(This is a weekly series of articles entitled “Monday Morning Quarterback”.   I will try to post them two days after the football games are played so as to have our wilder emotions under control by then.  It will be my take on the positives and the negatives we saw happen and a chance for commenters to agree or disagree and to add their own thoughts.)

We met the Virginia Tech Hokies on the turf at Heinz Field on a rare nationally televised Thursday night game and came away with a very satisfying 21-16 win.  It was a close game and one that even to most optimistic of PITT fans had to doubts about as the 4^th quarter unfolded.  The win puts us at 4-3 on the season with a 2-1 ACC conference record that is just about what we figured we’d have at this point of the season.  It is safe to say that we needed to start the second half of the season with a conference win if we want to have any chance at a Coastal Division championship.

POSITIVES

1.  Our defense, again. When you hold a team, any team, to 26 yards rushing on 21 carries (1.2 ypc) and 2 of 14 on 3^rd and 4^th down conversion tries you are playing excellent defense.  That is the kind of stout play that results in low scores for the other team (16 points with three FGs) and a win.

We did give up more passing yards this week, 265 yards on  26-45 passing for an average of 5.9 yards per attempt, then our previous average of 152.2 but aside from a very well thrown TD passes to the end zone sideline where only the VT receiver could get to the ball none of those passes really did much damage to us.

Again, looking at the 2-16 3^rd and 4^th down conversion tries we see this pretty amazing hidden fact: out of 12 pass attempts to convert to a 1^st down VT completed only three and only one (1!) went for a 1^st down.  Just one success out of 12 attempts. That is truly excellent pass defense when it really matters.

Aside from the shift to the Prevent Defense at 7:42 left in the 4^th quarter, which ended up allowing VT to move 80 yards for a TD to bring them within five points and were all passes BTW, our DC Matt House did another excellent job game planning for an opponent.  He knew, by virtue of injuries to their RBs, that VT would lean towards the pass and met that challenge with an aggressive approach to closing on the ball.

We are holding our D1 opponent’s to 20.9 ppg which is very good and obviously enough for a win last night.  We said this before but if our offense could put points on the board more consistently we’d have a couple more wins under our belts.  Here is the listing of  where our defense helped to start VT’s drives.  Look at where they began, all in VT territory save for two drives, one a FG and the other to end the 1^st half.

What also needs to be mentioned here is House’s continued use of Nick Grigsby as the “Freeze LB” during plays where there is a good chance the opponent will pass the ball.  This entails removing LB Todd Thomas from the field so that we can be in a different formation, sometimes an unpopular decision with the fans, but it has worked out well for us all season.

Last night the key defensive play of the game came off this formation when, in VT’s last chance series with 1:50 left in the 4^th quarter, Grigsby sacked the VT QB for 10 yards back to VT’s own 36 yard line and effectively ended the ball game.

2.  Sticking with the defensive side of the ball and with an eye toward the impact it had on the VT offense,  I’ll say the play of our punter Ryan Winslow.   This game really revolved on field position and with his good punting the Hokies started their drives as seen in the table above.  But what really jumped out was the length he got on his punts, his hang time and his ability to place the ball to where the punt return defense team could down it inside the VT 20 yard line.  Here are the details of his punts:

36 yards – downed at the VT 1.

37 yards – fair catch at the VT 6.

47 yards – to the VT 2; returned 38 yards.

50 yards – to the VT 11, returned for 1 yard.

47 yards – to at the VT 9, returned for -4 yards.

29 yards – downed at the VT 9.

47 yards – to the VT 23, returned for 8 yards

Seven punts and five of those resulted in the Hokies starting their drive inside their own 20 yard line.  It was excellent play by Winslow and really helped us to win this game.

3.  Our coaching staff across the board. HC Paul Chryst got his kids up for the game and ready to play a good ACC opponent.  You may look at that statement and think ‘what’s so special about that, that’s what coaches are supposed to do?’ and you would be partially correct.  But the fact is that Chryst’s team was in the hold of a three game losing streak, including losses that were so close they could have turned into wins with the difference of one or two plays. Those are tough games to rebound from but our Panthers did so and did it with bells on yesterday.

Paul Chryst and OC Joe Rudolph incorporated some new aspects of play to what had been a rather plain approach to date. RB James Conner had been playing so well and garnering so many yards on the ground that we stuck with that through thick and thin, sometimes at the expense of cutting other skills and talents our offensive players have out of the equation.

