It’s the end of the college football season. Pitt isn’t a participant, but Head Coach Pat Narduzzi will be taking part in the Film Room telecast of the game on ESPN2 starting at 8:30.
Feel free to comment on his brilliant insight and how recruits should be beating a path to Oakland if they are paying attention.
You knew it couldn’t be sustained. You knew ND would throw counter-punches. That it wouldn’t stay a blowout. But man, the ride was something and ultimately satisfying way to spend some time.
Here’s the thing about this game. This was not an up and down the court game. This was actually one of Pitt’s slowest games with only 65 possessions and adjusted Tempo for this game was 63 ($ wall), Pitt, per KenPom is about 68.0 in adjusted tempo (possessions/pace per 40 minutes). Notre Dame is an even slower tempo team than Pitt. And like Pitt, they operate at high efficiency on offense. This game was almost an absurdist example of offensive efficiency.
I don’t really get that worked up about whether Pitt has played a true road game to this point or not. Syracuse has done this for years, and has managed to keep their head above water. After all these years, there are still no numbers supporting or disputing whether playing a tough schedule or more road games helps or hurts a team. It just comes down to the team itself.
This game isn’t getting much in the way of national buzz, as ND has been slightly disappointing to this point. They are a good team, but they have lost to teams like Alabama and Monmouth.
I had no choice. I tried to type something simple, like, “Matt Canada Hired as New OC.” But it went through the Mandatory Wordplay Headline Generator and came out as “Pitt Fans Prepping to Blame Canada.” Another simple explanatory headline on his joining the coaching staff came out as, “Canada Invades Pitt.” So, embrace the bad wordplay and all it entails.
Almost as soon as the surprising announcement of Matt Canada being fired from NC State less than a week ago, the possibility of Canada becoming Pitt’s OC made a lot of sense. There was some prior history between Canada and Head Coach Pat Narduzzi on the Northern Illinois University staff for a couple of years. Canada has a solid rep as an OC, and his offensive style meshes with what Narduzzi wants. Add in the fact that Canada was not just a power 5 OC, but one within the ACC.
As Chas wrote earlier Chad Voytik has made up his mind and left Pitt’s football program. He came aboard in 2012 and is leaving almost four years later to seek greener fields… or to get out of an increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere here at Pitt. It isn’t surprising to me, but it is a bit disappointing, that Chad didn’t stay to try and rise to the occasion to regain his starting position. I thought he had more fight in him, especially after Chaney left.
It was obvious by the quotes he has issued lately that he thought he was behind the eight ball during 2015 but unless he felt Narduzzi didn’t want him as a starter he would have had the opportunity to regain that starting job. It became apparent that he thought Peterman won the job and played well enough to keep the position, but it is ironic if he did think so because the exact thing happened with him after his starting year.
“Voytik said he felt like he was given a fair chance this season by offensive coordinator Jim Chaney, who had a prior connection with Peterman after recruiting him to Tennessee in 2012. “I feel like I was given a fair shot, but at times, things might’ve been a little unfair,” said Voytik, who declined to elaborate. “I just think it was the perfect storm of events that worked against me a little bit. That’s life, though.”
If that was indeed a ‘perfect storm’ it is one he had a major hand in brewing. If Peterman could unseat the incumbent in ’15 why couldn’t Chad do the same for his senior year? He must not have thought he could do so. Now he’s apparently looking to move closer to home but the lingering and unspoken feeling is that he didn’t complete what he started out to do at Pitt.
In a more selfish view as a Pitt fan I wanted him to be our competent and experienced relief QB if he didn’t win the back starting job outright and I did believe that could happen. Peterman played like gangbusters in the first seven games of the season but when all the dust settled I truly don’t believe he played so well as to make him untouchable, especially with a new HC coming onboard.
7pm.
It’s on various RSNs including Root Sports Pittsburgh, Fox Sports South, NESN, Fox Sports West and others.
Georgia Tech has struggled to rebuild under Brian Gregory. Check that. They have just struggled. As a coach on a warming seat, he has added transfers (traditional and graduate) to his roster. Unlike Pitt, four of their transfers are starters.
I can’t blame him for deciding to transfer after he gets his degree in the spring.
“Chad has been a tremendous leader and teammate during his Pitt career, and certainly during the year I had the opportunity to coach him,” Narduzzi said. “We wish him the very best and will help him any way we can as he maps out his future pursuits. We will always consider him a Pitt Man. His contributions have been invaluable to what we are building here.”
“I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to attend and play for the University of Pittsburgh,” Voytik said. “I am blessed to have met some amazing people along the way: teammates that I’ll always be friends with, coaches that made me a better player and person, and fans that offered a tremendous amount of support. Pittsburgh will always be my second home.”
I wish him nothing but the best.
Let me start by repeating something I am know I have said on Twitter, and I’m pretty sure I have said on this site. It is not conflicting or inconsistent to think:
A. Nate Peterman was the better option at QB in the offense Pitt ran this past season.
B. Chad Voytik was not given a fair chance to keep the starting QB job.
In the overall development of Jamel Artis as a player, forcing him to play out of position last year may have been one of the best things for him and the team this year. It was a move out of necessity, and the lack of meaningful depth inside was painful for much of that year.
Unlike small forwards of previous years, Artis had been forced to play inside on both ends of the court, rather than operating on the wing or somewhere on the perimeter in his development. This has been a key difference is his offensive game, from say Durand Johnson or J.J. Moore.
A true buy-a-win game to finish the non-con.
4pm
ESPN3.
Not much to say about this one in advance, other than it won’t help in the RPI (if you are actually worried about such a thing at this point).
Other than the obvious win, I’m hoping that Jamel Artis, Mike Young and James Robinson play under 25 minutes each.
It should not be a shock that Tyler Boyd declared for the draft. He is that good, and barring injuries should have a successful NFL career.
Whether he goes in the first or second round is up for debate, but I don’t see how his draft stock will really rise any further if he came back. The only seeming knock on Boyd is that he lacks “elite” speed, so that won’t change. All the other stuff he possesses, he has shown in spades in the past three seasons.
— Hands. Yep.
— Great route running. Check.
— Very versatile — able to stretch the field or play in the slot. Hell, yeah.
— Constantly successful against opposing teams’ best corner and facing double teams. Very much so.
If Boyd had chosen to stay, he would be dealing with a third offensive coordinator in four years. No matter what promises Head Coach Pat Narduzzi could have made him, there just would have been no guarantees. It’s not like he could be showcased that much more.
To say nothing of the risk of injury — even with an insurance contract.
I wish him and his family nothing but the best, and only hope that he finds the time down the road to finish his education to get that degree from Pitt.
FIRST OFF – HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
As most teams do every year now is the time to sit down with some of the roster players and discuss their and the staff’s plans for the team and the program. This season’s NCAA’s Letter of Intent (LOI) Day calendar is as follows:
Football (Midyear JC Transfer)
December 16, 2015 – January 15, 2016
Football (Regular Period)
February 3, 2016 – April 1, 2016
What that actually means to Pitt is that there are a pile of pinks slips on one side of Pat Narduzzi’s desk and a few thank you notes on the other. Because this is Narduzzi’s first recruiting class and now that he’s had a full season of play under his belt he and his staff most probably have a firm idea of who they want to make sure stays on the roster and who is expendable.
All this has to happen, for the most part, before LOI Day so that Pitt can get the maximum number of recruits. In a normal year, that is when there hasn’t been a coaching change, we don’t usually see a bunch of players being asked to “move on with there life’s work” but who really knows what this staff sees happening before the start of Spring Drills first and then before the start of Fall Camp second.
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