I know, football game in a little more than 24 hours. But I’ve been neglecting the basketball for way too long. Besides, Pitt has their only exhibition game tonight.
Pitt ditched the usual two exhibitions for doing a closed scrimmage with Georgetown last week and tonight’s exhibition game against Division II Gannon. Pitt should be fine against Gannon, but struggle early. As long as they don’t end up like St. John’s and lose by 32 points (Durand Johnson shot 0-7) in their exhibition.
(Any italics are my text…)
PITT (6-2, 4-1 ACC) vs. #8/9 NOTRE DAME (7-1) (Doctored up)
(Notre Dame’s new true Freshman Hunchback)
November 7, 2015 • Noon, ET
Heinz Field (68,400/Natural Grass) • Pittsburgh, Pa.
ABC National Telecast • Pitt IMG Sports Radio Network
PittsburghPanthers.com • @GoPittFootball • #NDvsPITT
LINK (PDF): Pitt Game Notes (vs. ND)
GAME STORYLINES
* Pitt and Notre Dame renew ties for the 70th time when the Panthers host their historic rival for a noon ABC national telecast at Heinz Field. Pitt owns a 6-2 mark, its best start since 2009. The Irish are 7-1 and ranked as high as No. 8 this week.
* The Panthers are looking to bounce back from a 26-19 loss to ACC foe North Carolina. The defeat halted a four-game winning streak for Pitt. Notre Dame visits Pittsburgh having won its last three games following a two-point loss at undefeated Clemson (Oct. 3).
* Close games and dramatic finishes have been the rule for Pitt and Notre Dame in recent years. The past six meetings have been decided by an average of 4.5 points. Two of those contests have gone to overtime.
* Pitt is 5-2 in games decided by single digits this year. The Panthers were 1-5 in single-digit contests last season.
* All-America candidate Tyler Boyd needs just 49 receiving yards to become Pitt’s all-time leader in that category. Boyd enters the Notre Dame game with 3,013 career yards, second only to Antonio Bryant (3,061 from 1999-2001) at Pitt.
* Tyler Boyd is already Pitt’s career receptions leader with 226. Boyd is the ACC’s active career leader and ranks second nationally with 6.85 catches per game.
* Quarterback Nate Peterman is completing 67.4% of his passes this season, the second-best percentage in the ACC and 15th nationally. Peterman has thrown 151 consecutive passes without an interception dating back to the first half at Iowa (Sept. 19).
* This season marks the 40-year anniversary of Tony Dorsett’s legendary 303-yard rushing game against Notre Dame in 1975. Dorsett’s incredible effort sparked the Panthers to a 34-20 win over the Irish at Pitt Stadium.
In a sign from Heaven this vision appeared on the building facing Notre Dame’s football field immediately after Dorsett broke the 300 yard mark. “It’s like God deserted us just because Pitt beat the crap out of our team” a scared undergrad said, “But He’ll make it right after next year’s game here at Notre Dame, I know He will. There’s no way we lose two in a row to them!!” But apparently God took the Panthers getting five points in 1976…
SERIES NOTES
Pitt and Notre Dame meet for the 70th time in a series that dates back to 1909…the Irish lead the all-time series by a 47-21-1 count…Pitt and Notre Dame have split the past eight meetings with each team winning four times since 2004…close contests have been the norm for most of the past decade…nine of the past 10 games have been decided by single digits…in the last meeting, Pitt edged the Irish, 28-21, at Heinz Field in 2013…
Pitt’s 2013 win snapped a three-game series losing streak and gained a measure of revenge for its 2012 loss, a 29-26 heartbreaker in three overtimes at Notre Dame…the Panthers are 11-26-1 at home and 10-21 on the road against Notre Dame…Pitt’s longest winning streak in the series is three games, achieved three separate times (1932-34; 1958-60; 1983, ‘86-87)…Notre Dame’s longest winning streak against Pitt is 11 games, which occurred from 1964-74…
…that streak was snapped in 1975 when Pitt defeated the Irish, 34-20 (page 36 of the Post Gazette), behind 303 rushing yards from Tony Dorsett…the 303 yards remain a Notre Dame opponent record…in four games against the Irish (1973-76), Dorsett rushed for 754 yards, an NCAA record for a player against a four-year opponent…
(Here is the recap of the 1976 ND game the season after the 303 yard performance… this game sticks in my mind more than the 303 game actually… sweet as hell! All the Pitt fans in ND stadium were looking at Hornung up in the press box and screaming “Jump! Jump!”)