We address Chad Voytik’s current game’s play in a separate section (below) of this series but how he was used in the planning for this game is important to look at.  The staff gave him the green light, in a more formal way, by calling the ‘read-option’ play to allow Voytik to run with the ball more often off of the basic offense.  We discuss this more in-depth later.

But what that decision by the staff signals is that they realize that Voytik’s main strength as a QB is his legs and the yardage he can get on the ground and have decided to make that a main part of the offense rather than just benefit from Voytik’s haphazard decisions to either pass or to run when in extremis of being tackled.

The results of that decision were Voytik’s 19 carries for 118 yards (6.2 ypc) and a long run of 49 yards that set up our last TD of the game early in the 4^th quarter that sealed the win for us.

Add to that the 29 yard flea-flicker play, a pass to Voytik off a right side pitch back to Boyd that was called in the 1^st quarter , and we saw some wrinkles that we fans have been waiting for.  Now, since we have seen Boyd lineup in the backfield a few times, let’s give him the ball on a few actual running plays and see what happens.

It was a new and different approach to offense by the staff that had been lacking and can now be a featured part of the game plan moving forward.

NEGATIVES

1.  There weren’t really a lot of negative things about the win last night.  The unusual mistakes by our kicker Chris Blewitt.  He has been very consistently good for us both with his field goals (9 for 9 prior to yesterday) and with his great kickoffs but he blipped twice against VT.  His 4th quarter 38 yard FG attempt, on 4^th down & 16, was wide right. Had he made that kick he would have given us a more comfortable 24-9 lead with only 7:24 left to play in the game.   Watching the replay it looked like it went off his foot OK but got taken by the wind.

2.  I’ll have to point a finger to the coaching staff here in a small way. No Isaac Bennett, no Ibrahim running the ball, he had two receptions, and only three carries by Chris James means we were sitting down some real talent again this game.  But in their defense also we only ran 61 total offensive plays last night so after Voytik’s 17 pass attempts and 16 carries along with Conner’s  19 rushing tries there wasn’t a lot of action to go around.

But here is something to consider also.  While everyone is praising Voytik’s rushing yardage the reality is that if you take away that 49 yard run he gained 69 yards on 15 carries which is still pretty good.  Considering that he said after the game that only two of those runs were called plays, that 49 yarder was one, it means that he chose to keep the ball 14 other times rather than hand off or attempt a pass and at 4.6 yards per play you have to wonder if it might have been more effective to have others with the ball some of that time.

This is splitting hairs I think and the good results speak for themselves, but it would be nice to see the other backs incorporated more into the offense as the season goes on.  We love the outcome of this last game but in fact our scoring is rather poor at only 19.4 ppg versus D1 opponents and that isn’t going to win us many more ballgames unless it improves.  Using more talent on offense might help that.

3.  More than anything else I believe that there are a lot of negative perceptions by the fans and especially the local media towards the team and the football program in general and this leads to surprises when things do tend to go well for us.

So I’ll point to this as the #3 negative of the game and its aftermath.  We can start with the pervasive feelings by all most all interested that we’d lose the game, my prediction of a close PITT loss among them, then the lack of attendance at the game, then to the absolutely poor and untimely opinion pieces written the next morning by the local newspapers’ staffs.

There isn’t a whole lot anyone can do to change those pregame feelings especially when the team itself is reeling from a three game losing streak.  But the fact that after a big win like that, and it was a big win, the papers choose to print such negative articles as the P-G’s Ron Cook’s “Pitt’s win was ugly, but needed.” Where he says:

“Pitt won Thursday night, right? I was at Heinz Field. I watched Pitt play Virginia Tech and make mistake after mistake after mistake on offense. I’m still not sure it won.

The scoreboard couldn’t be wrong, could it? Pitt 21, Virginia Tech 16.”

He thinks nothing about roundly criticizing the team’s play before even mentioning the winning score. Then he throws in this: “The best thing to say about this one is it beat the alternative.”  Gee thanks Ron, and to think that PITT actually provides you with free food in the Press Box to ensure you have enough strength in you to write this drivel.

