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September 29, 2008

Is this what Pitt is this year? A team that just keeps winning by the skin-of-their teeth. Even coming back against the worst team in the Big East and possibly the worst team amongst the BCS Conference teams (Washington and Washington St. may have something to say).

Falling
September 28, 2008

I’m trying to be positive. I really am. I can’t ignore, however, that this is the third straight game where we find ourselves exhaling and saying, “at least they won.”

A lot of people talked about Pitt’s physical conditioning wearing down Iowa last week. This week, that really showed against Syracuse in the second half. As Pitt shifted to running the ball, you could see the Orange defense wear down. That’s great, but I just don’t think Pitt can count on that. Especially against the better teams.

Apparently, Coach Wannstedt, er, expected this kind of game.

“Anybody who thought it was going to be different than what it was this afternoon has no clue about young athletes and coaches and trying to win,” he said.

Actually, anyone with some knowledge of the college game had every right to expect a Pitt rout from the first kickoff and not a game in which a fourth-quarter rally would be needed for victory.

He didn’t really put the play on youth did he? Sadly, there is no Wannstedt transcript. He does know that Syracuse had 25 freshmen and sophomores on their offense and defense two-deep? Pitt starts and plays a lot less youth.

Well, the 10-point deficit to the Orange was the largest Pitt has ever overcome in the Wannstedt era.

It was the largest deficit Pitt (3-1, 1-0) has overcome under Wannstedt, who improved to 19-20 in his fourth season, including 4-7 in Big East road games. Syracuse (1-4, 0-1) has lost 20 of its past 22 conference contests.

“You can always refer back to that,” Wannstedt said of overcoming a double-digit deficit, “but I look at that kind of like going for it on fourth down; you’d rather not.”

The running game — to no one’s shock — broke out against one of the worst run defenses in the country. LeSean McCoy broke out in the second-half when Pitt focused on the run. 147 yards on the day. One run in particular stands out.

McCoy only had one long run in the game, a 34-yarder in the third quarter, and the end of it was the most entertaining part. On the first play after Pitt gambled on fourth-and-inches from its 32-yard line and made the first down on a quarterback sneak, McCoy burst over right tackle and into the clear. He cut to the sideline, and the race was on. He made it all the way to the SU 32 before three tacklers cut him off. Seeing one SU player in front of him, one alongside him and one behind him, McCoy promptly sat down on the Carrier Dome turf.

“Hey, I gassed out,” he said. “I didn’t have anymore gas in me. I didn’t even have enough gas to get out of bounds.”

Fellow tailback LaRod Stephens-Howling wasn’t buying the explanation but vowed to wait a day before letting McCoy have it.

“I already told him we’re not going to talk about that until the film room tomorrow,” Stephens-Howling said with a smile.

Coach Wannstedt broke tradition by handing out a game ball right after the game.

“I thought our kids did a great job at halftime of not coming unglued, of staying positive. I normally don’t award game balls in the locker room until I see the film … but LaRod Stephens-Howling, the guy made tackles on kickoffs, the guy made tackles on punts and he obviously scored the two touchdowns.”

Probably could have given one to Connor Lee as well. Do you really need game film to determine that nailing 4 FGs — 3 of them of 40 yards or more — in the game merits a game ball? Especially when it ties a Pitt record. Not to mention, still not missing and XP.

Not that Pitt didn’t get help from Syracuse.

Pitt benefitted from one major break in the first half when Orange coach Greg Robinson decided against going for a first down on fourth-and-1 at the Panthers’ 38.

Instead, he ordered a punt. To that point, the Orange had dominated play and led, 14-3, while the Panthers’ defense spun its wheels.

“That decision gave us confidence,” said Pitt middle linebacker Scott McKillop.

The Panthers, who mostly conceded the outcome likely would have been different if Syracuse had forged a 21-3 lead, responded by outscoring the Orange, 31-10, after the punt.

You don’t say? You mean having a 4th and 1 inside the 40 and punting says something to the opposing defense? Not to mention what it must say to that team’s offense. I guess Greg Robinson didn’t review the tape of the BGSU-Pitt game. And man, did Robinson face questions.

The fourth-and-1 play from the Pitt 38 in the first quarter with the Orange leading 14-3 looked bad – and Robinson was hammered pretty good for his decision (I mentioned on the blog it was poor game management). Here’s another piece to that play – center Jim McKenzie failed to snap the ball when Pitt jumped off sides. It’s a set play that the Orange works on twice a week. If McKenzie snaps it, Pitt is either flagged for being off-sides or quarterback Cam Dantley bulls ahead. The problem was, McKenzie didn’t snap the ball. Brain freeze?

