Before we get into the actual game information and facts, all of which you readers have been addressing in your comments since Navy’s 10 play 75 yard drive in the beginning of the 1st quarter, allow me to talk about some other aspects of Pitt football and The Pitt Blather.
First off, except for the game itself, the last two days were about as great as college football can be. The atmosphere surrounding the bowl from noon on Sunday (when I checked into a hotel in Annapolis) through the pre-game tailgates until the end of the game was top-notch and everyone was happy and glad to be there.
The evening pub crawl was the most fun I have had in many years and I mean that literally. At each stop the bars and restaurants were jammed with Pitt fans that were chanting, singing and talking, loudly, about the 2015 season and our new head coach.
It really made me, and others I’m sure, very proud of the university and the team.
There were some funny things going on – for some reason just because I did that article on here about Annapolis and the Pub Crawl, which was also pasted up on Facebook by a Pitt fan group, whenever I was introduced to anyone they always asked “Hey, where are we supposed to go next?” like I was a tour guide or something.
I honestly didn’t remember the exact things I wrote and had to ask my friend to look that article up on his phone.
Also, I met about 50+ fans who ‘read the Blather but don’t post on it’. It always surprises me a bit when someone says that and when I asked why they mostly said that they felt like an outsider because of all the regular commenters we have on here.
I never know what to say about that except to urge them to start getting in the conversations and see how it goes. One thing did pop up with one guy I talked to – he said he didn’t post because he thought the commenters were “mean” to each other. I didn’t know what to say because I look at every Pitt football site there is and believe we are way more civil to each other than the others.
Anyway – those numbers just bolster our thoughts on here that for every commenter we have there are at least 100 daily readers who don’t chip in… and that is probably on the low side.
One interesting Blather thing happened; I kept hearing this guy who had a few already saying “I don’t care what happens tomorrow, I’m sticking with 10-2” so I walked over and asked if he was “Tossing Thabeets”. His wife thought that was hilarious – he didn’t like it much. We talked with the Holtzs and Grimms for a bit also.
So the pub crawl was excellent and we finished up the evening with eight of us, including the two Bostick men, having a quiet dinner and talking about the program and the bowl game. BTW – Pat Jr is a Pitt superstar and pretty much got mobbed by Pitt fans as we walked around Annapolis. Gracious as hell though – I don’t think I’d be as receiving as he is.
Some items we discussed were the genuine dedication of the current administration regarding the football program and staff salaries – Pat Jr weighed in on that with his insider insights. We talked about whether Narduzzi would a long-term Pitt HC and this led to a vigorous debate on the matter – mostly between me and the rest of the table. I do think that Big Money dollars speak louder than utterances of loyalty from college coaches… (We’ll discuss that at length during the off season I’m sure.)
Some questions about personnel issues with the players were brought up. Like whether Conner would be back (yes), Boyd gone (yes) and if Price is wanting to put his football career behind him and move on (undecided but an interesting discussion that I think will happen based on what we talked about).
Chaney and Narduzzi’s issues with each other came up in our talks also and it is pretty clear that Chaney wasn’t going to spend one day more with Narduzzi then he had to… regardless of the pay raise (bribe) Pitt tried to get him to take so he’d stay.
One overlooked angle to that situation is that Pitt wants to avoid, at almost any cost, the semblance of more instability in the program. Regardless of how you want to spin it, it just doesn’t look good for a coordinator to take off after one year and accept a job for less money than what his current school offered him to stay.
That speaks volumes actually. As Tyler Boyd said on Twitter “Tyler Boyd’s reaction to Jim Chaney leaving #Pitt: “It was just like ‘Aw, man, so quick?’ Because a lot of coaches been in and out of here.”
Last week the Tribune-Review had this in a DiPaola article:
But Narduzzi does have one requirement for the job that Chaney failed to fulfill. He wants his next coordinator to stick around for a while.
“We don’t need a guy to come in here for a year,” he said. “It does me no good. It does our football team no good.”
He said athletic director Scott Barnes and Chancellor Patrick Gallagher tried to get Chaney to stay.
“They probably went above and beyond what they should have and could have done,” Narduzzi said. “The commitment is there, big-time.”
Hmmm, ‘above and beyond what they should have’ does not sound like a phrase a HC would use if he wanted that staff coach to stay.
