Who knows for sure. Coach Wannstedt refuses to say that there is any real problem with the team playing at home, despite a 2-2 record.
On winning big road games and struggling at home:
“You have to look at each game individually. I’m not going to go back and look at each game right now. Rutgers has 85 guys on scholarship too. They’ve got some good players. That’s what I would say. We weren’t as sharp as I’d like us to be in those losses. Things happen in the course of a game. The one thing I would say in all of our games – even the couple that we lost – our kids came back at some point in the game and gave us a chance to win. Against Rutgers it was 31-34 and we’re going to get the ball back. We had the crowd and the momentum and we turn the ball over. How do I explain that? I can’t. I wish I could.”
See, I would have put money on him working in an, “It is what it is.”
Not that there is any reason to worry.
Pitt (6-2, 2-1) is 0-3 at home under coach Dave Wannstedt when nationally ranked and has yet to beat Louisville (5-3, 1-2), which visits at noon Saturday, since the Cardinals joined the Big East three years ago.
“We need this win to erase some doubts about Pitt not playing well when we’re in the national spotlight,” fifth-year senior middle linebacker Scott McKillop said.
Plus, Pitt controls its own destiny.
Their season boils down to this: If they win their last four games, they win the Big East and go to a BCS bowl.
It is that simple for Pitt (6-2, 2-1 Big East) as the Panthers have played well enough to be able to say they control their own postseason destiny down the stretch. They don’t need help from any other team, they don’t need anyone else to lose and they don’t need to rely on any tiebreaker procedures.
No reason to start hyperventilating. None at all.
Louisville, of course lost for the second straight year to Syracuse. Restoring the adjective “embattled” to head coach Steve Kragthorpe. He’s not happy.
“I’m extremely upset with the way we played,” he said. “I’m as upset as I’ve ever been. I’m sick to my stomach that we lost that football game.”
How upset? How bothered? Well, he’s not making any changes.
“We’re not going to make a lineup change for the sake of making a lineup change — I think that’s foolish to do that,” he said on the Big East teleconference yesterday.
The Cards are virtually starting over from a momentum standpoint. Their 28-21 loss to the Orange snapped their three-game winning streak — the longest under Kragthorpe — and ended their ability to win the Big East without a lot of help.
“We felt like we were right back in the Big East race and lost to Syracuse,” quarterback Hunter Cantwell said. “So yeah, it hurts, but we’ve got to put that behind us and worry about the four games we have left.”
Pretty much reads like the previous week for Pitt.
Louisville struggled last week to stop Curtis Brinkley of Syracuse. It is no shock that the Cards are preparing for LeSean McCoy.
“They have the two-headed monster at tailback,” Louisville Coach Steve Kragthorpe said. “We’re going to have to do a much better job this week because we’re going to see the same type of attack employed against us, a team that’s going to line up and try to ram it down our throat.”
Louisville is ranked ninth in the nation against the run, allowing just 91.6 yards a game. Yet the Cardinals have struggled to stop conference foes from moving the ball on the ground.
The two highest rushing totals against the Cardinals this season have come in their two Big East defeats. Louisville gave up 157 yards on the ground in a 26-21 loss to Connecticut on Sept. 26 before Curtis Brinkley and the Orange dominated the line of scrimmage Saturday.
“That’s the one thing we had not seen a lot of this year,” Kragthorpe said. “People have not run the football at us much, (but) the two teams that have have had success.”
…this is exactly the type of game we can lose. I’m going to the game again…hope to god i can see a win against an inferior opponent…
Excited to see the Panthers battle it out this weekend…
GO PITT!
Remember he said we would have a national championship contending team in 3 years when he was hired – still waiting for that.
He set the bar higher than most fans would expect from a mediocre mid-major team, so most of the criticizm I feel is warranted. Especially after he inherited a team that had just been to a BCS bowl.
I am not saying that he has not achieved anything while he has been here – but just like the presidental elections, can you say you are better off now then 4 years ago – right now I don’t think you can.
Pitt does not get nearly the scrutiny the other football team in town gets – so it could be ALOT worse!
ill be at the game nice and early on sat, and hopefully 55,000 other will be too.
Hail To Pitt
Sure, we recruit better in pittsburgh now then before, but this area is not as talent-rich as it was in the past.
Plus, if we were SO solid on recruiting and such a great path to the pros, we would have Pryor here not out of state in OSU.