“We had our chance to convert and didn’t get it,” Robinson said of the fourth-down play. “The risk and reward was good.”In his post-game press conference Saturday after the loss to Pitt, Robinson took one for the team by declaring he wasn’t desperate in that situation. He never brought up the fact it was a set play and that McKenzie didn’t execute the snap. McKenzie had at least two poor snaps with Dantley in the shotgun formation. One contributed to a sack.

I was wondering about that. Pitt did jump, but Syracuse never snapped and then just froze. I admit that stats ranking teams with only 4 or 5 games played, generally don’t say a lot. In Syracuse’s case, they do.

Third down conversions – SU’s offense is ranked 115th nationally.

Third down conversions defense – Orange is ranked 117th nationally.

Here’s two more:

First downs offense – SU is ranked 116th

First downs defense – SU is ranked 115th

Eeewwww.

Oh, and it also helped that Greg Robinson is a moron as a head coach. He decided that Curtis Brinkley needed a break late in the game. Sure Brinkley had run for 106 yards at that point. Sure Pitt had just finished a nearly 5 minute scoring drive to tie the game.

Brinkley said he was good to go. His body langauge suggested he was not the least bit happy about standing on the sidelines during that point of the game.

“That was very frustrating,” Brinkley said. “I wanted to be in the game, but at the end of the day it’s a coach’s decision and the coach decided to put somebody else in. I wasn’t hurt or nothing. I wasn’t tired. I mean, my momemtum carried me throughout the whole game. My adrenaline was rushing from the first play. I ain’t get tired throughout any minute of the game.

“It was a coach’s decision. If it was up to me I would have played more, and if it was up to other people, they probably would have wanted to play more. But the coaches wanted who they wanted out there, and all I could was listen to them and, you know, respect what they want.”

Robinson said Brinkley, who rushed 16 times for 119 yards, was fatigued.

“Doug had hurt himself, tweaked his ankle,” Robinson said. “I felt we really didn’t have him at full speed. Antwon is a guy that has been very impressive to us. The idea was, we’re playing to try to win the football game, and when Curtis needed a blow, we needed to put him in. We were going to use Doug just because he’s such a fine blocker for third down situations.”

Antwon Bailey only gained 5 yards on two carries, then Dantley was sacked on 3d down. Needless to say the natives are unhappy. Yet Greg Robinson is still employed as I type this.

While Bill Stull passed for only 166 yards, Derek Kinder was responsible for 92 of them with 8 catches. Kinder also got a puffer from the local paper.

Cat Basket is still frustrated with the coaches and the way they call the game.

Pitt Panther Prowl is trying to find more positives than negatives.

Not much time to dwell on this game (thankfully). Big Thursday night game coming up.





Chas, let me ask you something. If Pitt had won the opener against Bowling Green (even if it was a squeaker like every other game this year) — and was 4-0 and undefeated right now, would that skew your perspective a little differently? That game keeps coming up and everyone is waiting for a letdown like that to happen again (understandably) each week. I can’t argue with the fact that Pitt has the potential to be playing so much better than they are, and that the coaching staff seems to handcuff the team at times. Just curious about this “what if”.

Comment by gopittgo 09.29.08 @ 8:31 am

OK, whats the feeling, did Pitt turn the corner winning on National TV against WVU or are we in for another embarrassment on Thursday? Conditioning is not going to be on our side against SF.

Comment by Jason in Columbus 09.29.08 @ 8:43 am

Looks like the early line is South Florida by 13. This game could easily determine how the rest of the season goes.

Comment by Rex 09.29.08 @ 8:44 am

For the most part, eight wins and a decent bowl game appearance would’ve been considered a good season by most of us, myself included, and from what I read when the season started, most publications agreed.

So I can’t complain much about 3-1 when this is kind of realistically where I saw Pitt’s record heading into this game. I just think many of us figured Pitt the wins would’ve come convincingly against BGSU, Buffalo and Syracuse. If the loss would’ve come from anywhere, it would’ve been the Iowa game.

Even if we lose to USF, the potential is still very much there for four or five more wins on the schedule.

But I think what’s caused some of the concern is that the loss was awful and the wins that should’ve been convincing wins haven’t been. We knew Iowa was going to be a bit of a fight. Buffalo and Syracuse should not have been anywhere near the struggles that they were, especially the Syracuse game. When you see Pitt making games that like those more difficult than they need to be, the natural inclination as a fan is to say, “If we come out like this against USF, the game is going to be over in the first half.”

But given the talent that exists on the roster, you have to wonder if this is really a trend or a team simply doing what it needed to do to win these kind of games. I get the impression that to some point, maybe things are being held back and it might be what’s keeping this team from turning things loose.

And maybe that’s by design. Maybe they just haven’t unlocked the new playbook that they’ve been implementing for the better teams that they’re going to face, and we’ll see something completely different this weekend. I doubt it, but you never know.

