Like every year since Pitt joined the ACC, the Coastal division appears wide open. In 2013, Duke had their best season in most of our lifetimes and won the division with a 10-2 regular season (6-2 in the ACC). In 2014, a 10-2 (6-2 in ACC) Georgia Tech had a season for the ages which culminated in an Orange Bowl victory over a top 10 SEC team (Mississippi State). Each season had a 5-3 team in second place (2013 had three), so there was no wiggle room; they had to win six for the outright title. (more…)

Well, it has been nine months since Paul Chryst left for northern pastures and Pitt hired Pat Narduzzi in his place and this may be a good time to review what has happened since then.

We’ve seen some big changes surrounding the Pitt football program as Narduzzi hired a new staff and Pitt hired a new Athletic Director who came with a fatter checkbook.  We’ve gone back to the ‘Script on the helmets and our season ticket sales and fundraising numbers have both gone up.  You have to attribute those last items to Narduzzi and the energy he’s brought to the program so far.

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Here are some links and such.

The Trib’s article on Peterman:

At the outset of his Pitt career, Nathan Peterman faced the daunting task of wrestling the starting job from an incumbent quarterback who has the support of his teammates.It took him no longer than one training camp and the first two weeks of the season to get it done.

Then, in his first start, he encountered a large, hostile crowd in Iowa and was asked to save the game by driving the offense 75 yards to a game-tying touchdown. With 52 seconds to spare — too much time, as it turned out — he did it.

“He definitely shows poise in the moment,” tight end J.P. Holtz said. “He doesn’t get scared.”

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Pitt lost to Iowa in dramatic fashion. This feels like the norm, but it was different this year. First off, it was Pitt that came back in the fourth quarter after a rough start. Second, Pitt is still finding its footing without James Conner. Third, the defense, while not perfect, forced Iowa to earn every single point. There were no gimmes, no luck other than the 57 yards FG, and it ended up a hard fought contest between two good football teams.

I can live with that. There was no choke or horrific mistake. Sometimes you play a good football team and you lose. Instead of looking back, I want to look forward. What can Pitt do during the bye week to prepare for a tough road game against Virginia Tech? Here’s my list. (more…)

We had a close loss yesterday to a Big Ten Iowa team in their hometown Kinnick Field.  The final score was 27-24 and was determined by a last second 57 yard field goal Iowa’s placekicker.

To keep all the game links in one place here they are… then we’ll move on to background issues later in the article:

Fittipaldo’s report Post-Gazette 9/20; and  DiPaloa’s Trib after game article.

There were missed opportunities to win this game, or at the very least actions could have been taken that would have given us a better shot at a win.

(more…)

To quote Pat Narduzzi: the preseason is over. With wins over YSU and Akron, Pitt overcame some of the demons of the Chryst era with one last hurdle: beating Iowa. To be more specific, don’t blow a fourth quarter lead against Iowa, something both Paul Chryst and Fraud Graham did. Unfortunately, Iowa is already well-versed in the art of a fourth quarter comeback as the Hawkeyes broke a 17-17 tie late in the fourth quarter against Iowa State last week.

Let’s breakdown the Hawkeyes to see if they have another fourth quarter comeback in them. (more…)

(This is a long look at the current QB situation so far this season)

Pitt is in the midst of something we haven’t had in a very long time and that is a genuine quarterback competition being played out in real time and for the world to see.  We have been told there were competitions in the past but those were lip service to the media. This season however we are being treated to something this new staff feels is of uppermost priority, finding the QB which is the best overall for the team.  Here is background on the issue and some Q & As that may help to enlighten our fans as to what is and has been transpiring in this interesting development.

How did Pitt get the two principal QBs, Chad Voytik and Nate Peterman, on the roster?

For that we have to go back to 2011 when both Voytik and Peterman were in their senior years in high school.  Both players were star high school QBs and one left his hometown state of Tennessee to go to Pitt and the other kid left Florida to go to play his college ball in Tennessee.

In high school Chad Voytik was a 6’0” 192 lb running QB and played for the Cleveland Blue Raiders, located in Cleveland, TN, a small town of 42,000 located 30 miles northeast of Chattanooga and in the western foothill of the southern Great Smokey Mountains.

Voytik had a very good career there being named both an All-State player and a high school All-American.  He was a dual threat QB at Cleveland, passing for over 5,000 yards in his three years starting and was also a prolific runner.

Voytik was a Rivals.com four star (4*) player who was also ranked 4^th nationally among senior QBs and the #1 player at any position in TN. Twelve other D1 schools wanted Voytik as a recruit including PSU, Clemson, Virginia, Syracuse and Louisville.  Those are all good football schools and play in competitive Power Five conferences.

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September 14, 2015

Iowa Week

 PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO: Narduzzi Iowa Preview

PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT (HTML LINK): Narduzzi Web Transcript

Opening Remarks:

“We had a great win. Anytime you get a win, it’s a great one. It’s always good to win on the road. Akron was a good football team and I thought they were exceptional on the front seven—and that turned out to be true. There was some nasty weather, it was sloppy. Our kids had a great attitude they were [positive] going into it and played with it.

