12 pm

ESPN

The wife and daughter are on a camping excursion. My son has his own thing that has him away for the weekend. That left me with a Friday night free and clear. To which I nursed a single bourbon, watched a few innings of the World Series, and called it an early night.

The excuse being I had to get up early to drive into Pittsburgh today. The reality being I’m old and was just tired. The only wisdom that has been gleaned from age is not ignoring being tired, and forcing myself to go out and do something simply because I could have.

Anyways…

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Sorry. Been a little sick. Also swamped with work. Oh, and had to go out of town for family things. In other words: Life. I mean, I couldn’t even get the time to put together some open threads.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t been watching Pitt football and doing some deep thinking about it. No. Not at all. After the rather interesting affair up in Syracuse, I started to have some things coalesce. Perhaps some basic understanding of how this Pitt offense operates.

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I mean, take your pick or choose your own pair of opposites. But beware. Madness may be your end result if you try to figure it all out.

Pitt sits at 4-2 after the first week in October. Fully in the mix to win the ACC Coastal. Probably a top 28-35 team in the country. A potential top-25 team by the end of October.

Or they could end up in the lower half of the ACC Coastal. Trying to finish the season at 6-6 and some crappy bowl.

I know what I think Pitt should be. I know that I have no idea if that reality will occur.

I want to love this team. This insanely weird and often fun team. But they make it so hard for large stretches.

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It’s a time to leave it all out there after last week.

Literally got to the press box just before kickoff. A 3:30 kickoff and a chance to be with friends for some real time. It was all the reasons why I have been coming to Pitt games for the last 20+ years. And I’ll be damned if I was going to cut it short.

Do I have unreasonable/irrational optimism? Yeah. Is it substance enhanced? I don’t think so, but I’m not voluntarily submitting to any tests.

Argh.

There’s an exquisite pain from a loss that was there to be grabbed as a win.

Head Coach Pat Narduzzi hasn’t shied away from making it an important game over the last few years. He makes it clear how important it is with his closed media access. And again, I’m not going into the weeds on that matter either. I’ve said before I think that’s  a stupid approach, but so be it. Narduzzi at least understood how much the game matters and does stuff to play up it’s importance. And in that, I agree with him.

It’s the 100th and last meeting of Pitt-Penn State. At least for another 10-20 years. I’m not going to go off into the weeds on that matter. It is a game that should be played with at least some regularity, but isn’t.

It’s just that if there is ever a game to go flat out for broke. To leave nothing behind by the players and coaches. This is the game.

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Well, hello again!

Chas has been gracious in his allowing me to get back to where it began as far as my writing about Pitt football and I’ll be posting some articles here on The Pitt Blather every so often.  So, here goes…

After a pretty dismal opening loss to ACC opponent Virginia Pitt hosted Mid-Atlantic Conference (MAC) Ohio at Heinz last Saturday. It wasn’t Ohio State mind you but Ohio…who actually isn’t all that bad of a team for a MAC school. Let’s set the stage a bit:

Against Virginia Pitt looked pretty shabby in just about every aspect of play. After VA moved out to a 13-0 lead Pitt had its only two decent drives, both in the 2nd quarter, to go ahead by one point, 14-13 at the half.  After that…nothing at all… while VA scored 17 unanswered points. Fans will have different opinions about how Pitt actually played in that game but regardless of how you break the game down it was a disappointment to those who thought we had a chance to start off the 2019 season on the right foot.

But that foot tripped over its other foot and we started 0-1 in ACC play.

Then last Saturday we seemed to play better. In many aspects we took a big leap ahead, especially in the passing game by our QB Kenny Pickett. What he did against VA was pretty horrid with 21/41 for 185 yards @ 4.5 yards per attempt & an 87.4 passer rating… and watching it unfold felt even worse. But he rebounded against Ohio in a big way by throwing for 26/37 for 321 yards @ 8.6 ypa and a 151.0 rating in a 20-10 victory.

Was that a big step in the direction of what our new OC Mark Whipple thinks we’ll see each week out of the passing game or was that a result of playing a MAC defense that was 99th in Passing Yards Allowed (3300 yards and 24 TDs) in 2018? Who knows, but it was better passing and receiving play and less sacks allowed by our Offensive Line then the week before so that bodes well. Our talented WRs didn’t drop as many passes in Week 2 as in Week 1 and that helped account for the big yardage jump also.