I just keep waiting for this team to kind of flip the switch the way they did last year, when they played markedly better during the second half of the season and got victimized by a bad call and an ill-timed fumble. Right now, they haven’t given me much reason to think that it’s going to happen. Then again, they were in an even worse spot last year when it did.

Comment by Stoosh 09.29.08 @ 9:24 am

No way Pitt wins that Syracuse game at any time in the last 10 years. Rarely have I witnessed a Pitt team come back from a double-digit second half deficit. Regardless of who the coach has been, Pitt simply does not win these type of games. Remember Pitt lost to Toledo on the road and we had Fitzgerald, Kris Wilson, Rutherford, Miree, HB Blades, Revis and Clint Sessions.

I think Pitt did a great job fighting back and winning that game. I also believe Pitt has a decent chance to beat South Florida.

Comment by Omar 09.29.08 @ 9:48 am

i don’t understand the ‘just be happy we won’ crowd. are your expectations for this program really that low? pitt went to 5 straight bowl games and backe into a BCS bowl, we hire wanny to take it to the next level and he’s failed miserably on the field. now, in year 4, we’re supposed to be satisfied w/ having to come from behind vs syracuse, arguably the worst BCS conf team in the country?! no thanks.

USF is certainly beatable. pitt has the horses, if wanny and cav would put them in positions to succeed, pitt could win 9 or 10 games this year.

Comment by Scott 09.29.08 @ 9:53 am

Scott, do you remember 2006 when we demolished Citadel, UCF, and Toledo? It meant nothing, we lost the last 5 games. I think most of us are happy these games went in the W column for us but we are still in the “wait and see” mode. In ohter words lets give them a chance to see how they perform against the better teams like s fla and wvu before we write the season off. Many of us said if we win 8 games this year we would be happy. Absolute minimum of 7 and a bowl game. Right now we are in position to do that.

Again, if you wonder why Cav doesnt open up the offense, check out some of Stulls long passes. He needs time.

Comment by Rex 09.29.08 @ 10:35 am

It does seem Pitt has developed the annoying habit of playing to the level of their opponents — a coaching issue for sure. But, the talent is there to beat USF and it wouldn’t surprise me if they took off the training wheels and got aggressive on offense — just hope they don’t wait ’till they’re down 17 to do it.

Comment by Matt 09.29.08 @ 10:40 am

calling a go route isn’t the only way to exhibit some creativity on offense(stull would overthrow it by 5 yards anyway) did you see the statue of liberty play purdue ran for a TD vs. ND? perfect call for LSH.

Comment by Scott 09.29.08 @ 10:43 am

Rex, I’d take the occasional 10-yard slant pass to a receiver — you know, something over the middle with the receiver actually moving.

I have no confidence that they will make Thursday even a remotely close game. I hope that I am proved wrong, but for me the bigger question is which will a bigger disaster on Thurs.: the Pitt-USF game or the VP debate.

Comment by Carmen 09.29.08 @ 10:47 am

If Pitt wakes up and plays special teams in this game its not even close. And, quite frankly I would expect that kind of lag going into an near-empty dome, to play an awful team, that is playing with nothing to lose. Take out the kick return for a TD and the other that crossed the 50 leading to another score. That’s 14 points that Syracuse wouldn’t see and that would be an easy win. So as much as some people want to criticize the coaching,special teams, esp. kick off, is all about effort and those two big plays were the result of a lack of effort and energy. I think it ‘s important to keep in mind that this team has been improving each week whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

Comment by Yogi Roth 09.29.08 @ 10:51 am

Carmen and Scott, I agree there can be more creativity and diverse play calling. As someone else said, maybe they have kept it rather simple before we play the big games. But maybe not? I think it will be extremely important for pitt to get through the first quarter against s fla without giving up any big plays or stupid penalties. if they can do that and settle in I think they will be fine.

Comment by Rex 09.29.08 @ 10:55 am

[…] Pitt is far beyond apologizing for winning. […]


Scott, there is a difference between “just be happy” and giving credit where it’s due. I notice most fans who complain after these wins are always comparing the team to something that was four years ago. Well, four years is a long time – and like it or not – is history.

Personally, I don’t care to get caught up in what happened four or forty years ago. I’m more concerned about what the kids are doing this year, and this year they are going into these games, playing in close contests and coming out with a win. To me these games are exciting and, while I wouldn’t mind a blowout win sometimes, it is what makes it enjoyable to follow.

There are no style points given in CFB unless you are in the Top Ten and a BCS Championship game contender. For us the goal is to go into the game, play ball for four quarters and come out ahead on the scoreboard. We are doing that.

As far as this game setting the tone for the season – that may be, especially if we get blown out. But should we play a close game and end up short don’t think that that will be the end of 2008 for us – there are a lot of games left after Thursday night.

Comment by Reed 09.30.08 @ 5:00 am

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