It’s that time of week again. Hours before game time and we fans are ready, willing and nervous to sit for three hours watching PITT football. Maybe some time when dreams come true we’ll be able to wake up and feel no trepidation whatsoever that PITT will win the day in solid fashion. But until then we look at these games from every angle possible and, because we are PITT fans, find a chink in the PITT armor that will somehow let a loss shine through.
That’s how we roll.
Even with all that I can’t see a way PITT loses this football game. I see ways we can be embarrassed by a way too close score or a very sloppily played game that will really make us doubt the team and the program, but a loss – no. It isn’t even that PITT is so damn strong that there is no way FIU can keep us from moving downfield and scoring points, we can all understand an off day even though things have been steamrolling in that area for us.
Nor is it we get burned for a few stupid blown coverage TDs or have miscommunications in the defense that will allow more points by FIU then they should ever in a million years put up against a FBS team. Hell, we can even handle overconfidence by the kids while they look toward Iowa next week that might make us kneel and pray this afternoon.
No, it is that somehow the tides of fortune will suddenly reverse themselves on a whim and we’ll botch things down in Miami. You say that can’t happen? Tell that to the six players that were stupid enough to get caught doing something against the team’s disciplinary policy and found themselves in street clothes against Youngstown State in 2012. Oh, by the way, what does 48-14 remind you of? I’m telling you – not only did those games happen but being the PITT fans we are we came to accept the hand of fate involved in those and many other strange losses.
Again, that’s how we roll.
However, today I feel different about these things. First off I’m not crazy hungover on a Saturday morning which is a sign from heaven that things will go well for me today. Secondly, we have seen two excellent showings by PITT to open the season. One was a game we ‘should have won’ and we did and the other was an almost blow-out win against an ACC foe on their home turf. That is some good stuff and makes me feel pretty damn confident that things will be fine at 3:00 EST.
…or is God slipping me a mickey and getting me ready for PITT to screw with my head again? I’m not sure which and that alone makes me anxious too. But there is one thing I know with certainty; if this game is even close at the end PITT fans will turn rabid, curse the team they purport to love and start build pyres for the final burning ritual. Hatred sucks but it’s hard to be a PITT fan.
The weather looks to be spotty with sunshine and thunderstorms mixed throughout the early afternoon so if a monsoon were to occur it would favor our ground attack. The team and coaches safely arrived in Miami yesterday morning and, at this point, no one has been suspended so that’s a point in our favor also. At any rate I’m 99% sure that we kick ass down in the Capital of Latin America. It’s that 1% that made me drink like a fool last night.
I hesitate to predict a score, especially after reading everything I just wrote. No, Dammit!!… I’ll gird my loins and say it right out. Everything goes our way today, we fans relax completely at halftime and we win big.
PITT – 48 FIU – 10
What say you?
FIU could be laying in wait with a playbook filled with gadgit plays just waiting to be sprung on our unsuspecting defensive secondary. They score 14 before we even realize it.
Then they load the box and stifle our running game just when the skies open up and drench the stadium making the ball slipperier than a greased pig and Voytik throws up a few dead ducks for INTs and they even take one of those to the house for a pick six.
Our Panthers become so shell shocked by this turn of events that we just mail it in during the fourth Q and lose by 7, being unable to score a TD on our final drive to tie the game and send it into OT.
THE SAME OLD PITT comes back to haunt us.!
Naugh, on second thought, we just beat the snout out of them right from the opening kickoff.
Pitt 48, FIU 10 sounds about right to me too.
Without a lot of rain and decent conditions: 41-13
On paper, this game is no contest. The only wild card intangible is “the same old Pitt” factor that all of us veteran Pitt fans are constantly burdened by.
Chryst is instituting a philosophy into this program that is burying that “same old Pitt” mindset however, while creating a “can do” replacement attitude.
I’m betting that the lesson learned today will be of the good kind, that being, when you show up prepared, after a good week of practice and you enter their game understanding that you can get beat by any opponent if you discount their potential, then victory results when your team is simply better than theirs. And that is a valuable lesson to grasp early on because these guys are going to have to draw on that knowledge when teams like VT & Miami line up across from them and start punching them square in the face.
H2P!
1. This team seems to have leadership, and the coaching coming into it’s own, I don’t see it happening.
2. This is a bad team. A really bad team. Really bad.
3. Are we capable of a dud, sure. We can even be “over the hump”, and still have a bad game. If it was Temple, or William and Mary, or Maine or Norfolk St., I’d be nervous.
4. However, this is a bad team, a real bad team.
Don’t see it happening.
45-10
OK, now with them in place, I predict our boys—first team and all who fill in later in the game—are going to do the job for 60 full minutes. We win 70 — 3.
H2P
HILAROUS! ND transforms their iconic simple uniform design known the world over and comes up with a design that copies the Pitt Panthers.
The worm is definitely turning for the Panthers!
Three 48-10 predictions huh? Well, if we don’t win by 35+ points then all three of us are off base. Here are some more thoughts:
– I see at least one TD throw by Voytik but one or two INTs also.
– Conner runs the ball well but sits down 2nd half – my interest isn’t how many yards he gets but if the staff is dumb enough to put him on defense in a game like this.
– Boyd returns just a punt or two then Wetherspoon comes in – he needs the work.
– Ronald Jones gets some YAC with a few catches and we see Wuestner get a couple balls thrown his way also.
– James gets 7+ carries. Bennett a few and Ibrahim catches a pass out of the backfield as does Parrish.
– We get three INTs to give us eight on the year – same as all of 2013.
– We get four or more sacks and give up one. Either Blair or MacLean get one of those sacks for us.
– Steelers get beat by the Ravens so badly they end up engaged to Ray Rice. (not original sorry to say)
I’m well aware the game was played in Pitt Stadium. The bland all white “visitor” pedo state uniforms jumping up and down in our endzones time after time after time during that contest is burned permanently into my memory.
Pardon the error, I should have written “from” creepy valley, instead of “in”.
If they come out strong like they did in the opener I will be impressed.
Pitt 58 – 13