we should be ok.

HTP!

Simply put, he will be there in the 4th quarter to plow over the opposition with his size, strength and speed.

Chris James and Hall will provide the needed carriers through the 1st three quarters to keep Q4 fresh as he marches our Pitt FB team to victory.

HTP!

Louisville lowest ACC at 168; WVU 175

@Erie – I think I understand what NarDog is saying – I expect both QBs to play a lot up to the ACC starts and one to come to the forefront. IMO NP is slightly ahead and should get 3 series this week but neither set the world on fire. If one does with their performance is his.
Query- in post game Nard Dog said most improvement is week 1 to 2 but then pooh pahhed that they didnt play bad – I know a coach has to buck up his team especially early but…
Thanks to our reporters and the excellent insight.
Except nothing but excellence this week. H2P