This is weird. Tom O’Brien’s BC teams are still rather familiar to me. It also creates a sense of confidence because Pitt owned BC in the years leading up to their departure from the Big East. I’m simplifying, but most of the time it was simply that O’Brien’s BC teams were so devoted to stopping the run that they struggled mightily when it came time for Pitt and a strong passing game.
That’s no longer the case for Pitt, which is a run-first team now. O’Brien left BC for NC State and he has not deviated from his approach. Focus on the lines and look to run. So, there will be a lot of similarities to the way both coaches want to have the game go.
What is different for an O’Brien team is the presence of Russell Wilson at QB. An athletic dual-threat QB that can run with the ball. This year, Wilson has run a lot less. Whether it is a conscious effort by Wilson and the coaching staff to keep him from getting hurt or to be a more traditional QB is not clear. Wilson also does not throw interceptions. Something that makes a coach drool.
The NC St. offensive line, though, has had trouble. Trouble staying healthy. The offensive line will go to its 4th different starting group in game four.
Heading into Saturday’s game against Pittsburgh, the status of left tackle Jake Vermiglio (lower leg), safety Clem Johnson (thigh) and corner Rashard Smith, who was on crutches last Saturday with an ankle injury, are still uncertain and expect to be updated in Thursday’s injury report.
“We really haven’t gotten the continuity at the two most important positions on our team, especially the last two weeks,” said O’Brien. “The only thing we have gained is we’ve gotten some young guys in the football game, which is down the road stuff, but for immediately getting better as a football team, with your fourth different offensive line, and your fourth different secondary, that’s not a good situation to be in.”
The left side of the offensive line is where the problems have been. Vermiglio injured his calf in the season opener against South Carolina, and that forced Julian Williams to slide over from guard. Williams, who had the flu last week, is back and is listed as the starter at left guard on the depth chart for Pitt. When Williams caught the flu last week, Andrew Wallace became the third player this season to start at left tackle.
Given how little Pitt likes to rotate players on the O-line, I can’t begin to imagine Coach Wannstedt’s reaction if he was dealing with that.
Additionally, just as they get one WR, Donald Bowens, back from injury, they lose Owen Spencer (concussion). Oh, and Jamelle Eugene their second leading rusher from last year (2008 leading rusher Andre Brown was a senior), has missed the last two games.
On defense, NC State will offer Pitt great temptation to throw. The Wolfpack secondary is both young and injured.
Meanwhile, N.C. State’s secondary is inexperienced and battling injuries. Freshman starting cornerback Rashard Smith left Saturday’s game with a sprained ankle in the first half.
Another freshman, Brandan Bishop, started at free safety because senior Clem Johnson had a thigh injury. N.C. State’s other starting safety, Earl Wolff, is a redshirt freshman.
“We just played Gardner-Webb and we just played Murray State,” Wolff said. “Pittsburgh is a little better team, so we have to practice better and practice harder.”
They did get back another starting cornerback in DeAndre Morgan from an ankle sprain.
Now, both teams are expecting old-school football. The players say the things you expect — even if they seem to be focusing on the wrong guys.
The prospect of meeting a Pittsburgh team that’s expected to try to overpower N.C. State on Saturday brought a twinkle to middle linebacker Ray Michel’s eye.
“Taking on the big, 260-pound fullback (Henry Hynoski) is something I’m looking forward to,” said Michel, who’s tied for the Wolfpack’s team lead with 22 tackles.
Delighting in an opportunity to play “old-school football,” N.C. State coach Tom O’Brien also was revved up during his weekly news conference Monday about Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. game with Pittsburgh at Carter-Finley Stadium.
Michel is about 30 pounds lighter than Hyno. Hey, if you want to knock heads with the guy who’s doing a lot of blocking, great. Hopefully while he’s doing that, Dion Lewis will be scooting right past.
I’m still just trying to picture the stoic and occasionally somnambulistic O’Brien “revved up.” Last time I saw that, was when he was whining about the treatment of his team by opposing fans when BC was bolting the Big East.
Unfortunately, injuries are nothing new for us. Since TOB got here where we’ve been without multiple starters every single game.