Of course we talked about the game itself and what we felt would happen.
Overwhelmingly Pitt fans thought that not only would we beat Navy but that we’d score a ton of points against them. One fan figured we’d drop 49 on them and since that was four points more than we scored in the regular season’s games I was pretty skeptical.
I think I may have heard only two or three fans say they thought Navy might win the game… although some felt it would be pretty close at the end.
In earlier articles on here I had predicted a Navy win and really tried to express leading up to game day that having watched Navy play in person twice this season I felt we would never stop their running game.
Many fans I spoke with disagreed pointing to 1) our adjustments at the GT game’s halftime and 2) our #20 national ranking against the run.
What was missing from that viewpoint was the fact that Navy has some of the quickest and fastest players in the back field in the nation. Everyone knows about QB Keenan Reynolds but no one saw what would happen with RB Dishan Romine who sped though our defense like it wasn’t on the field (21.0 ypc).
But the killer was that they also had a monster fullback, Chris Swain, who at 6’1” and 245 pounds, beat the hell out of our DL with his upper legs (tree trunks) and was the main reason Navy was 14 of 19 on 3rd and 4th down conversions.
Swain has the same physical statistics as James Conner does but the difference in the way they carry the football is obvious. While they both get great results Swain is literally used as a weapon to break down the interior of an opponent’s defensive line – and that worked to perfection yesterday.
So, my take on the bad loss yesterday:
If we fans are going to point a finger at a single reason for this loss I believe it has to be turned directly to our defense. Yes, Nate Peterman and our offense played their worse game of this season yesterday but when an opponent racks up 417 yards on the ground, at a 5.9 ypc pace, you are screwed any way you look at it.
What Navy did with that was convert 31 1st downs and held the ball for 42 minutes to our 18. I’ll say that again as it is probably the most lopsided time of possession not in Pitt’s favor that I can remember – 42 to 18 minutes.
There is no way Pitt was going to answer that no matter how well the offense, in the form we saw play this season, was going to match that… not with only 18 minutes holding the ball.
The game was so lopsided that I turned to my buddy just before the half and said Voytik ought to be put in for the last two quarters… because that was how we lost the Sun Bowl when we stuck with an ineffectual QB for the whole game and didn’t try Bostick in the 2nd half. I figure we may get a jolt in the arm with a QB change and that he’d make the Navy defense adjust to a running QB and that could open up some deeper passes.
Then I realized how futile that line of thinking was because I just don’t see Narduzzi playing anyone who had said they would be transferring away from the program after the game. Narduzzi just isn’t built that way. Hell, Chris James wasn’t allowed to make the trip to Annapolis although he was listed as missing in action for “personal” reasons.
Anyway, and for a more selfish reason, I thought that maybe if the staff showed Voytik they still needed him he may change his mind and feel that he could, maybe, win the starting job back.
Then I realized that was a pipe dream.
One last note: I’m hearing and reading a lot of discussion about Narduzzi opening up the QB competition for the 2016 camp and season and I don’t think that is going to happen… unless we land a JUCO QB transfer like Andrew Ford. Bertke isn’t nearly ready yet and the same holds with DiNucci. The staff is going after Ford and should be – we need someone other than who we will have on the roster after Voytik transfers.
BTW – I standing next to DiNucci in the Baroak grill after the game and he’s all of the 6’3” he’s listed at. He could put on some weight though.
Speaking of QBs – another topic of conversation at dinner was the report that Thomas (not Tom) MacVitte got a recruiting phone call from LSU’s Les Miles the other day and it lasted about two minutes and stopped after McVitie’s dad told Miles that his son was 100% committed to Pitt.
That’s third hand news but sounds good, huh?
BAD MEMORY ADDITIONS:
– As we were telling stories around the dinner table Pat Bostick Sr asked his son to tell us about when Graham called him begging him to come back. This isn’t a state secret… at a certain point between his hire and the start of fall example the 2011 fall camp Todd Graham gave Pat Jr a pleading phone call to try to get him back on the roster because he only had Sunsei and Myers as QBs on the roster at that time.
If we remember Bostick redshirted in ’09 so he had another, 4th, year to play in ’11. Also, Trey Anderson was a late arrival and Anthony Gonzalez was busted with weed so his future was uncertain thus the need for Pat. Anyway, Pat gets a phone call and Graham is blabbering away and blowing smoke at him so Pat asks “Am I going to get a shot at the starting job” and when Graham stutters out “Well, no but…‘ Pat hangs the phone up on him.
