I’ll lay it out real simple, from someone that lives in Tampa and sees a lot of their games. Decent defense or not, Grothe gets hurt and/or tired, USF loses. He carries the offense and the defense isn’t good enough to carry the team alone. Their offensive line sucks, that’s why he has to scramble to make those amazing plays all the time.

Their offensive

On the flip side, though, Pitt also won 3 games by 7 or fewer points. Meaning that a 3-4 record in tight games suggests Pitt was very close to where they should have been, record-wise.”

Personally speaking, I don’t entirely accept this line of reasoning. IMO, some games that were tight wins wouldn’t have been very close except for the awful QBing problems. Likewise, IMO, some of the close losses would have clearly been wins with stronger QB play. In fact, one could argue that at least one of the not so close losses might have been a win with more solid QB play–the USF game. Recall that in that game 3 picks of the QB yielded 21 points–2 for immediate TDs and 1 that put the ball at the 1 yd line for a third “gift” TD. IMO, with solid QB play there may not have been a single unwinable game last season because even the two least competitive games (UConn and Virginia) might have been competive had they not been played at the low point of the season in terms of compounded QBing problems that, IMO, resulted in a temporarily very discouraged defensive unit (think 3 game defensive funk–UConn, Virginia, Navy). I expect those games would have had a very differnt character had they been played in the 2nd half of the season when QBing was improved just enough that (with the exception of 2nd half of the USF game) all games were competitive due to a reduction in offensive mistakes and a defense with regained confidence. So, IMO, the potential, at least, is there for a very very strong season in 2008.

Do not discount UConn in FB, they have a very good coach and he is a stand up guy!

Calhoun on the other hand is a turd!

There’s a healthy difference of opinion here, but one thing I think all of us can agree on: Pitt should not, should never have before, and should never ever lose again in the future, to UConn.

Home, away, neutral site, doesn’t matter. I don’t care if they play in the Mali desert village where Jim Calhoun finds his recruits: If we lose to UConn again this year, Dave should resign or be crucified on the Cathedral lawn. Or both.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3245700