(This is one of 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.) 

Before we talk about anything else watch these highlights from Saturday’s win over Georgia Tech.

Done?  OK then.

Pitt flew into Atlanta, GA last Friday afternoon as a team that still had many legitimate question marks surrounding it despite winning five out of the season’s six games.  They flew back into Pittsburgh Saturday evening as a team that has shown it can handle adversity, adapt to tough in-game situations and whose personnel can rise to the occasion in a harsh environment.

That is no small accomplishment.  It has been years since we have seen the type of overall play and, as corny as it may sound in this day and age, true team spirit that we have witnessed develop in this year’s version of Panther football. That last point is huge and is something where the lack of it has truly hurt the players, coaching staff, program and the athletic department in the past.

No one coach can make this bonding happen.  No school can mandate that football players  like and willingly follow a new coaching staff and no one other than the players themselves can instill a solid measure of trust and respect they may have for the coaches either.  Yet that is what we are seeing unfold week to week in the first half of this season.

Here are some vital links to keep you abreast of the happenings in last game and how the team has done up to the halfway point where we sit at 5 wins and 1 loss.

Photo Gallery
56-yard FG Radio Call
Postgame Interviews
Postgame Notes
Box Score
Season Statistics

Now let’s go on to the game itself.

Pitt flew into Atlanta, GA as a team that still had many question marks surrounding it despite winning four out of the last five games.  They flew back into Pittsburgh as a team that has shown it can handle adversity, adapt to in-game situations and whose personnel can rise to the occasion in a tough environment.

That is no small accomplishment.  It has been years since we have seen the type of overall play and, as corny as it may sound in this day and age, true team spirit that we have developed in this year’s version of Panther football. That last point is huge and is something where the lack of it has truly hurt the players, coaching staff, program and the athletic department.  No coach can make this bonding happen.  No school can mandate that football players not only like and follow a new coaching staff and no one other than the players themselves can instill a solid measure of trust and respect they may have for the coaches either.

An example of that trust is how the offensive players felt when we were driving down the field to attempt the winning FG late in the game. In that drive we converted two 4th down attempts. The first conversion of that series was this: 4th and 1 at the GT 50 (5:11 left in 4th quarter); Qadree Ollison ran for 3 yds to the GT 47 for a 1st down.

The second and equally important was when we were in this situation; 4th and 2 at GT 39 (3:09 left in the  4th quarter);  Nathan Peterman pass complete to Tyler Boyd for 5 yds to the GT 34 for a 1st down. It was perfectly described in ESPN’s post-game coverage when they wrote this about those plays:

Thomas (the GT QB) had some big moments, but Peterman had more. Particularly after coach Pat Narduzzi called timeout before the second fourth-down play.”We all wanted him to have faith in us because we were going to get it,” Peterman said. “Everybody on that field knew we were going to get it.“

I think most fans felt we were going to get it also at that point, it just had that sense of rightness to it.  What a difference that is from what we have experienced over the years with other coaches. But that trust and respect, going both ways, is what we are seeing unfold week to week this season.

Pitt fans haven’t had many chances to witness celebrations of the  magnitude of the post-game Pitt locker room romp in the long past.  Here is a perfect example of what is mentioned above.  Narduzzi made the players memorize the words to the Pitt Victory Song during fall camp but it was up to the players to want to sing it with such energy and verve after this victory:

POSITIVES:

1.  Successful in-game adjustments on the defensive side of the ball.  I say ‘successful’ because Matt House also tried to adjust schemes and personnel assignments at halftime last season but that didn’t make much of a difference.

Watching the start of the game Saturday and seeing GT run for gains measured in mileage rather than yards in the first half was, let’s be honest now, driving the Same Old Pitt feelings to the forefront of our brains.  That happened especially when GT’s Marcus Marshall took a QB pitch and ran untouched down the right sideline for a 58 yard TD and did it while out running Jordan Whitehead by a large margin.