– Also we talked about the new uniforms for 2016. Pat was understandably non-committal about details, he wasn’t going to steal Scott Barnes’ thunder at the unveiling, but he did say the everyone was going to really like them and that they were ‘beautiful’. It sounds like they will have some traditional features and colors – as we pretty much figured.
I asked him only one question – were we going to look idiotic like Maryland does with 100 different uniform combinations and he said no. So, that’s good. When someone next said how crappy the all-white uniforms looked there was silence… he knew that’s what we were going to wear the next day.
Also, I walked the parade route from downtown Annapolis to the stadium right next to the Budweiser Clydesdales and with all the Armed Forces rep groups… and then realized there was nothing representing the US Coast Guard. Since I was wearing my “US COAST GUARD VETERAN” ball cap I slipped in behind them and walked about a half mile, smiling and waving my hat to everyone and them smiling back and giving me thumbs up, before a parade guy asked what I was doing. When I told him he cracked up but asked me “Sir, could you do me a favor and depart the scene'”…so I did.
For me the bloom came off the rose a little when you start out 6-1 and finish 2-4 and are not competitive in the 4 losses. Granted we played tougher teams, but we saw little overall improvement in play and to me that is on the coaching. With the exception of Notre Dame, none of these teams should have had us put away by halftime. I think it at least raises the question of coaching. Hopefully our coaches realize they can and must do a better job.
Magnets usually don’t stick to wood..
I suspect that, if Brad Salem is under consideration, Duzz will wait until after MSU is done with its season.
And, thanks for the reply.
H2P
“All well thought out and debatable points
What is not debatable is that we won more games with this quarterback and offense.”
No No No We won more games with this quarterback and defense!
If it wasn’t for half time adjustments on D we would have been sub .500 most likely. Last year we won games by blowing people out occasionally. There were no blowouts by the Panthers this year.
There was a good reason Chubs left Arkansas last year but maybe ???? Hey are you Chubs back trolling here?
all those things you mentioned are excuses. the team and coach need to overcome adversity.
Duke game- Chad hits Ford with a 3rd down pass at 30 then runs the ball several times himself stopped at the 10. Blewitt misses FG (as we found out vs Navy 28 yarders from the right hash are very hard) Pitt loss in OT.
Syracuse game- Pitt fails on 3rd down Winslow the punter throws for a 1st down QO runs several times inside 10. Blewitt makes FG Pitt wins.
Somehow people want to credit Nate for that win and peg Chad for that loss, sorry that will never make sense to me.
Chad also had Pitt up in 4th against UNC and Houston. In all 5 losses this year we only had a lead for a few fleeting moments against Navy. Chad stepped up in the Pizza bowl, the Miami game, and the Houston bowl game. Peterman seemed to wilt under the spotlight. He played a good half against Iowa, also yes Reed Duke and Lville. Intangibles are part of the game also and I say CV had them and Nate doesn’t. Big time players step up in the biggest games.
The reality is Pitt had a lot to overcome. What I saw was was a stacked deck against Pitt and Pitt was unable to overcome it. That’s not an excuse. That’s the reality of the situation as I see it.
Some think it’s on the coaches. I, personally, think Pitt doesn’t have enough good players. So while there are reasons I think Pitt had difficulty in this game, it ultimately came down to personnel. Pitt needs better players … and I think they’re coming.
i agree with you, but my point is all teams have things to overcome, not just pitt. execution is on the players, the schemes are on the coaches. i wasn’t impressed with either. how in the world does pitt not have better players than navy??
And yes, CV had the advantage of having a much better OC. I’d take PC over JC in a heartbeat. But I’d also take PN over PC in a heartbeat.
Good Lord people, let it go….
Using Connors injury was only an excuse that permitted Chaney to change the offense to a more pass happy game. Ollison did a good job filling Connors shoes meaning Chaney threw out the Pitt offense from 2014 for no reason other than to allow NP style of play to take over at the expense of CV.
You’re right, Pitt has more talent but NAVY has a more established offensive scheme. It’s a gimmick offense with a record breaking QB with 4 years in the system. In this case the scheme outweighed the talent.