I believe the ND game is the only game where an opponent had more yds of total offense at the end of the game and that was pretty close (and even then it was only due to such an anemic first half offensively due to Stull being out).
We can all agree that this team has hurt itself with early season over-conservatism and mistakes like turnovers and poor DB pass coverage a number of times; but no opponent has physically whipped it at the LOS.
I dont like getting on the players, they are kids not professionals. My point is the guys that Dave is able to get and brings in are not top level players that are going to take Pitt to the standards that Dave himself set.
Sure 6-2 is great, but by who’s standards? Dave said in 3 years we would be competing for the national title – I dont see BCS champs with 2 losses, one of them to Bowling Green.
Look at what Boise State does for example – they parlayed their success in the BCS and are now a contender again. We have not been to a bowl in a conference that is arguably worse than Boise’s.
Pitts program was going downhill after the bcs game, they lost alot of recruits the last second, and i think he is doing fine recruiting players for the pitt program.
Here is some info you were talking about regarding Big East record vs. other conferences. THis is last 10 years, including bowl games, through 2007.
Last week, the Southeastern Conference was proclaimed the best in the land for 2008. This week it’s the Big 12. Total nonsense, of course, because more than half of the teams have been getting fat on cupcake opponents.
A true test is to compare how the Bowl Championship Series conferences have fared against each other for the past 10 seasons. For the answer, we once again turned to Ed Gunther of National Championship Issue.
Ed recently compared conference vs. conference records, including bowl games, from 1998-2007. By percentage, the Pacific 10 won 54.5% of its games against BCS opponents. Here is the breakdown:
Pacific 10: 54.5%
Southeastern: 50.8%
Big Ten: 50.5%
Atlantic Coast: 50%
Big 12: 48.8%
Big East: 45.9%
Even with the strong teams we had (Miami, VT) we still finish last in total winning percentage.
Are you suggesting that if the Big 12 would have lost 3% more of it’s games then they “arguably should or should not have a BCS tie-in”? Thanks for the stats, but 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5 or so years ago, no one suggested that the BE should not have an automatic BCS bid. That talk only started after Mia, VT, and then BC left the conference. The only point I am trying to make is that over the past four seasons, in the regular season, and particularly in bowl games, the BE has not been dominated by other BCS schools. Believe me, I was one who thought the league was on the cusp of MAC status, but the reality is the league bounced back nicely. The Cuse has tanked, but UCONN, CINN, and SFLA are all better than they were four years ago. WVU has played consistently well, RU and Lville have had their momements. PITT has not made the improvements we would all like, but they have also proved that they can beat Top 10 teams on the road. Is there a non BCS school that has two victories over Top 10 teams on the road at any time in the past ten years? We do need one more team to even out schedules. It would be nice to get a big name school. The fact is, we don’t have to have one. There are a number of teams in the BE that could rise to the top of college FB world. Just give it time.
As for future seasons – I dont know much about the backups at running back. I can say this though, dont count on a better passing attack counter balancing anything you lose with McCoy going pro after this season. Please show me a coaching track record of Dave Wannstedt OR Matt Cavanaugh led teams with a dynamic or even above average passing game – it is just not their style. Hope that changes though!
Just a thought I wanted to throw out there…say Pitt backs into a BE championship again this year like they did in Walt Harris’ final year. Will the media and Pitt Alum portray Dave the same way they did Walt (lucky, didnt earn it, etc) or will he be the “hero”? I am thinking more the latter. Given the situations are different and we dont know what will happen the rest of the way.
In reality, we are 6-2 and on track for what we said was a reasonable expectation of 8 wins this season. As for the storylines: ok, Wannstedt has yet to beat Louisville and the panthers are 2-2 at home. Pitt is 0-3 under Wannstedt at home when ranked.
On the other hand, Pitt had never won after a bye week under Wannstedt, until it did a couple of weeks ago. Pitt had never beat ND under Wannstedt, until it did last week. Pitt had never beaten a top ten (or any opponent that had any meaning) opponent under Wannstedt, until they beat WVU to end last season and then USF earlier this season.
Sure there are things that Pitt hasn’t done under Wannstedt. But has anyone noticed that the list of things that fits that category is actually shrinking? Another thing they haven’t done under Wannstedt is make a bowl game. It looks right now like that is going to change this year.
My point is we can always find the things that make this week scary or that makes us certain that Pitt is going to blow it. Instead, lets just be excited about the team and have confidence in them. The worst that happens is they lose.