Obviously this has been raging in the comments. Sorry I haven’t really done much posting this week. Been fighting a cold, allergies and now a full-blown sinus infection. Not fun.
The performance of Tino Sunseri through three games has been disappointing. No two ways about it. Not necessarily unexpected for a guy starting in 1-A for the first time, but still disappointing.
There has been some unusual candor from OC Frank Cignetti (unusual, at least as far as what I’m used to from Coach Wannstedt and the rest of the coaching staff about criticizing players).
Cignetti said Sunseri’s biggest problem is that he is not seeing things on the field as they develop. Because of that, he hesitates, which deprives him of a chance to make plays.
And even when Sunseri is seeing things, he does not trust what he sees and focuses instead on what the defense is doing rather than what his receivers are doing down the field.
Cignetti said he watched film with Sunseri this week and has gone back to basics in trying to correct some of his problems. He said they have spent a lot of time talking about Sunseri’s eyes not being focused downfield enough or for long enough on given plays.
“I think the biggest thing with Tino is that he needs to understand ‘where is my starting point,’ ” Cignetti said. “So what we did is that we went back and made sure he understood on each play ‘here is my starting point.’ What we had to do was make sure his eye progression was correct.”
“He was uncomfortable,” Cignetti said. “But, when your eyes aren’t right, it makes it difficult to play back there. What I saw on film I believe is correctable.”
In no small part, the ferocious and immediate swarming of Miami’s D from the very first snap tied in directly to Sunseri not looking downfield very long, being jittery in the pocket and poor footwork. That’s no excuse, if he’s the QB, he still has to overcome that.
Here’s my view, which apparently is echoed by Paul Zeise at the P-G. It isn’t time to pull the plug on Sunseri. Agree or not about the way the coaching staff decided to give him the starting job, or his overall potential versus Bostick; you just don’t give up like this.
His progression as the starter has not been nearly as good as hoped or expected, and it should be better as a redshirt sophomore. It is his 3d year in the program, and second under the same OC. Those are facts no one should dispute.
It is also a fact that the O-line has been a mess and the running game has been a struggle, putting more pressure on the QB. The offensive play calling has been suspect and not balanced. Too much run in the first half, putting too much pressure to pass in the second. It is hard to picture any QB doing particularly well in this situation right now.
He should also be given a little more time. I am willing to go two more games (assuming Pitt beats FIU). At that point, if the progress has been minimal or none, then a change comes.
As for the topic of Mike Myers starting. The kid is getting redshirted barring injuries to both Sunseri and Bostick. I am guessing that the coaching and Myers’ own mindset has been towards the redshirt and just learning. A sudden abrupt change to making him game ready in what will be 1/3 of the way into the season seems really dumb. It hardly helped the development of Pat Bostick.
Hey, if we were winning it’d be 1 thing. But we’re not.
And a lot of schools are winning with freshmen QBs:
link to collegefantasyfootballinsider.com
(Note one name on the list who, according to the scribes, should be sitting it out and “learning” instead)
Most schools try their absolute best to not play a freshman QB. And if they have to its usually a sign that they have recruited poorly ahead of the freshman.
It is so incredibly difficult to come in as a college freshman and learn a college playbook. It is hard enough as a lineman on either side of the ball or a linebacker. Being a quarterback and having to be the general of the offense requires you to know not only your job but the job of all 11 people around you. On top of that you have to analyze what the defense is doing and know how to attack it. This is an absolutely huge task to put on a freshman. Even if they can get all the information down they will be out on the field thinking instead of reacting because it is such a huge learning task. It isn’t like going into hs and having 15 passing plays and just hitting the open guy. This is a complete different level that requires so much learning. Not saying that a team can’t do it and be successful, but it isn’t the best thing for the team or the player.
That being said, things need to change now. Either Sunseri’s play needs to improve immediately or we need to find a replacement – Bostick or Myers. Otherwise, this offense is going to lead us into the toilet this year.
Agree on both points with Chas – I’ve been a very vocal critic of the way the QB position has been handled since January of 2009 but I also believe that once DW put Sunseri out there as the anointed one then he has to give him a fighting chance to work through problems. As critical as I am of the QB play to date, and I think it has been poor, I also don’t pin our losses only on it. I’ll say Sunseri blew the Utah game but there have been many other factors that contributed to both our losses other than Sunseri’s play.
