This Saturday is the first big weekend for ACC in-conference games. As of right now, only Miami has played more than one ACC opponent in the Coastal and somehow only three of seven teams have no losses. After the Pitt-UVA game, that number will be no more than two. In fact, UVA or Pitt could be standing alone at the top of the division if Miami defeats Georgia Tech on the road, a reasonable conclusion. Let’s take a look at the other ACC Coastal matchups as well as future opponent Syracuse.
Louisville (4-1, 1-1) at Syracuse (2-2, 0-0):
Louisville’s lone blemish on the season, a fourth quarter disappointment at Virginia, spoiled a great start for the Cardinals after a sound defeat of Miami to start the season. The Cardinals have one of the best defenses in the country, which they’ve needed to help counter an inconsistent offense still finding its identity without Teddy Bridgewater and under new (old) head coach Bobby Petrino. Part of the issue on offense is the health of QB Will Gardner, who will likely miss his second game with a knee injury. That puts freshman QB Reggie Bonnafon in the driver’s seat again after a mediocre game against Wake Forest.
Other than the stout defense, the key to Louisville’s win over Wake Forest was fourth string RB Brandon Radcliff’s 129 yards and 2 touchdowns on only 17 carries. Without that emergence, Louisville could’ve fallen to the Demon Deacons in very ugly fashion.
Syracuse started off the season by scraping past Villanova in overtime, but rebounded nicely against Central Michigan the following week. Unfortunately Cuse lost the next two games to Maryland and Notre Dame by a combined score of 65-35. The play of QB Terrel Hunt has been a pleasant surprise after an inconsistent 2013 season, but he’ll face his biggest test yet against Louisville.
The key for Louisville will be to avoid mistakes on offense and let the defense continue to dominate. Wake Forest’s only touchdown was off of a fumble recovery and if the defense continues this level of dominance the offense won’t need to do much. Syracuse will need to put points on the board on offense to force Bonnafon and the Cardinals offense to make plays instead of play it safe.
Prediction: Louisville’s defense stops Terrel Hunt in his tracks and the Cardinals offense does just enough to win. Louisville hangs on and defeats Syracuse 20-13.
Virginia Tech (3-2, 0-1) at North Carolina (2-2, 0-1):
Virginia Tech vaulted into the national conversation after a victory on the road over #8 Ohio State. As Pitt is wont to do, VT immediately killed the positive vibes with back to back losses to East Carolina and Georgia Tech. A win over a mediocre MAC team in Western Michigan alleviates none of the concerns presented by the losses to ECU and GT, namely a mistake prone QB Michael Brewer (10 interceptions in 5 games) and a defense that’s surprisingly struggling.
North Carolina started off 2014 like 2013 by massively disappointing everyone. After wins over Liberty and San Diego State to start the season, the Tarheels have given up a whopping 120 points their past two games against East Carolina and Clemson. UNC is currently 126th in the nation in points allowed per game. That’s out of 128 schools. Offensively, however, UNC is 23rd in points per game and has scored no fewer than 31 points in a game. QB Marquise Williams averages 261 yards and 2.5 touchdowns per game with his arm and legs and has the talent to throw for 300 and run for 50 more on most defenses.
The key for VT will be to use UNC’s horrific defense as a bounce back to restart the push for the ACC Coastal crown. The defense is better than it has looked recently and can keep UNC’s offense to a reasonable point total. UNC needs Brewer to continue his mistake prone ways and hope the defense is just enough to allow the Tarheels to outscore the Hokies.
Prediction: VT’s defense rebounds, Michael Brewer avoids the critical mistakes he has made lately, and VT wins 35-24.
Miami (3-2, 1-1) at Georgia Tech (4-0, 1-0):
Miami is very close to turning a corner on offense and becoming elite. If Duke Johnson stays for his senior year Miami could be one of the most prolific offenses in the country in 2015. Freshman QB Brad Kaaya is a star in the making and Miami is always stacked with athletes at skill positions. Kaaya already shows the ability to spread the ball around (6 receivers with 10+ catches and 100+ yards) and big plays are common. The defense is still a work in progress but may have turned a corner last week against Duke. If the offense can continue to grow and the defense merely keeps opponents below 28 points, Miami is capable of even giving FSU a run for their money next month.
