Hope the coaches and players have moved on to the GT game, because I sure haven’t.

So many threads that I have not tugged on to this point. So little time. Games where everything falls apart, can be tough to break apart because EVERYTHING FELL APART. That means everyone has that one thing that really chafes them.

Special teams. The punter. The penalties. The kick returns. The offense. The offensive coordinator. The offensive line. The pass protection. The quarterback. The wide receivers. The defense. The secondary. The substitutions and rotations. Recruiting. The head coach. The other team’s head coach. All the bleeping penalties. So, so many things.

In no particular order.

James Franklin and Pat Narduzzi are not golfing buddies. Best guess, they really have outright disdain for each other. Both do outwardly arrogant and cocky things in the press and in public. There are shots — subtle and not at all — taken by each at the other. Frankly, I’m thinking people outside of Pitt and Penn State look at them and say, “They’re both assholes.”

Am I particularly bothered that Franklin was openly running up the score; keeping the starters in; and the ridiculous challenge at the end? Not really. This is James Franklin. He would do this to any opponent. That’s who he is as a coach. He’s going to keep running it up. Did Franklin take extra pleasure in doing it to Pitt and Narduzzi? I have no doubt he did.

Special teams deserves a little attention. The stuff with the holds and Punter Kirk Christodoulou was a bit fluky. He never did the holds in game situations before. Pressed into action at the last minute because the regular holder (and backup kicker), James Scarton couldn’t after injuring his arm, apparently after getting into a fight. It obviously shook Christodoulou, as reflected in his punting — and even fumbling some of those. Going to assume (hope) he gets over it very quickly.

But the coverage on kicks and punts. Plus the return game. Well, that caught me off guard because of how bad Pitt looked. Andre Powell has long been regarded as one of the best special teams coaches out there. After a dropoff last season, he stressed that he wanted special teams to get back up to where it was in 2016. Yet, the entire squad struggled on both sides. Returners not focused. Bad penalties. Poor angles for coverage. No real answers or theories, but that part of the game was as much a problem as the offense.

The offensive coordinator. For the second straight year, Pitt’s offense has struggled to start the season, and the QB has been inconsistent. Coincidentally, this is Offensive Coordinator Shawn Watson’s second year. I don’t think Watson has been a complete failure. And while not exactly an inspired hire, he is a veteran offensive coordinator which is needed when your head coach is still focused mostly to the defense. I know, really piling on the accolades.

I definitely wanted to cut him slack for last year when he had to follow the magical season for the offense under Matt Canada, and was noticeably missing many of the pieces — QB, James Conner at RB and a stronger offensive line — that helped Pitt’s offense the previous year. Plus, we started to see the offense improve later in the season. Maybe, there was just a bit more adjustment time.

But to see the same problems rear their head this season. Well… then there start to be some questions about his methods. To say nothing of the playcalling. Nothing fills me more with dread at this point then knowing Pitt is first and goal inside the 5, with Shawn Watson calling the plays. (Hint, it’s run up the middle.)

I made this joke during the game, but it bears repeating in light of the upcoming opponent. After the 1st half, if you looked at Pitt’s offensive stats: 231 total yards, 214 on the ground, 17 passing, 19:06 time of possession. The top rushers were a tailback and the QB. You would think Pitt was running the triple option.

That brings us to the QB and the O-line. It feels like a chicken-egg thing. Is Pickett looking skittish in the pocket because the O-line is not giving him enough time, getting him hit and sacked. Or is he being skittish and running too soon? Regardless, the O-line is definitely looking as bad as last year in pass protection.

Pickett needs some time in there. By the same token, there were certainly points where he wasn’t willing to trust the O-line and took off at the first sign.

Then there were the receivers. Or were there? I’m just not sure. We didn’t see much of them. They weren’t getting much separation or open much. Pickett missed them at points, but they weren’t helping. Hard to say much good, when they are a non-factor.

As for the defense. I’m not sure how much to complain about them. They kept Pitt in this game for the first half despite some god awful field position they had to defend– until that TD right before the half.

They even held their own for a while even in the third quarter before giving up the TD. Then it was followed by the offense committing a safety in the next series (after a special teams gaffe) and then a 39-yard punt return at the end of the 3d quarter to put Pitt down 30-6.

But in the 4th quarter, it looked like they just broke. And I have a hard time blaming them. Really the biggest complaint I have about the players on defense were the penalties they committed. Some real bonehead mistakes that extended things and kept them from getting off the field.

I’m not even going to try and make sense of the rotation of players in the secondary, though. I have no answers for that.

Okay. I think I’ve got most of it out of my system.