If you stayed for the entire game, why? My friends in the stands bailed early in the 3d quarter. When I met them after the game — they gave props to me for staying the entire time. Even though I was dry and warm in the press box.
By the time I met them in a Northside dive, it was late and I was just hoping they were ready to go back to crash. Nope. We stayed out until 2. I’m not built for that any longer. That realization that over the last few years, the number of times I’ve gotten up for something (job, travel, trip) around 2-3 am far, far exceed the number of times I’ve stayed up that late. Not sure when that flipped, but it has decisively.
Needless to say, I’ve been sleeping a bit since that night.
Is there anything to say about the game?
Nothing good.
I was thinking about how to contextualize the game. It was such an obscenity, that I don’t think you can merely compare it to one tragic, miserable game. It had so many elements. It is a singular mess of a game, that defies merely classifying it as being “like” some other loss.
Some examples. I’m sure there are more, but these three parts came to me during the sleep-deprived night after.
The volume of turnovers and self-inflicted screw-ups in such a short frame. That brought back the pain of the 2014 home game against Georgia Tech. Remember 5 turnovers in just the first quarter? That certainly came to my mind.
Crapping the bed in a big home game at night. In prime time. Lots of past greats in attendance. Celebrating the past and looking forward. I’m sure you can come up with your personal favorite, but I’m going with the 2010 Miami debacle. A 31-3 humiliation on Thursday night with plenty of alumni on hand for what had been planned for a while.
Biggest margin of defeat since the end of Johnny Majors second go-round in 1996? Too many to choose from in that year — Ohio State, Miami, Syracuse, and Notre Dame all had margins of victory of 45 or better.
And of course 48-14 is tossed in for some extra salt in the wound.
Effects of Hurricane Florence are supposed to hit Pittsburgh on Saturday for the 12:30 game with GT. Pitt may not outdraw a midweek Pirates game.
Joey Porter (Son of Steelers Coach) announces he is headed to Penn State.
Finally… PROOF PittofDreams and Pitt Dreamer not one in the same.
I’ve been going to Jets games forever, even at their worst. But the Jets have a parking lot, that my friends and I can have a great time tailgating in with the kids.
I’ve seen some complaints about the offensive line as well but I also think they played fairly well against a top 10 team. PSU definitely got pressure, but that should be expected with that level of opponent. Pickett, for the most part, was able to navigate it.
Now … coaching, special teams and the offensive game plan are a completely different story. All failed epically on Saturday night and let down Panther Nation.
Duzz can survive this but there really isn’t any margin of error the rest of the season. Pitt can lose but they have to at least be competitive. When a team is not competitive at home, it’s very telling about team culture. It can happen (teams will have bad games) and sometimes things will snowball like they did over the weekend … but, it has to be an outlier on the season. It CANNOT happen again.
Watson was a very uninspired hire from the get go. He has had enough success in his career to give him the benefit of the doubt, or at least some leeway, but he also had some red flags on his resume that are hard to overlook.
In year 2, Pitt cannot roll out an offense that looks as dysfunctional as this one did. It was a very unimaginative game plan. Maybe the rain influenced it, but it’s still no excuse. There was hardly any pre-snap movement outside of some motion by the wide receivers. With a consistent pass rush, Pitt kept having Pickett drop back and have to wait, when he didn’t have time to wait, for his receivers to run their routes and get open. Running against a stacked box????? Play Calling 101 is if there is 8 in the box you pass. 7 in the box you run. Smh.
We have a long way to go and I don’t think our D has improved much at all over the past few years. That’s shocking with the reputation PN had about defenses.
I agree mostly with your other great analysis…
The post gazette just entered an article touching on the fact that coach Tim Salem has not been home since the PSU game, he sleeps in his office. That is down right silly and what the hell will it accomplish, someone please tell me.
What use is the guy during practice when he is beat down and tired, no sense. This is what we have folks coaching Pitt football.
Who said the O-Line played well in the first half?
Chas I left with 8 minutes to go in the fourth. The earliest I ever left even in Majors 2.
INEXCUSABLE COACHING TOP TO BOTTOM.
At least Florence rain is to hold until Sunday.
HAIL TO PITT
They will never recover from the past week loss, they just don’t have the caliber of players needed to win most games let alone a championship.
Last year for season tickets.
And Poor Heather Lykes gave the guy an extension. This is going to cost Pitt a hell of a lot of cash this time around.