Georgia Tech, like UVA, is a huge surprise. The question is whether the early season success is a product of weak competition and a downtrodden VT or an actual rebound from a subpar 2013. New QB Justin Thomas is making more plays with his arm (7 TD passes) than the Yellow Jackets are accustomed to and it has added a nice wrinkle to their option-heavy offense. The offense has been successful without much from the defense, which hasn’t been good. GT is allowing nearly 200 yards per game on the ground and an ugly 5.4 yards per attempt. Through the air, the Yellow Jackets have done much better, allowing just over 200 yards per game to go along with 3 touchdowns and 6 interceptions.
The key for Miami is to avoid letting GT set the tempo. GT’s offense relies heavily on ball control and if the Yellow Jackets get the ball moving early, it’ll be difficult for Miami to take advantage of the weak run defense. Obviously this makes the key for GT to control the tempo and keep Miami’s prolific offense off of the field.
Prediction: Miami’s defense is good enough to stop GT on a few drives and Miami’s offense continues to grow. Miami wins 31-20.
Heinz Ketchup isn’t even made in Pittsburgh btw.
Most of the world’s Heinz tomato ketchup is made in the main U.S. plant at Fremont, Ohio, and in Leamington, Ontario, for the Canadian market (Both plants are located on opposite sides of Lake Erie).
On February 14, 2013, Heinz agreed to be purchased by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital for $23 Billion.
Back to the UVA game.
Mike London is really on the proverbial ‘Hot Seat’ up there in Charlottesville after last year’s horrendous season. And winless(0-8) in the ACC.
Yet they were very competitive with us. Most agreed last year if UVA had any semblance of an offense and a somewhat competent QB, they would have won the game last year. They do on both accounts this year.
So based on that and London needing to have a good season complete with Bowl game to save his job.
Guess what ?
Actually this game is the Panthers last stand, win it and the Akron loss was an aberration, lose it and sadly I really think the season is going to spiral out of control.
I am horrible picking games but I cannot see Pitt winning this one.
Well football can be crazy to pick for sure week to week. With us being in the middle of PITT>BC>USC being the easiest example with a local flavor.
Over the last 3 games PITT played a poor 1st half at FIU.
We played a poor 2nd half in Iowa game.
We played 2 poor halves against the Zips.
UVA only gives up 87 rushing ypg.
Hope I’m wrong too, but we might be in for thumping, unless they put Ibrahim/James in along with Connor and open up the offense, stretch the defense side to side and throw a couple bombs (completed or not) to Boyd and Jennings to stretch their defense vertically.
We did NONE of those things last year in the UVA game since they couldn’t protect Savage and had no other solutions to defeat the blitz.
If nothing is changed, it might be a rout.
You would think just once that with the anemic following of Pitt football outside of a few, that they too would do something, anything (other than put that stupid round white logo on the 50yd line…. or my favorite…the diagonal lines in the endzone) to do something different and think to create a little buzz and have a little fun.
Although I guess the color blind people who put the two different shades of yellow on the helmet and pants last week thought that was creative. Can’t even get that shit right.
Wonder if any Pitt brass will be there.
Somehow I don’t think Cornhole plays Chess.
Pretty much exactly what Wanny said in fewer words.
I fear the only Pitt brass that will be there is if the Pitt band makes the trip!
pittman4ever
Here we sit in year 3 under Paul Chryst and we just lost to freakin Akron…
When the PITT administration, not just the AD mind you, finally insisted that policies be put in place that DW didn’t like he was fired/’resigned’ and still continues to complain about that today.
Of course it was easy for DW and his supporters to somewhat overlook his own actions in leading up to that move and try to put the put blame on the fact that DW didn’t get the Assistant Coaching salary budget increases he insisted were necessary to compete with the big football factories. But what PITT fans do here is have a conveniently short memory and either forget or choose to ignore the major financial recession that was happening at the time and the fact that PITT was bleeding endowment money year after year.
There way no possible way the Chancellor and the BoT were going to spend even more money on football when they had been forced to peel back academic programs due to the strongly negative financial position they were in due to economic circumstances.
Contrary to public belief PITT doesn’t have huge donors to the football program as some schools do in that they can tap them on the shoulder and ask “Hey, times are tight can you put out another $X million to tide us over” as some other schools do.
And this is during the weeks leading up to and including the holidays ….. ain’t goin to happen!
THere will always be controversy no matter what.
I have no idea what improved aspects of the Panther’s play will be responsible for this upset victory, but it will be a surprise to all who follow this team. Since Jennings made an appearance last week, he may be the wild card in this prediction.