The Tribune Review didn’t hesitate to break out in a negative rash after the game either with Rob Rossi’s rather ridiculous article about the state of PITT football and the perception people have of the program.  His sterling answer; why that would be waving his magic wand and making an on-campus stadium, with the attended land needing to be under it I suppose even though he never actually mentions that part, appear out of nowhere.

Here is his take on this:

There’s only one place where nights like Thursday are going to become special for Pitt. That place is Oakland, where the students are, were and always will be.  It won’t be easy. It won’t be cheap. It won’t be for a while. It’s time, though. Even the Riverhounds have their own place to play.

It’s time to hail a new Pitt Stadium.

“Even though the Riverhounds have a place to play.”  Well said Rob. Good God, if the Riverhounds have a place then why not PITT?  Sure, the Riverhounds set the standard in Pittsburgh now I guess.  Hell, let’s look at this logically.  Even most of the local high schools have their own football fields, the museums have their own parking lots and the hospitals have their own concession stands?  By that reasoning it should be no problem for PITT to find the land, money and support among people, that is those people whose support actually matters that is, to get PITT ‘a place of their very own’.

I’ll even donate $5 to start the ‘Hail to PITT Stadium Charity Drive” going, but only if us lowly season ticket holders can get a beer or two while we go watch the Panthers play football.  After all, if I am tearing myself away from watching the Riverhounds play in their state of the art stadium there has to be some incentive for me to go into Oakland, right?

Those are ludicrous and unnecessary, but unfortunately predictable crap responses, by journalists who use their pulpits to be as mean spirited as possible.  This way they can giggle together over their beers before they have to attend (‘I wouldn’t ever willingly be here but it is my job.”) the next PITT game in horrid Heinz Field.

Ying & Yang

This is a special weekly section dedicated to the quarterback play of Chad Voytik so that we can look specifically at how he’s doing, whether he is progressing or not, and what his impact on the team and games are week to week at this point in the season.

It is no secret at this point in the season that Chad Voytik’s running ability surpasses his passing ability as a benefit to his position.  While it is always nice to have a QB who can move his legs to get yardage, it is also unnerving to know that the same QB isn’t much of a passer, save a good pass or two per game.   But that is what we have at QB now and the situation, after seven games of a 12 game season and in the books, appears to be that our passing game is deficient and will stay that way.  OK then…

One of the stanchions of Chryst’s offensive systems, both when he was at the OC at Wisconsin and now PITT, has been the use of the “Play-Action Pass”. This is when the QB has the option to hand the ball off to the RB or to keep the ball and pass it himself and uses a fake handoff to misdirect the defense.  PITT has been doing this for years and that was a staple of what the staff was asking Voytik to do this year.

Yesterday we saw a twist incorporated into that play by adding the “Read-Option” by the QB to the play action call.  This is when, after the fake to the RB, the QB can either continue with the pass or he tucks the ball in and purposefully runs the ball forward for positive yards.  Voytik executed this very well last night.  He racked up 118 yards and got key 1^st downs by doing it.

If you as a fan like that fine, I really don’t and the reason is we have four guys on the roster who are better runners but only one person on the roster who is the starting QB and can even minimally pass the ball.  Maybe I’m off base, but if we are asking our QB to use his legs more than his arm then why even attempt to recruit Wide Receivers?  Why not just concentrate on OL and TEs and admit that we can’t pass the ball with any sustained success?

We weren’t an offensive juggernaught last night by any means even with Voytik’s 118 yards on the ground.   As a matter of fact we played a rather average offensive game all around and only had only 4.9 yards per carry and 5.4 yards per passing attempt.  We had 14 drives last night and scored three times for a total of 21 points.  Lucky for us that VT scored less.

If Voytik is going to stay in the running mode then he better produce rushing yardage like this every single game because we sure as hell won’t be winning anything else with what we saw him do in the passing game last night.  Something that is really important for us fans to remember is that the staff called only two (2) running plays called for him against VT.  Only two. Which means all the other runs were his decision alone off the read-option.  Which also means that every one of those QB keepers also kept the ball out of Tyler Boyd’s hands.

It was a lovely pass and catch on that TD to Boyd but if we take away that one play we get this for the rest of his game: 10/16 for 43 yards, 0 TD and 1 INT.  Man, I shudder to think that we’ll see that type of passing production again, even with the TD throw, if Voytik starts back to thinking he has to run first before attempting to pass.