Pitt has announced its football schedule for 2011. Well, sort of. No start times are set. The Big East game dates aren’t set. But the dates for the non-con games have been announced.

The Big East dates will be announced next month. We do know that Pitt will be on the road to West Virginia, Louisville, and Rutgers. While there will be four home games with Cinci, Syracuse, USF and UConn.

That’s eight home games with the new coaching staff and offensive style.

PantherLair has the schedule for the next few years right here. With TCU coming aboard in 2012, it looks like Pitt is going to need to move a non-con game slated for 2013.

The players and Coach Dixon admitted to not playing well and that it wasn’t a satisfactory performance.

“We weren’t good enough offensively,” Dixon said, “and we weren’t good enough defensively.”

Monday was Pitt’s only regular-season meeting with Notre Dame. The two programs could meet again in March at the Big East Tournament in a rematch of last season’s 50-45 Irish victory.

“It will hurt our guys, but we will bounce back,” Dixon said. “We’ll learn from it and be better because of it. We have to be.”

Brad Wanamaker called it another game the team can learn from. And aside from putting it behind them, that’s all they can do.

Pitt played well enough in the first half. Not fantastic, as the offense wasn’t that sharp, but certainly better than in the second half — especially on defense. That slipping in the second half definitely seems like something that irritated Coach Dixon.

“We need to go back to what we do,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said, “and do a little better at sustaining it.”

When you think about the lapses that have taken place in the second half, hopefully this will be the best reminder of what happens more than just having closer than expected moments in the second half.

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