Moving to Sunday’s well-digested stories.
Have to love how both dailies went with similar headlines. Apparently the editors at both papers found it fascinating that LaRod Stephens-Howling is nicknamed the “Johnstown Jet” by his teammates, so “Jet” was worked into the headlines.
(While on the observation of the papers, nice of them to split their articles by a day. The P-G mentioned Palko’s efficiency yesterday and today the Trib. had it. Of course, the Trib. gave props the D-line yesterday and that was the P-G’s today. I don’t know, are the beat writers talking this over in advance? Flipping a coin?)
The defensive line was highlighted by DE Chris McKillop.
McKillop had the best performance of his career, finishing with five tackles, 2 1/2 sacks for minus-20 yards, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery. Clermond added three tackles, 1 1/2 sacks for minus-8 yards and a fumble recovery.
Pitt finished with five sacks for minus-32 yards and three fumble recoveries.
“Chris McKillop and Joe Clermond both came up with big plays when we needed them,” Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said. “Chris had a heck of a day.”
McKillop has made some real progress since the season started. A very good and necessary thing with Doug Fulmer out for the year. Pitt really did a tremendous job against the Syracuse running game 33 carries, 92 yards. Syracuse does not have the passing game to beat teams.
It would appear that moving Coach Greg Gattuso in the offseason to working with the D-line is really making a difference.
“Everybody talks about [how] the defensive line needs to improve; it was nice to be a part of the solution today,” defensive end Chris McKillop said Saturday. “We just keep working hard and we know we’ll get better. Coach [Greg] Gattuso and coach [Charlie] Partridge really beat in our head the fundamentals and it paid off today.
“Every time we’d run off the field coach Gattuso kept pumping us up and reminding us about our footwork, about using our hands, about all those things we have in what’s called our fundamentals gospel.”
Fundamentals? Hey, imagine that.