…the Pitt-Notre Dame series is long on history and color…on Nov. 13, 1999, the Panthers defeated Notre Dame, 37-27, in the final game ever played at Pitt Stadium…Pittsburgh product Kevan Barlow scored two TDs, including the game’s final score on a two-yard run to close down the 74-year-old structure…
…the 2008 game at Notre Dame was an instant classic...the Panthers clawed back from a 17-3 halftime deficit to defeat the Irish, 36-33, in four overtimes…the four-overtime affair marked the longest game in both Pitt and Notre Dame history…the ‘08 game also marked the Panthers’ second consecutive victory at Notre Dame Stadium…
…in its prior visit to South Bend (2004), Pitt beat the Irish, 41-38, behind five touchdown passes from Tyler Palko, an unprecedented achievement against Notre Dame. Here’s another piece on Palko for your Pitt football pleasure, and to keep you from going back to doing what your supposed to be doing to earn that salary your getting…
SERIES IN BRIEF
Series Began: 1909
Series Overall: ND leads 47-21-1
At Pittsburgh: ND leads 26-11-1
At Notre Dame: ND leads 21-10
At Neutral Sites: DNA
OT Games: Series tied, 1-1
Last Meeting at Pitt: Nov. 9, 2013 (Pitt 28, Notre Dame 21)
Last Meeting at ND: Nov. 3, 2012 (Notre Dame 29, Pitt 26, 3OT)
Current Series Streak: Pitt has won 1 (2013)
Longest Pitt Series Win Streak: 3 games (three times, last: 1983, ‘86-87)
Longest Notre Dame Series Win Streak: 11 games (1964-74)
Largest Pitt Victory Margin: 26 points (26-0, 1936)
Largest Notre Dame Victory Margin: 58 points (58-0, 1944) (Here is the Post-Gazette account of the game; page 33)
BROADCAST INFORMATION
Television • ABC (WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh)
Sean McDonough, play-by-play
Chris Spielman, analyst
Todd McShay, reporter
Pitt Radio • 93.7 The Fan & the Pitt IMG Sports Network
Bill Hillgrove, play-by-play
Pat Bostick, analyst
Larry Richert, reporter
SiriusXM Satellite Radio
Sirius Channel 84, XM Channel 84
WPTS Radio (Pitt Student Station) • 92.1 FM
Pitt IMG Sports Network Online Audio Options
PittsburghPanthers.com via CSLive
Pitt Gameday LIVE App: iOS Android TuneIn
Finally, because this cracked me up when I watched it and because it is very well done, here is “Naptown Funk” (Naptown is Annapolis). Call me a hopelessly sentimental guy but when I see young men and women in the Military enjoying themselves I get a big smile on my face – especially considering what tough times they’ll be facing in a few years.
Plus, this might be the first time in the history of the U.S. that all five Armed Forces worked successfully with each other on something:
November 2, 2015
Pat Narduzzi Press Conference (italics are mine at the end for the ND story)
Notre Dame Week
PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO: Narduzzi ND Preview
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT (HTML LINK): Narduzzi Text Transcript
There’s one glaring thing the offense is missing. I’m going to highlight some offensive stats and I want to see if you can find the one area this offense is missing as well. The thing that UNC had and Pitt didn’t on Thursday and the one problem that is holding them back from being good enough to have beaten UNC and Iowa. Let’s start the stats! (more…)
(This is one of 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.)
This is will a Friday morning edition of course and that’s good because I don’t want three days to think about that game before I can put it into the history books… and I don’t think you want to either.
We’ll get back to all that in a second… here is the obligatory highlights video:
Now lets get the hard part out of the way with Narduzzi’s post game press conference:
Here is the info dump on the game and the cumulative stats for the season:
Box Score
Box Score (PDF)
Season Statistics
Postgame Notes
Postgame Quotes
USATSI Photo Gallery 
OK, now is the hard part and it is a bit like looking into a ‘Way-Back’ mirror to the last week of camp where we talked about things that might bite us in the ass… sprinkled with some new problems that have shown themselves growing week-by-week.
One thing that I’ll keep first and foremost in my head for the next ten days is that a good, solid, football team came into Heinz Field and won the game. North Carolina is no stumble bum team that just happened to get luck breaks to win the game. That wasn’t the case, they came here and won the play on both sides of the ball and scored more than we did.
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