Back to focusing on Pitt football. Didn’t intend to make it all about b-ball yesterday, but Cleveland Beer Week has been great.
Met the regional sales manager for one distributor who turned out to be a Pitt guy. If you are near Lot 7C look for the Flying Dog tailgate this Saturday.
Allowed to go out in the evening to have really good beer. Then come back and watch the baseball playoffs. So evening posts just haven’t happened. Tonight will be more of the same.
Starting with offensive things.
For the past two games, Pitt has faced a team that coming in had the best rushing defense in the Big East. The Pitt O-line and Dion Lewis has consecutively trashed that ranking. This week, it is USF and the conference’s second worst rushing defense. Please don’t make this an opposite game.
Naturally, after what Dion Lewis has done, USF is on notice, and can’t hide the concern. Their run defense is a big issue for USF. Credit the DC there for noting that it isn’t just the run. That Pitt is actually running a balanced offense. U
Lewis is attracting plenty of attention. An AP story that went out on the wire. Plus this Q&A in The Sporting News. He notes that being asked about following LeSean McCoy has really diminished as the season has continued.
You know, the fact that Hutchins was 1-3 on FGs last week after previously being perfect for Pitt is a concern. It’s nothing compared the the general coin-tossery of USF’s kicking game.
PK Eric Schwartz is three of six on field goal attempts, but Leavitt said the junior walk-on likely will remain the kicker for at least the Pitt game. Schwartz nailed a 50-yarder against Cincinnati after incumbent Delbert Alvarado missed his own 50-yard chance earlier in the quarter.
Actually, a coin-toss would be an improvement for USF which is 4-11 on FGs this season.
The Bulls have also been sloppier than Pitt when it comes to penalties.
Joseph took specific exception to USF’s 12 penalties on Thursday, grabbing senior cornerback Jerome Murphy by the facemask after another flag.
“You cannot win with penalties,” he said. “We gave up 80 yards to their offense in penalties. The Big East is a very good league … when you give up penalties like that, you give them chances to score and extra yards they don’t need. I just felt I had to step up and let everybody know we can’t have that anymore. We have to play good South Florida defense football like we usually do. It’s all about playing smart, fast, disciplined football.”
USF is worst in the Big East in penalties committed. They average more than 8 penalties a game costing them more than 80 yards. Pitt, which hasn’t been great, is at 6/game and 65 yards. The only good thing for USF is that they get teams to commit a lot of penalties as well. First in the conference with opponents committing over 7/game on average.
USF’s precocious redshirt freshman QB B.J. Daniels, was brought back to mortality against Cinci. His passing numbers were close to his average (he’s throwing a 48% completion rate), but it was the 2 INTs that killed. So, that’s what he wants to improve.
Daniels isn’t helped by a receiving corps that struggles to hold on to passes. Just not a sure-handed group.
The one thing that makes me nervous about Daniels, is that he can run. A lot.
The ESPN broadcast crew compared Daniels’ escape act to the “Mad Scrambler” himself, Fran Tarkenton, the Pro Football Hall of Famer.
A dated reference, perhaps.
“I’m not sure who that is,” Daniels said. “My dad might know.”
One thing is certain: Daniels is not your father’s traditional pocket passer. Although Daniels says he “really doesn’t like to run,” he is USF’s leading rusher (365 yards, four touchdowns as the Bulls (5-1, 1-1) head to No. 20-ranked Pittsburgh (6-1, 3-0) for Saturday afternoon’s Big East Conference game.
The Panthers won’t be taken by surprise.
“You better keep an eye on him because he’s fast,” Pittsburgh coach Dave Wannstedt said. “He’s responsible for about half of their big plays, run and pass. They put a lot of pressure on the defense from the quarterback position. … So we’ve got to be very, very disciplined on defense.”
“Discipline” seems to be the buzzword for this week with regards to Daniels.
“[Daniels] has the strongest arm, pure arm strength, that we’ll face, and he throws on the run really well,” safety Dom DeCicco (Thomas Jefferson High School) said. “But when he’s scrambling, he’s not always looking to run. He keeps his eyes down the field and keeps a play alive and then can throw it over the top. So on some plays, we might have to cover guys for eight or nine seconds as opposed to three or four.
“It really will require us to be very disciplined to make sure he doesn’t burn us over the top, and we have to stay in coverage until we hear a whistle.”
On the bright side, Daniels is a Florida kid yet to play in cold weather.
Likelihood of Depaul being tossed: 5% chance in the next 3 years.
Problem with that is it would create an uneven balance between football schools and non-football schools (9 vs 7), and the basketball schools don’t want that to happen.
Some think Central Fla. would be a good fit but until they actually get up to BCS standards I don’t see it. I mean, USF has not exactly lived up to the hype, and do we really want the league to look like the MAC with all those “Michigan Compass” schools?
But I digress. I don’t think getting rid of a school is a big deal. Temple was shown the door with hardly any fuss. A willing commish just has to ask the Presidents for a vote.
That right there shows me that Leavitt feels his team is in extremis – with only half a season completed. The fact that he has kickers who are proven inaccurate trying 50 (50!) yard FGs is telling.
In terms of DePaul and Marquette, I don’t think the basketball people who run the Big East (and make no mistake, it is run by basketball people) have any desire to leave the Chicago market. I guess conceivably they could drop DePaul and keep ties to that market with Notre Dame and Marquette, but they would not actually be in the big city.
It does sound like Memphis is going to make a push to join the Big East, but it is hard to figure how the conference would realign to make something like that work. A straight swap for DePaul? An ultimatum to Notre Dame? I think the chances of either of those are slim. I guess they could at least rename the conference the Big East of the Mississippi…
Memphis certainly seems like a good fit and I’d be curious if the BigEast tried to court them when the restructuring went down in the first place. They had a decent basketball AND football program. the basketball-only DePaul and Marquette just seemed SO random! I can understand the Chicagoland market, but Chicago has never struck me as a uber hometown college sports town. Especially basketball. Truth be told, I’m sure Notoriety Dame crushes DePaul in the Chicago market by a landslide, so that was already covered.
HTscriptP
Even without considering a threat of a deletion, I would have to think the burden of scheduling 5 out-of-conference teams every year is real pain to the ADs. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if 1 or 2 FB playing teams were brought in — and the BE basketball being split in 2 divisions — either keeping allthe FB teams togther, or east and mideast.
Lastly, I read that USF wouldn’t want UCF in the BE (I assume due to recruiting reasons.) Isn’t it curious that JoePa wants a sister team from the East in the B10 but USF doesn’t want another FL team in the BE?
I propose the conference in hoops stay the same, and just add a school or 2 to football. Would adding memphis really be that big a deal to a conference that is already #1?
IMO, Basketball also works out well–no need to split into two divisions. With 17 teams you just play everyone else once for 16 league games. At BE tourney time either the #17 team stays home or #16 vs #17 have a pre-tourney play-in game with the winner being rewarded with getting to play the #1 seed.
