That’s a big topic today. What is up with Pitt’s hideous starts to games?
Pitt has gotten off to sluggish starts in four of its past six games, making blunders and falling behind early against Nebraska, Rutgers, South Florida and Syracuse.
The upside is the Panthers (4-4, 3-1 Big East) were able to recover in time to beat USF and Syracuse, two key victories that have put them in the hunt for the conference title.
Coach Dave Wannstedt will take a comeback win any day, but he would prefer to see his team dominate from the start.
“We’re after perfection here,” Wannstedt said. “That’s the challenge we have as a football team and I have as a head coach — to really get our team to eliminate those mistakes that put us in a hole early.”
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“It’s not a physical thing,” Wannstedt said. “Is it that we’re overconfident? I would hope not. Is it that we’re not focused? Our practices were great (last) week.“I think it might be a little bit of that whole mental maturity thing, of being mature enough to … not become stressed, like, ‘I’ve got to make the play,’ rather than just being poised. We’ve got to find a way to come out and play poised football from the beginning.”
I think a lot of it is mental. I’m not so sure it comes from trying to make the big play. Honestly, the play calling makes that kind of difficult — usually short passes and runs. It seems more from fear of screwing up. The offensive line, especially, doesn’t seem to pick things up in its protection and blocking until it gets burned badly. It just seems to have snowballed, so that everyone on offense comes out tight and with the mentality, “don’t screw-up.”
It isn’t just starting slowly, it is the way the offense has given up field position and the ball.
Pitt was fortunate that it was able to battle back and beat the Bulls and the Orange, but the hole was too deep against the Scarlet Knights, despite a furious second-half rally.
A common thread in all three games has been penalties, turnovers, bad execution and poor special teams. With Louisville’s offense, a slow start by the Panthers could mean a 30-0 hole instead of a 10-0 deficit.
Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said yesterday that he doesn’t think the slow starts are a reflection of not being prepared. He said the opposite might be true — the team is too excited and tries to force big plays instead of playing within their capabilities. He said the biggest issue has been consistency, and that’s what he’ll focus on in the days leading up to the Louisville game.
“The whole thing is the mentality to be consistent and let the plays take care of themselves,” Wannstedt said during the Big East coaches weekly teleconference. “We don’t need to force plays. We have to take what they give us. We are focused, we are ready to play but the word to our players is that we need to be more consistent and consistently good. We just need to let big plays take care of themselves.”
In the first quarter this season, Pitt has been out-scored 51-29. Take out the YSU game and it is 51-20.
Here are the scoring numbers by quarter:
1 — 2 — 3— 4 —- Total
29 – 61 – 69 – 51 —- 210 — Pitt
51 – 62 – 28 — 9 —- 156 — Opp
Oddly enough, only the Rutgers game resulted in a loss from the really bad 1st quarter start. Still the chances for Pitt coming storming back on the road against Louisville would not be particularly encouraging.
Well, the players have a few days to just work out and get healthy. The coaching staff is out on the recruiting trail and practices won’t resume until Thursday. From a recruiting standpoint, the late-season bye would appear to have been a good thing. It would have been a little harder to sell a kid on Pitt and Coach Wannstedt in the middle of the slide.
Meanwhile, down in Louisville the focus is on getting healthy and working on the fundamentals during their bye week.
“I think we need it,” U of L coach Bobby Petrino said Monday during his weekly press conference. “It’s been a pretty good grind, so I like the fact we have a bye week now.”
Petrino gave the players Sunday and Monday off, then plans hard work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He said about half of each practice will be devoted to individual technique and fundamentals, with the other half dedicated to preparations for Pitt. The Cards will start their normal game week preparation on Saturday.
Their wide receiver Mario Urrutia looks to still be out, though, for the game with an injury.
Louisville, in the wake of their loss to WVU had shaken up the secondary for the following game. The younger players got the start. The competition in their secondary appears to be wide open at this time.