This is starting to feel like a must win game for me. A win against a BCS school on the road would turn some heads our way. If they want respect, they need to at least beat middle of the table teams like The Wolfpack. It would be real special heading into Big East play with a 4-0 record.
D-Lew is a great feature back even as a freshman, but showing we can just pound it inside with a great fullback is also a great tool for the offense. And it seems like Ray Michel of NC State picked it up on film. Should be a good matchup.
As a Pitt fan, I think this game is going to be much tougher than most of the predictions I’ve seen on here. I think Pitt has more overall talent and depth (particularly with NC State’s injuries), and I hope that wins out in the end. I’m mostly worried about Pitt scoring enough points, and I think the key may be Pitt’s o-line. This may be a game where Stull has to make some plays. NC State may have some success if they can get consistent pressure on him. Even with his improved play, his mechanics have not been great, and tend to break down even more when he feels rushed. For example, he has gotten away with throwing off his back foot several times the past couple games, but I’m not sure if that luck will continue against better competition. On the other hand, if Pitt’s o-line can hold up, Stull is likely to have less breakdowns, and I like Pitt’s chances.
I see a close game with both teams scoring in the 20’s…
HTscriptP
I expect Graham to get more carries on Saturday and for Cignetti to try to have two semi-fresh RBs ready to work in the late third quarter and fourth quarter of Saturday’s game – along with liberal rotation on the DL by Gattsuo. This may be the type og game we saw a lot of last season where our defense imposes it’s will late in the game and we start pulling away offensively.
anybody else feel really good about this game at times….and then really worried at others? 3 games down and I truly don’t know what to expect…I do know we have TONS of weapons on Offense and our Defensive front is sick…but it always goes back to two questions I truly have no way of answering: (1) How will Stull do in this game? (2) With the Buffalo game in mind, can our corners / safeties really handle a good QB with a good air attack?
This game will truly tell us where this team is at…this is a very good NC State team that could easily be 3-0 right now.
I did hear that they have a bunch of injuries and possibly flu-like symptoms going around….woohoo
ps- I didn’t boo Stull (thought I would get that in there)
Pitt will dominate in this game, the NC States QB is shorter than Tino!
Pitt 31 NC State 13!
If there’s any interest please e-mail me at omane10@yahoo.com.
GO PITT!
Vermiglio is really big for us – he is a good, experienced player and his replacement would have been a R-Fr who looked very shaky against South Carolina. I was not looking forward to seeing him face the Pitt DL all afternoon.
Does anyone remember the USC vs NC State game?
Review the posts on how bad NC State looked!
I am picking a NC State win 17-12!
Two mediocre coaches, Wanny will have a very conservative gameplan and play field position, be ready to scream at your TV’s!
You make my point, Foge was mediocre at best, but Foge was fired and rightfully so, but Foge had a higher winning percentage than Wanny over his 4 years as coach!
Foge was never headcoach material, his expertise was being a defensive coordinator, Foge is just another example of the Pitt administration screwing up a top 5 football program at the time.
Remember Wanny was hired to take us to the next level!!!
There is no doubt, Wanny is a great recruiter, he is great at social functions, he represents the university well, but his coaching style is too conservative for the college game.
Wanny will continue superior recruiting (by Big East standards) but poor coaching, poor game day strategy and lack of game day adjustments will haunt this program.
The talent level in the college game is much different than the NFL, wake up WANNY please!!!!!
Cignetti is much better than Cav, but we still do not know enough about this 2009 team because they have played an easy schedule for the 1st three games. They were bigger and pushed YSU, Buffalo and Navy around; NC State is as big, or bigger than Pitt, there will be different circumstances for this game. The running lanes will not be as large and the short passing game will not be as open. Sounds like we will see if Pitt can adjust, Stull looks great so far but his past performances still scare me. This is a make or break game for the year, win on the road and the season can be special, lose, and we all we have our hearts broken and say; “it is the same Pitt team year in and year out”!
O’Brien is on par with Wanny regarding coaching ability, this should be a boring game with a field position mentality!