I don’t buy into the belief that we’ll see that same level of passing play we did last week as the norm for the rest of the season save for maybe against Delaware and a poorer ACC team. I certainly believe that our next opponent, Penn State, will put so much defensive pressure on Pickett we’ll see more of a reprise of the VA game then of what we saw in the Ohio match. I’m not taking Pickett’s accomplishment away from him, but hell folks, throwing for 321 yards and yet only one (1!) TD? He has to do better than that if we are to win Saturday and our conference games later in the season.

Regardless of if our passing game was effective or not we have kept up the poor work in the second half of our ball games scoring 0 points against VA and then only 3 points against Ohio.  This trend has been a killer for us – in our last five matches we have scored a total of nine points in the second half.  Nine points in 10 quarters of play.

Here’s how that broke down as far as points scored after the half going back and including the last three games (all losses) of 2018: Miami – 3 points; Clemson – 0; Stanford – 3; VA – 0 and Ohio – 3. Nice pattern but totally crap late and needed offensive play and a scoring difference of 49-9 2nd half points overall.

That is actually horrid and as a result we are 1-4 in those five games with the only win being against a lesser foe. That really bothers me for a variety of reasons but what jumps out most is the continued absence of effective halftime offensive adjustments by Narduzzi and his staff.

Our run game was a bit better against Ohio than it was against VA. In that first game the VA defense held us to 30 carries for 78 yards (2.6 ypc) and 1 TD. Ugh. We rebounded against the Bobcats with a better showing of 37 carries for 160 yards (4.3) and 1 TD also. Still not what we’d like to see against an FCS school, but better.

Looking at this season’s rushing so far at 67-238 @ 3.6 ypc and 2 TDs I very much doubt we’ll see anything like the rushing game we had last season this year – far from it maybe.

Penn State currently sits at 30th nationally in rushing defense giving up only 2.19 ypc and zero TDs. That said the Nitters haven’t played the schedule we have so far with their Idaho (79-7 win) and Buffalo (45-13 win) games.

What jumps out to me is that regardless of who PSU played they outscored their opponents 79-20 in averaging 62 ppg. I think they will score a bunch against us on Saturday also. The question therefore is ‘are we going to be able to keep pace with them?’ I don’t think we can enough to win the ballgame in Happy Valley with 106+ crazy fans screaming their lungs out. It will be our first away game and one that signifies which major PA team gets the last win in what may be a very long time before these two teams play again. Pitt dined out on our  2000 win until 2017 when we lost to the Bad Guys up in Blinders-on, PA.

Look at our record in the last three games against PSU; we are 1-2 and have been outscored 123-62 with a humiliating 51-6 loss last year. And we had a semi-decent team last season – better than the current 2019 version in my opinion, albeit with different approach offensively this go-round.

But Penn State is Penn State and when we won that last match against them we were fielding talent like QB Nate Peterman (3 TD passes), WR Q. Henderson (7 touches for 107 yards @ 15.0 ypt and 1 TD) and RB James Conner (146 yards total at 5.6 ypt and 2 TDs) on offense and an offensive line that was one of the best we have had in ages.

That OL gave us a 28th ranked rushing Offense along with a 3rd ranked Sacks Allowed at only 10 on the whole season. We have no offensives stars of that caliber on this squad – so far at least. Some kids shined against Ohio but we’ll see what they do against better competition.
This year’s version of the OL is a far cry from those of the past when we won 8 games and as such I feel Pickett will be running for his life on most of his drop backs on Saturday. That’s going to make a big difference in his passing stats and effectiveness.

I don’t have a crystal ball but I predicted a 1-3 start on the season by the Panthers and nothing I’ve seen has changed my mind on what will most probably happen in Happy Valley. I think PSU shuts down our run game, disrupts the passing game and scores on deep passes against us.

Penn State is now giving (-)17 points to Pitt according to the latest betting websites. I think that is just about correct but I’ll take even more PSU points so my prediction is:

PSU – 45
Pitt –  17

After the disappointment of UVa-Pitt, I briefly debated just getting in my car and driving the two-plus hours home at 11pm; rather then stay in Pittsburgh and even think or talk about the game. Rational thinking got the better of me, so I met up with some friends in a bar for a night cap before crashing in a friend’s guest room.