GT then went on to run the ball at an amazing clip carrying 22 times for 246 yards at a sterling 11.2 ypc average.  Then something strange happened at halftime as DiPaola describes in his game recap:

 Pitt was faced with the worst kind of adversity: It had no quick answers for Georgia Tech’s triple-option offense. The Ramblin’ Wreck rushed for 264 yards and scored three touchdowns during a first half that ended in a 21-21 tie.

But Georgia Tech finished with only 112 more rushing yards and scored one touchdown in the second half. Call it better execution, or perhaps it was the coaches showing their players how to attack the option. “You should see that blackboard in there,” Narduzzi said, pointing to the locker room.

Let’s just say their offense was one “Hell of an Engineer” against our porous first half defense.  After the half GT scored only seven more points while we semi-shutdown their running and passing games to close out the win. Still it was a close run game.

2.  Nate Peterman’s play at QB He played an almost perfect game Saturday in many ways. His line reads like this: 14-21, 66.7%, 162 yards with 3 TDs and no INTs for a 178.6 rating. All that is pretty impressive but it would be nice the passing yards were larger but there it is.

But perhaps most of all the best part of his game against GT was what isn’t written into the box score. He threw the ball away under pressure four or five times rather than risk and interception or take a sack. The reason this is so important for Peterman specifically, and thus for the offense in general, is that Peterman had the makings of a real gunslinger and indeed we saw that in the first two games of the season.

Since then he has made better choices in realizing it does only good to have an incompletion when it avoids negative consequences.  That change in approach to passing is what led to 0 INTs and 0 sacks on Peterman against GT.

The QB switch from Chad Voytik to Peterman is beginning to pay off big time for the Panthers.   Since Peterman has ascended to the starting role we are 4-1 with three conference wins.  Other than Voytik’s staring and conducting two series in the beginning of the Akron game, the second match of the season, Chaney and Narduzzi have turned to Nate Peterman as their go-to QB and made him the solid starter.

In that time period Peterman’s passing box score looks like this: 72 -105 for 861 yards, 71% completion rate, 9 TDs & 1 INT for an approximant QB rating of 163.8. If we drill down he has an 8.6% TD rate (8.6 per 100 attempts) and a 1.0 INT rate (1 per 100 attempts).

Here are some of our passing highlight videos:

– Peterman’s first TD to Boyd from six yards out.

– Peterman to Boyd for 17 yard TD

–  6 yd TD pass to Holtz.

Where Peterman’s worth really jumps out is this; when you boil his overall play down to brass tacks he has a 4-1 starting record and in the last our three wins his QB ratings are very impressive. Against   VT his QB rating was 143.6; against  VA it was  176.0 and against GT it was a great 178.6.  As a comparison a even 170.0 QB rating would sit in the Top Ten QBs Ratings as of last week’s games; that 178.6 would be in the national Top Five.  Right now Peterman’s overall rating (of all games) sits at 157.8 which is 13^th nationally.

In addition,  Peterman’s three passing TDs in the game Saturday was the first time a Pitt QB has accomplished that going back 26 games to  the third week in the 2013 season when Tom Savage tossed six TDs against Duke in that 58-55 shootout overtime win.

Given the fact that we only saw Voytik for one play against GT it looks like Peterman’s starting and playing time  is set and what we’ll see over the second half of the season also. I believe the die is finally cast with the QB issue.  We can offer comparisons until the cows come home but the fact is that Peterman grabbed the starting role with his proven play on the field in a completely legitimate way.  The thought that Chaney put the fix was in for Peterman is a moot point now as Peterman’s play has determined he’s well suited to be the player to lead this offense.

3.   Our Special Teams Play. The obvious jumps out at us with the 56 yard field goal at the 1:11 mark in the 4^th quarter to win the game by Chris Blewitt.  However, there were other nice plays and hidden pluses for this unit on Saturday.

Blewitt’s 56 yard FG to win the game.  I love the reaction of the ball boy in the gray shirt right under the goalpost the ball passed over… too bad, so sad….

Late in the 2^nd quarter when the game clock was winding down we blocked a GT field goal attempt that would have put them up 24-21 and given the GT players momentum going into halftime and into the 3^rd quarter.  But Shakir Soto’s block completely turned that around and gave Pitt a lift into the break.