I agree with wbb in that this loss was on the offense. Pitt was going to have to outscore NAVY to win this one and they looked rusty and out of sync. Pitt’s offense should have shredded the NAVY defense. The problem was from a scheme standpoint, Pitt was without a true OC and it showed.
on to hoops i guess?? lol.
your right about all of that, but shame on narduzzi for not dictating to chaney what he wanted changed.
Gotta wonder why HCPN hired OCJC in the fiorst place, given their differences in preferred style. Did HCPN not see a conflict coming? Hope he learned a lesson in hiring and makes sure he picks someone who has his philosophy.
my uneducated guess would be that he wanted someone experienced to run the offense while hcpn concentrated on getting settled in with the other aspects of the program.
And I don’t have a problem admitting NP was better suited to run JC’s system – and I’ve said so previously. I’m not a pass first type of guy. I love 5 yards and a cloud of dust; road graders; DL blocks of granite. I didn’t care for JC’s game plans; especially since we don’t have the manpower to successfully implement them. JC knew it, but thought he could put round pegs into square holes.
1) HCPN saw that OCJC excelled at running Bielema’s (and Barry Alvarez’s) offense and saw a fit. The two had a meeting about the job and the word “balanced” was tossed around and each guy had their own view of what that meant. HCPC thought it meant 60 rush / 40 pass and Chaney thought it meant 40/60.
2) HCPN was encouraged by the Chancellor to make a splash, get the best OC available andn the $ would be there. HCPN focused on splash and not as much on fit.
Either way, all roads point to HCPN not being diligent in his first OC hire.
Thought he did a great job with Bill Stull and the offense improved under his watch after Matt Cavanaugh left.
Has pro experience, local guy and available.
Or is that simply going for a re-tread?
2.With the exception of Miami Pitt only lost and some by not much to top 25 teams and we are not yet a top 25 team.
3.Agree with all the criticisim of too much pass ,too many pitchouts to slow power backs and the O looked like Chaney was still here. Pitt did not look sharp for whatever the reason.
4.For another game too many missed tackles and blocks thrown at runners instead of wrap ups in the D. 5. We need more speed on both sides of the ball hope new recruits help. 6.Our HS coach who played for Carnegie Tech in its hay days of the 30s used to say look for the line that comes up under the opponent that team will win. That team was Navy on Monday.
Lets look for the hot recruits we need, The right OC hire and much improvement next year. I still think Pitt is finally going in the right direction. H2P
Using Connors injury was only an excuse that permitted Chaney to change the offense to a more pass happy game. Ollison did a good job filling Connors shoes meaning Chaney threw out the Pitt offense from 2014 for no reason other than to allow NP style of play to take over at the expense of CV.
Comment by Spindler’s Spirit 12.30.15 @ 5:20 pm
Exactly how I saw it Spindler.
And to add insult to injury, Chaney putting CV in for one play and no more, basically guaranteeing a Fail. It was like he was saying…..hey look see he’s no good. That was so tasteless and classless by Chaney. Just as him pulling up stakes and not even sticking around to coach ‘his boy’ in the bowl game. Treating Pitt like a 2nd rate school F*ck him !
No one said coaches plural on sabotage, reference was singular as in Chaney. And I don’t believe Chaney was out to get CV, Chaney was out to push his agenda to pass first and to do so meant NP was the man. We all thought with this new coaching staff that defense needed changing and the offense would develop from where it ended the 2014 season as the 43rd best offense in the country. Under Chaney I believe if Connor had not been injured Chaney would have still installed his pass happy offense, he hinted as much pre-season with intending to use Conner more on pass receptions. Ollison did an exceptional job filling in for Connor and the similarities in their running styles should have meant leave the 2014 offense alone going into this season.
Had Hall not got injured early on, Chaney wanted to use him as the RB to be passed to, out of the backfield.
Had he not, we probably don’t see the power running game much and Ollie never gets close to 1000 yards.
Pitt looked totally outclassed and unprepared in all these games, again sans Iowa.
Even a 90 yard opening kickoff TD against the Middies did nothing to change that.
Yes halftime adjustments were made in some of these games to keep the scores somewhat respectable.
However was it does point out, was that the initial game planning…. left a lot to be desired.