My prediction; Wanny will become a spokesman for GEICO after this season because Wanny took us to the next level, down!
Wanny will have something up his sleeve tomorrow. Look for a flea flicker, fake punt wrinkle, ect.
How this game plays out is a mystery though. I have had a bad feeling before both Buffalo and Navy so I hope its good that I once again have a terrible feeling before the NCSU game.
Meanwhile, here are some good articles about ACC v BE, and a Q&A with Bill Stull from ESPN BE Blog:
Lastly, Pitt lost SMU in the Cotton Bowl that year 7 to 3 … and the offensive line has names like Fralic, Sweeney and Covert on it. (compare that to the injured o-line that ‘protected’ Stull last year)
I tend to lean more towards the negative side of the pitt football argument, and would usually sing the same song, “we usually lose these games” or “wanny does not adjust to this environment” or “we aren’t dynamic enough for the college game” or “Bill Stull will cost us 4 games” …..BUT…. I am taking a new attitude this year… one game at a time…and evaluate short-term only.
Having said that, if you look at Pitt’s performance/adjustments over the past three games, and the relative lack of competition over the past two weeks for NC State, I am feeling more and more confident about a Pitt win.
I expect us to win this game on brute strength and timely plays at the end.
Pitt played inferior teams and made very little adjustments over the last 3 games, that is very well documented in the papers on on the posts.
You sound like Wanny by saying “Brute Strength”; Pitt is going to play an somewhat equal opponent this week, they are going to have to execute their game plan and just cannot count on a physical advantage play after play .
NC State is not going to be pushed around like the first 3 cup-cakes.
wbb
Wanny’s niche is a defensive coordinator, he failed in the pro’s as a headcoach and if you look at his w’s versus l’s in college and if you subtract out the non division 1’s he is barely a .500 coach.
The season will unravel this Saturday, it is also going to rain during the game, more bad luck.
I love Pitt, I actually went to the Cotton Bowl that year, it was cold and rained in Dallas. Yes, Pitt had a great O-line but the running game was suspect (Joe McCall, Brian Thomas) and Pitt had two wide outs that were very talented but gave up running routes after the Notre Dame game, also John Brown who was a great TE was hurt for the year. Marino had no one to throw too.
After that season Pitt fottball has went down-hill!
You ask why, plain and simple COACHING!!
College football is very dependant on who the head coaches are, Hackett and Majors-2 were the worst, Foge was bad but a step up, Gottfried and Walt were good but they were working under limited budgets that tied their hands regarding salaries they paid to their assistants, and both were fired by an arrogant administration who had no clue what a true football program consists of.
Wanny has been given the red carpet and quite frankly he has not lived up to expectations, one bowl game and the cupboard was not bare.
Cincinnati is the class of the league, Cincinnati has not recruited well but they have an outstanding head coach who understands you have to be innovative and score tons of points no matter who you play.
We have a cave man that is stuck in the 80’s coaching this team. This will be his last year.
Pitt hasn’t really been relevant in football since the 80’s… yes we had some mediocre success with walt… got up to #7.. had a some great talent … (larry) but what does it tell you we haven’t had 9 regular season wins for 20+ years ?
Im not backing up wanstache in anyway… i like the guy.. he is a true pitt guy.. but i hope as all pitt fans.. the program is turning the corner. Now that’s not saying we will contend for a national championship every year, but will get 9-11 wins every year. Compete for the big east title every year in and out.
I think having Cigs as the offensive coordinator is a great step and helping our coaching staff adjust to the college game (yeah its been a tedious and way to loong process.)
I hope the best is yet to come.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Wanny fan– but you have to give him a bit of credit for not laying the early terd (AND THAT’S A HUGE IMPROVEMENT!)
But like Snala says, we shall see.
Let me clarify my brute strength comment… I see this game being won in the trenches, and I have faith in Wanny in those types of games. Fast paced, barn burners are the ones I fear on the coaching front. NC State line is hurting, and playing with an ever changing line. And last time I checked, they did not morph into a USC or OU type line. Point being, I like our trench warfare battle and I think we end up winning. 23-16 is my call.
Read more: link to post-gazette.com