What to say about the game that hasn’t been said already? The O-line couldn’t block for the run or pass. Kenny Pickett had a good second quarter but that was about it. The wide receivers sure didn’t help. Still don’t know about the running game because the O-line was such a disaster. Have I mentioned that the O-line was bad?

The defense played rather well, all things considered. So, naturally defensive tackle Keyshon Camp — who looked really good — got hurt and is now out for the season. That’s two starting impact players on the defensive line that are out for the season.

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7:30 pm ACC network (no, not digital).

I’m looking out on the field and oh, goodness do the colors look right.

There’s the deeply negative/cynical side of me worrying about this game because of the next one. Next weekend is Ohio. The university not the state. The bobcats not the buckeyes. And it’s at 11 am.

That’s going to be rough no matter what. I’m trying not to imagine it coming off a home opening loss.

And there is nothing that sucks more then watching a game and thinking about the impact on appearances for the next week. It should be all about this game. About how the defense looks. How the offense (hopefully) has improved with the departure of Watson and bringing in Whipple.

So here’s hoping Pitt does everything right

Finally.

The kids are back in school. The oldest — and a huge reason this site came into being — is going into her senior year.

That meant a spring and summer visiting various campuses and evaluating what she wants from a university and which ones to apply. Surprisingly, Pitt did make her list. I don’t know if it will be where she chooses to go; but it’s nice to know years of indoctrination have had an impact.

I won’t lie, this game has me nervous. Not because Pitt could lose. I mean, that’s just standard. It was thirteen years ago that Pitt started the season with a night game against Virginia on Labor Day weekend. Pitt came away with the win, but there wasn’t a lot to love about the season. To say nothing of the fact that the next night we had a fire break out in the basement of our house. So, so many memories.

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A few days of practices have taken place. It’s hard to be sure about the actual situations. Not simply because pads only came on today.

In this age of high-paranoia from coaches throughout college football, practices are closed other then an early stretching period before-hand. There’s highlights the programs release as they choose. There are the post practice interviews where you hope the coaches and players are not just blowing smoke.

Okay, I’ve gotten my annual bitching about the stupidity of closed practices out of the way. On to what we have.

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You know, in my relief over Shawn Watson’s dismissal, I forgot to mention one other aspect of the firing. The timing.

In prior years, when staff has turned over, it hasn’t been filled quickly and/or the change happened later.

Obviously with the early signing period, these days that alleviates some of that. Yet, that didn’t seem to matter last year when changes were made to the coaching staff. They came later in the cycle and took a while to fill.

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I’m not saying this is Nostradamus level stuff, but let me have a little fun.

I guess I am hoping for a little symmetry. Ten years ago, Pitt went to the Sun Bowl. The QB had a bomb of a game and Pitt couldn’t generate enough offense against a Pac-12 (10 at the time) that was missing their top running back and had other injuries. The complete offensive ineptitude forced the defensive-minded coach to make a change at OC. Let’s find out if history repeats.

And in one of Pitt’s briefest press releases that doesn’t announce a player being dismissed from the team…

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The loss to Stanford in the Sun Bowl could be something of a microcosm for Pitt this year.

The struggles to move the ball to start the game. There was that solid surge in the second and third quarter where Pitt was moving the ball and looked like the more dominant team. Then that fade to black in the fourth quarter. Where the team couldn’t finish and/or couldn’t make the plays.

It’s one of those things. If you look back on Pitt’s 2018 season, just in terms of wins and losses, the Panthers were right around where they were expected to be. Excepting the UNC game, they lost the games you would have expected them to lose. And they won the games you would have expected them to win, other then Syracuse.

It’s the way they lost those games, though. Oh, is it the way they lost those games.

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Okay, how about a little Q&A just before the Sun Bowl?

A long-missed cultural exchange about the opponent. Thanks to GoMightyCard for reaching out to me for a little chat. You can find my responses to his questions here. Neither of us brought up Walt Harris, which was probably for the best.

Here’s what I asked him about the Stanford Cardinals.

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8pm

ABC.

It felt real good to type that link headline.

We all know Pitt is a heavy underdog in this game. We all know that Pitt isn’t given much of a chance, aside from the whole storyline of Pitt as the ultimate college football disrupter. That’s fine.

I’m not going to say I know Pitt can win this game. Certainly not after what happened last weekend against Miami’s defense.

But…

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