– FG blocked by Soto 

Our punting was solid with Ryan Winslow’s four punts for 163 yards, at a 40.8 average and a long of 60 yards.  As impressive as that is the key to Winslow’s work was that GT had no return yardages and had to start at their own 8 yard line after one punt. In a game of field position Winslow did a great job setting the stage for GT to have to work for their yardage toward a TD.

I stole this from the GT writer quoted below but it shows pretty damn good special teams work: Tech’s best starting point was its own 25. Tech’s starting position on its 10 drives: Tech 25, Tech 8, Tech 14, Tech 14, Tech 25, Tech 25, Tech 8, Tech 25, Tech 9, and Tech 24.

NEGATIVES:

1.  It is hard to overlook the rushing yardage GT put up against us even if we kind of held them in check in the second half.  Saying that we held a team to 130 yards on 18 carries for a 7.2 ypc average is a good job for one half of play sounds ludicrous and would be if we were playing any other team than GT.

But that is exactly what we did and even though GT had good production after halftime it seemed that they were a bit demoralized that they couldn’t sustain the level of rushing success they had in the first half when they rack up huge numbers.

2.  Still giving up big plays on defense.  As effective as our defense turned out to be in the second half Saturday, especially against GT’s passing,  we gave up a ton of big plays and by that I mean >30 yards.  GT had five big plays that picked up chunks of yardage like it was on a clearance sale at Costco’s.  All four of their scoring drives (3 TDs and 1 FG) had plays of over 30 yards in them. Two of them had rushing plays of over 50 Yards.

It wasn’t all on the ground either, although GT’s 29 yard TD pass doesn’t fit the criteria as a big play it only falls short by one yard. So we got burnt both ways.  This pattern of giving up sudden large yardage has been happening all season with us and it’s just a matter of time that it bites us in the ass… unless we curtail the frequency of it.

3.  Since we are kind of on a Ying & Yang theme here I’ll go back to a part of the Special Teams play and call it negative, in particular Tyler Boyd’s handling of punt returns.  Yesterday he had 3 yards on 3 punt returns but that wasn’t the worse of it.  He fumbled two of those punts which would have been a real problem had he not recovered both of them.

Opposed to last season Boyd just isn’t getting it done as a punt returner this year. He’s had 8 returns for a total of 7 yards with a long of, you guessed it, 7 yards and of course no TDs.  That’s 8 returns not counting the 3 fumbles on the season he’s had back there also. He’s still pretty effective on the kickoff returns with a 23.7 yard average so let him do that full time and draft someone else into returning punts.  Ryan Lewis has one return for 22 yards; he’s a good candidate to take that spot as are some other talented kids on the roster.

However, under no circumstances should the staff put Jester Weah back there. Can you imagine the heart attacks in the stands when the other team was getting ready to punt to him?

I’ll not do a ‘time-span’ comparison between the two principal QBs as I had in the last two MMQB pieces.  I think the point of the staff’s decision making and their reasons for it has been adequately made.  Peterman is building on his previous successes at a regular clip and that’s who we should concentrate on and hope does well going into games 6-12 of the season.

Here is a ‘4 Quick Thoughts” article from a Georgia Tech beat writer on how the Yellow Jackets played.  It is interesting to see the game from an opponent’s writer’s point of view.

* Georgia Tech’s water got turned off at halftime. The Yellow Jackets racked up 337 yards on 29 plays (11.6 yards per play) in the first half but were held to 145 yards on 26 plays (5.6) in the second half.

Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi said that the defense made a switch by moving the defensive tackles around “to cause confusion that way. They had a bead on what we were doing (in the first half). They were getting to our ‘mike’ (middle linebacker). The key is to keep your mike clean.”

1.   As has been the case in the losing streak, now five games, a string of plays here and there did Tech in. Harrison Butker’s field-goal try at the end of the first half, from 50 yards, was blocked. The Jackets couldn’t jump on two punts that Tyler Boyd dropped. A.J. Gray couldn’t make a tackle on third-and-4 behind the line of scrimmage in the third quarter, allowing Pittsburgh to keep possession and ultimately score to take a 28-21 lead.