That said, I also think Sunseri doesn’t have this great ‘upside’ as other fans seem to – IMO that is a local boy/legacy urban myth – but we have five non-conference games before the ones that count start so he has time to either succeed of fail in actual play. If over the next two games we see more of the same, pull the plug.
As to Myers… we fans have short memories. After the 2007 season ended and in the beginning of 2008 DW swore publicly that he would never start a true freshman QB again… he was adamant about it. So, regardless of what we SHOULD do based on our QB1 and QB2 play – I very much doubt we’ll see Myers this season unless there are injuries to both Sunseri and Bostick.
He looked decent against UNH again, despite an O-line that was at times getting pushed around and a running game that had zero consistency.
I’m willing to cut him a bit of break against Miami. That is a fairly veteran and fairly heralded Miami defense going against an o-line that was again greatly overmatched.
Sunseri’s biggest problem seems to be his tendency to lock onto receivers or in some cases, one side of the field. This seems to be a problem borne mostly of inexperiece – a kid who is still adjusting to game conditions.
Now, I do agree that he needs to play better than he did when he had time to make plays against Miami. In fact, he has to be better starting tomorrow. If he comes out tomorrow and doesn’t play well, THEN I think Wannstedt has to look at not just making the switch to Bostick to the save the season, but also to save whatever may be left of Sunseri’s confidence. Whatever he does this year, he is still expected to be a part of the program for the next two years as well, so that has to come into play here as well.
I don’t think Myers is the answer right now. Myers seems to be a textbook example of a kid who would benefit most from redshirting this season, focus on learning the offense and also adjusting to life as a college student and D-I football player. He’ll get his shot next year and if he’s as good as some say, he’ll give Sunseri a run for the job at that point. Myers comes from an elite HS program, so it’s safe to say the kid can play. But if you put the kid in now, you’re asking him to both run an offense AND save the season, and that is more than likely too much for him.
“The Panthers are a mess. They are playing bad and are coached worse. The offensive line is bad, the quarterback play is bad. Nothing is going well for the Panthers at the moment.
They were completely unprepared for the speed of Miami which you have to keep pointing the finger at the coaching staff.
The only reason they stay at No. 4 is that their two losses came against teams ranked in the Top 16 of the AP Poll.
Here’s an alarming stat for Pitt fans. Dion Lewis has only 143 yards on 43 carries so far in 2010. his 3.0 yards per carry is down 2.5 yards from a season ago.”
Pitt can’t be 1 dimensional or we’ll be 4-8. You havin’ fun, season ticket-holders?
It will be interesting to see how Myers develops in the spring. If he is the real deal, I see no reason why he should not be able to beat out the other two quarterbacks even though they are upperclassmen. Wanny may have a problem with that though.
Sometimes, early in a QB’s progression, you have to sit him in a bad game to let the game “come back to him”… I remember Walt doing this w/ Palko in the Nebraska game, and it worked very well. The game was too big for him at the time, and Walt sat him for the early part of the third period. It really helped Tyler focus and, IMHO, was the turning point for him performance wise for that year. He cam back in that game, if you remember, and almost rallied us back…plus, led a mediocre Pitt team to a BCS game.
Bostick should have been in the game after Tino went 3 and out coming out of half. He needed to sit down, take the game in, get pissed and embarrassed, compartmentalize, and grow…but NOOOOO, Wanny keeps him in until he’s bloody and battered and the game has run away from him. Wanny missed a great opportunity to develop Tino.
Once again…poor development of QBs, a Wanny problem for years.
Sunseri wasn’t too hot in the 3rd Q with Pitt only tacking on a FG to lead 16-10 after 3. I will say he played a lot better in the 4rth Q, whether it was due to Graham running roughshod over, around and thru them and them putting more men in the box which opened up the pass. He did manage to throw more accurately. We’ll know for sure after Notre Dame which was clobbering BC, the last I looked. BTW, firewalt was right on target, it was a fake competition for starting QB, I read Pitt scrimmage reports on other scout sites which had stats on both QB’s in which Bostick’s were significantly better which were NEVER reported by Zeise on the PG. Then he has the nerve to call people lunatics for not reporting the truth. Go figure.
But they did pronounce Senory correctly.
Speaking of whom, we can’t continue to have him play well only in the 4th quarter. In fact Wanny is asking for volunteers to play a 3 Q pickup game with Sunseri before the ND game starts. Roundtrip transportation to South Bend provided but you must supply your own pads.