“I really thought our kids were locked in on the trip. It was a great job by both teams holding onto the ball, but we ended up being plus-one there which we needed. We always have to win the turnover ratio and we won the time possession as well. We had four drives of eight plays or more for our offense. Eight being the lowest, I believe we had a couple 10 or 13-play drives and that’s huge. That’s how you win the time possession and that’s what we lacked the week before. We kept making these explosive gains but we didn’t have that time possession. We would like to have both.

Here is the Akron game Play-by-Play so you can see those drives he’s talking about.

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PITT vs. IOWA

September 19, 2015 • 8 p.m., ET

Kinnick Stadium (70,585/FieldTurf) • Iowa City, Iowa

Big Ten Network • Pitt IMG Sports Radio Network

PittsburghPanthers.com • @GoPittFootball • #PITTvsIOWA

LINK (PDF): Pitt Game Notes (Iowa) – Fans, these are the in-depth game notes (Pitt two-deep, bios, etc…) and if you are watching the game they are a great thing to have in your hand for quick reference.  Here are some notable things going into the game. Note the shake up in the starters listed (CAPS is the 1st string):

Quarterback:  4 NATE PETERMAN JR*, 6’2”, 225 or 16 CHAD VOYTIK (JR*, 6-1, 215)

Tailback:  37 QADREE OLLISON FR*, 6’2”, 230; 5 Chris James (SO, 5-11, 210) or 22 Darrin Hall (FR, 5-11, 215)

Right Tackle:  70 BRIAN O’NEILL (FR*, 6-6, 290) OR 78 ALEX BOOKSER (FR*, 6-6, 310);  72 Carson Baker (SO*, 6-5, 325)

Strong Safety:  9 JORDAN WHITEHEAD FR, 5’11, 185 OR 25 PAT AMARA JR. SO, 6’2”;  195 26 Jevonte Pitts (JR*, 5-11, 200)

Defensive End: 92 RORI BLAIR SO, 6’4”, 240;  52 Shakir Soto (JR, 6-3, 265);  48 Zach Poker (SO*, 6-4, 235)

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(Here is something to get the blood flowing a bit; The highlights from ESPN3’s coverage of Pitt win against Akron )

On Saturday night in the cold and rainy rubber capital of the world, Akron, Ohio our Pitt Panthers won a non-conference  game against the Mid-America Conference Akron Zips. The final score was 24-7 and helped to erase the lingering bad taste in fans’ mouths from the loss we suffered last season when the Zips handily beat us in our home stadium 21-10.

We played this game much better than that one.

Aside from the win itself, which brings new Head Coach Pat Narduzzi’s team to a 2-0 record, a dramatic story line developed that may be more important in the long run than the actual victory.  That would be the blooming competition between Chad Voytik and Nate Peterman to determine who is going to be the starting QB after we finish the Iowa game (next Saturday in Iowa at 8:00 pm broadcast on the Big Ten Network) and move on to our ACC conference opponents.

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Somewhere this week, a bit of basketball had to be posted. Between Conner’s injury news at the beginning and the Backyard Brawl at the end, there was always something a little more breaking to post. Now, here we are a little more than 24 hours to a football game and you are looking at a basketball post.

Starting with the news yesterday that Damon Wilson was academically cleared by the NCAA. The news was initially tweeted out by Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com. But there could be more.

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The day before the game is a good time to sit back in your chair and take a long look at all your scribbled notes you have been jotting down, when you should have been working, about what you have read, seen and heard about the upcoming Pitt vs. Akron game.   It’s time to look at what you know and feel and start thinking hard about what you believe we’ll see come out of Zips hometown of Akron, Ohio on Saturday night.

To recap: Justin did a great piece on Thursday with his “Know Your Enemy: Akron Zips” article.  It succinctly covered Zips offense and their defense and then he adds his thoughts about the game in closing.  Justin’s prediction is this

“Pitt wins an ugly one 24-13 thanks to a few turnovers from the defense and a smart yet boring day from the offense which avoids any big mistakes. Tyler Boyd turns something into nothing once or twice to open it up for the running game to be just good enough to control the game.”

Here is a little something to help you in recapping the YSU win but remember that this shows only Pitt’s highlight and none of the lowlights as they say.

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Here is the Pitt media release info doctored up with some additional graphics and information…

First off here is HC Pat Narduzzi’s Monday afternoon press conference.

PITT vs. AKRON

“You lookin’ at me?”

September 12, 2015 • 6 p.m., ET

InfoCision Stadium (30,000/ProGrass) • Akron, Ohio
ESPN3 • Pitt IMG Sports Radio Network
PittsburghPanthers.com • @GoPittFootball • #PITTvsAkron

PDF LINK: Complete Pitt Game Notes (Akron)

(more…)

The Narduzzi Era at Pitt began yesterday and Pitt came out with a 45-37 win against the tough and persistent Youngstown State Penguins in front of 49,969 mostly yellow-painted fans.  Here are the official game stats in case you are wondering how what happened came about.

There is good news and bad news coming out of this ballgame.  Here are the highlights so that you can see some of each type of play we had Saturday:

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I try to avoid immediate analysis after an ugly game as emotion clouds reason. Now after I’ve sat down and watched the game at least twice over on DVR, I have a much better feel for what went wrong and I’m much more comfortable about what happened. I’ll break it down between offense and defense. Special teams didn’t have anything that really required a breakdown as outside of Blewitt’s miss everything went reasonably well. (more…)