Quarterback Justin Thomas was flushed out of the pocket repeatedly by poor pass protection, plays that typically ended with incompletions. Coach Paul Johnson called the continued failure to give Thomas time to throw “an enigma to me.”

2. Defensively, tackling wasn’t great. Pitt wide receiver Tyler Boyd only had 68 receiving yards, but caught two touchdown passes (the second was against double coverage) and also got open on the second fourth-down conversion of the game-winning drive. He also threw a 29-yard pass that set up one of the touchdowns.

3. Pittsburgh ran 66 plays and none went for a loss (emphasis mine). Quarterback Nate Peterman had time to throw, completing 14 of 21 attempts for 162 yards and three touchdowns with no sacks.  “We can improve with the pass rushing,” defensive end KeShun Freeman said. “We’ve got to limit that time that the quarterback can have time to throw so the DB’s can cover.”

4. Field position was killer. Tech’s best starting point was its own 25. Tech’s starting position on its 10 drives: Tech 25, Tech 8, Tech 14, Tech 14, Tech 25, Tech 25, Tech 8, Tech 25, Tech 9, and Tech 24.

It didn’t happen in a vacuum, obviously. The Jackets didn’t force a turnover (Pitt had eight turnovers in its first five games), didn’t advance the two non-touchback kickoffs past the 24 and let Pittsburgh flip the field before it did punt.  Tech gained 482 yards but had to spend too many of them getting out of its own end (of the field).

I’ll add a personal note here.  As we all read earlier I took a very strong ‘wait and see’ attitude to this new HC and his staff. While I though Narduzzi was a good hire overall I felt it would be two or three years before we saw a big jump up in the team’s play.  I was wrong on that count as it is plain as day his coaching and his staff’s attention to detail has made this year’s team, with almost the exact same roster as last season, play better than we have seen a Pitt team play in a long while.

There is a lot of room for improvement across the board but now we have a much better balanced team that can count on the other units to help win the games.  I am especially surprised what Narduzzi and Conklin have done with the defense so far.  Their work has answered the question I have posted many times on here; “What comes first for the defense, the chicken or the egg?“.  That was asked in reference to wondering if the talent was lacking on the defense and it took better coaching to bring the best play out of them as possible, or, was the talent there and the old coaching staff just couldn’t do anything with them?

I think the answer is obviously the latter. We are seeing much the same players out there on the field on defense but they are playing heads and shoulders above what we saw in 2014. That isn’t limited to the starting 11 either. Mike Caprara is going gangbusters in a secondary role when Matt House would’t let him sniff the field. Tyrique Jarrett has had the same thing happen with him.

But by far the biggest difference on defense is how Matt Galambos is playing this season.  While he still makes some poor play his level of impact on the defense has risen by a large margin.  This really makes me want to jump forward two years and see what this staff will do when the majority of the defensive players are recruited specifically to play in this staff’s defense.

Here are the current re-racked national rank standings Pitt has compared to all the other Div 1 teams:

Statistic                         Rank            Value

Total Offense                    105               346.2

Rushing Offense               68                169.0

Passing Offense                107               177.2

Team Passing Effi             22                150.95

Scoring Offense                77                27.8

Total Defense                   17                300.8

Rushing Defense               36                133.3

Passing Yards Allowed      12                167.5

Passing Efficiency D          11                100.36

Scoring Defense                39                21.8

Turnover Margin                T-71             0.00

3rd Down Con Pct             T-70             0.390

4th Down Con Pct             T-16             0.714

3rd Down Con Pct D          27                0.321

4th Down Con Pct D          T-27             0.333

Red Zone Offense             89                0.810

Red Zone Defense            126               1.000

Net Punting                       77                37.16

Punt Returns                     94                5.80

Kickoff Returns                 16                25.79

First Downs Offense          T-120           104

First Downs Defense         6                  93

Fewest Penalties / Game   19                4.83

Fewest Penalty Yards        7                  36.33

Time of Possession           24                 32:11

View Complete Ranking Summary

Finally I have found the photo that I have been looking for for a long time.  Can anyone name this commenter who is one of the most outspoken of all of us?