This team has a lot talent. These guys are used to winning at the HS level. I just don’t see this team accepting defeat for the rest of this season,,,,yet.
So the formula for success tomorrow will involve much more than just player execution however. It must be on the coaching staff to get this team in the position to out scheme the Cavaliers. Now there’s the rub!
This coaching staff accomplished something dramatic in last week’s game. Unfortunately for them, what that accomplishment was,,,,a self imposed acceleration of the time table that returns the verdict on whether this staff can “coach up” this stable of two & three star recruits into a winning ACC football squad.
With that Akron loss, these coaches squandered all of the early season positive fan support, lost team momentum and have shaken this young team’s confidence. If they don’t have the ability to turn this situation around tomorrow, then HCPC’s coaching seat begins to heat up exponentially from this point forward.
It might even start heating up today, if with Whitehead’s announcement, the Panthers lose out on yet another high profile 4* local recruit that would be an essential get for the Panthers, a recruit that would see immediate playing time next season since we’re so thin in our secondary.
That’s why I’m expecting a typical SOP unexpected victory tomorrow, their collective backs are against the wall in this one and that is just the time when the Same Old Pitt historically pulls out a win that no one anticipates. SOP has already taken care of losing a game that they shouldn’t have, will tomorrow be the day that they win one that they shouldn’t? The script looks appropriate to me for something weird, just like that to occur, so typical of our squad, so typical SOP. We’ll see.
Hail to Pitt!
If you read some of the national articles and blogs, now people are starting to wonder if it is the current admin at Michigan, and not RichRod, especially when considering the current travails of the current HC who had previously been a very successful HC.
Other posters here are wondering why we can’t be like Cincy, who had hired 3 coaches recently that went on to bigger and brighter opportunities (Dantonio, Kelly and Jones.) And as I recall, Chas had expressed the same back when Wanny was fired, hoping that Pitt could hire a Kelly-type even if he was to move on.
The fact is that Pitt is by no means a top level program and hasn’t been one for decades. Yet, the last time a Pitt coach left for greener pastures was Sherill, and the only other time I remember that happening was Majors leaving before him.
Fact is that probably the coaching community knows fully well what a dead-end job Pitt is. And that must be blamed on the administration, from the AD on up. And you certainly aren’t enhancing the school’s reputation when you fire a an alum who averaged 9 wins in his final three years.
If Pitt is losing money as you say, it is the fault of the admin. What I don’t understand is how schools with comparable or even lesser status than Pitt FB has larger athletic budgets.
That would be 96 teams in D1 and weed out the lower tier teams, they could drop down to D2 or whatever.
Pitt RB James Conner
The case for: Conner is second in the nation with 791 yards rushing and nine TDs. No player in the country has more carries than Conner’s 135. He’s just 8 yards shy of his rushing total from all of last season, and he’s been the lynchpin for Pitt’s offense. Through five games, Conner has been responsible for 38.2 percent of his team’s yards from scrimmage — the third highest of any player on a Power 5 team.
The case against: Conner certainly has the quantity, but does he have the quality? His 5.9 yards-per-carry average is good, but it ranks just 34th nationally among players with at least 50 rushing attempts. Pitt has also dropped its last two games to nonconference foes, and Conner didn’t offer much help to the offense. After a 24-yard run on his first touch of the second half against Iowa, Conner has averaged just 3.4 yards-per-carry.
that was an excellent post. my thoughts exactly.
gettin’ done. Knock off #2 at their house.
5-0
By the way, they beat the crap out of Oregon last year, like 41 to 12 or something like that.
Please don’t quit doing this.
Remember, when we’re doing well, I think there is a lot more interest in what the other teams are doing. People get more fired up about where we are in the conference, who we’re playing next, where do we fit in.
Excellent previews.
Tough after a loss to Akron though.
spot on.
Hate to say this, but PITT is viewed as a dead end job in the coaching fraternity. Which is ONE of the reasons Fraud “Jumped” at the chance of getting out so soon.
DW came back after initially saying he wasn’t interested in the job, AFTER nobody of any consequence expressed interest in the job.
I wholeheartedly agree that PITT isn’t a big time program and for exactly the reasons you state – we aren’t going to sink money into football at the expense of anything else.
As for firing a nine-win coach… obviously PITT fires the coaches (DW & WH) who do best on the field if they are not meeting the admin’s standards off the field… unless you believe in the “Next Level” crap which obviously you don’t.