So we got some work to do there. Even the wins against Akron & VT, we only had 10 points at halftime against weak competition with dismal quarterbacking.
Coaches sabotage players a lot. Depending on many things, not the least of which, whether they like them.
People seem to think Coaches are somehow different than other people who manage people in anything.
They are not ! And some are as petty as anyone else.
Again the naivete among some is either incredible or shows a lack of life experiences (age).
The Dark Knight certainly had his mind set on the starting QB before any of us saw NP play. I certainly hope Chaney was not the Dark Knight because it would be a terrible indictment against Chaney.
I hope Chad transfers to a school where his skills can be utilized and he can enjoy one more year of playing the game he loves before he goes to grad school or gets a job..
A few of us really noticed the way he progressed and the offense grew last year..I think from an offensive standpoint we regressed..how many games did we fail to show in the first half..but that is history and so is Chad..Thanks for the memories..
@Emel as far as Chaney leaving..one has to wonder about his day to day working relationship with the head coach..after the side-line out -burst by Duzz then calling out chaney in the post-game press conference my thoughts were ” I bet Chaney is gone at the end of the season” I don’t know if anyone else on here had that thought. Hope Duzz is a good guy to work for..It sounds like the players like playing for him..at least most like playing for him…
I do think that Chaney preferred the skill set of Peterman vs Voytik, because it fit his system.
It is too bad for Chad because he is a “loyal son”. But those are the breaks of the game, especially when you are a QB.
It is all pretty much a mute point now unless the new OC wants him to stay.
Pitt’s fortunes resting on Narduzzi’s choice of an OC, he needs to get this one right.
He reminded me of how bad our O was this year compared to last year. In four of our losses the O scored a total of 9 points – three FG’s – that’s it. Against Navy the O scored NOTHING.
On to next season – I’m expecting a better record, but with the schedule being tougher, that will be a huge challenge. Beat
psu and I’ll be ok.
FL State getting smoked by Houston…
HTP!
Regarding the OC search…
Gotta believe if Tim Salem was going to get the OC job, it would have happened by now. Would guess that HCPN is holding out for someone with a bowl yet to play.
If HCPN wants to grab someone from MSU, Dantonio is working with the “co-coordinator” concept. So a move to Pitt for either one of two – or the QB coach – would be a move up. Without knowing any of them, I woud guess he’d try to grab the co-coordinator in charge of RB’s.
If its not somebody at East Lansing, then one might guess he will be from one of the schools that have yet to play their bowl/playoff game. If that’s the case, I’d be surprised if its an existing OC as opposed to a position coach with some OC work in his past. Hard to imagine that an OC at most of those schools would see Pitt as a move up.
Like position coach Napier from Alabama. He’s the former OC at Clemson.
Napier sounds like a fine pick if HCPN wants to emphasize the pass. But that isn’t what he is saying. He’s wants a power running game. If he does pick Napier, I would hope they both were clear beforehand on what style of O will be run.
Timmy gave up on the run too early just like Jimmy during the regular season.
Iowa – 13/75 yard drive; 8 yd TD pass
NC – 13/75; 4 yd TD pass 9/75; 6 yd TD pass
ND – 8/75; 10 yd TD run 13/75; 3 yd TD run 3/76; 51 yd TD pass
MI – 5/61; 4 yd TD run 4/41; 5 yd TD run
USN- 10/85; 4 yd pass 4/73 45 yd run
Right there are 10 TDs that the offense put up in our five losses – not counting short fields due to us getting a turnover from the opponent.
Now – if you meant that for the 1st half of play then he and you are echoing what I have written many times
Happy New Year Panther Nation !
CV deserved a shot to spark the O in each of those 4 games. The fans deserved better as well. In my section at the navy game, many Pitt fans were calling for CV. ZERO points against a G5 D for two full qtrs warrants a change.
That’s my point –
He might as well have been a walk-on for the disrespect that was thrown his way. He wasn’t even asked to warmup along the sidelines, while Pitt’s offense was producing nothing for long stretches of time.
At least with a read-option QB you can move the ball on the ground if the passing game isn’t clicking at that point of the game. And then the opposing defense has to move up their safeties to stop the read-option run and that opens up the passing game.
Much better offense in college imo.
Comment by BigB 12.30.15 @ 12:53 pm”
I’m still laughing.