It’s been an off week. The expansiopocolypse stuff alone probably would have thrown things off-kilter, but other things got in the way as well.
It’s not a promising game at this point. Late news on Chris Jacobson, not simply being out for this game but out for the season is a big blow. Pitt not only loses one of its leaders, and best offensive lineman. But also the back-up center. The translucent veneer of the O-line is terrifying at the moment. If there was a game where Pitt needed to start putting it together on defense, this could be that game.
I’ll have my Tweet thread open, but even that should be a bit off as I will have my daughter with me for the game. That means a lot more self-control in the tailgate and extra distractions in the stands.
Obviously, the most popular player on the team is always the backup quarterback, and in this case we’re clamoring for a walk-on freshman. But at this point I think we’ve seen what Tino can do, and it’s not enough. Whatever it’s going to take to run this offense effectively, he doesn’t have it.
Even though I’m not sure playing Anderson is the answer, I think it’s time to see what he can do. And if things go wrong I think we’ll be a little more understanding if we see him make mistakes than when we see Tino make the same mistakes again and again.
But stop calling for Graham’s head already. Maybe he’s being a little too loyal to Sunseri, but he would know better than anyone if he doesn’t have a better option.
Physical mistakes happen a 2nd year starter needs to be more aware mentally. Time for the hook.
Not throwing the ball away twice on that last possession is inexcusable.
Although it improved dramatically from what we have seen and gives me some hope, I thought the defense wasn’t that spectacular. Poor tackling, getting drug for extra yards, terrible zone coverage. ND helped us out with several stupid penalties, missed fg, and poor qb decisions. In other words, just like us.
I think he is a poor man’s (maybe a homeless man’s) Tony Romo. Has a good arm in practice, makes all the throw in practice and occasionally in games, but when push comes to shove and the game is on the line, you just know that it is not going to work out. He is going to make some sort of mistake that will lead to his team losing.
He’s trying his best and I am sure working hard at learning and perfecting this offense, but he doesn’t have the ability to pull it off.
Some guys have “it”. Most guys don’t. I think Tino fits into that group. And if you don’t have “it”, you don’t just magically get it. That’s what is tough looking forward – what we saw today from Tino is probably as good as we’re going to get. With a weak and injured OL, the rest of the season doesn’t look that great.
By the way,
I didn’t see too many bad tackles on that play. I just saw Gruder dip inside and get lost in the line and then Tristan Roberts took a bad angle. Other than that, everyone else was playing catch-up on the play.
By the way, I agree the hat thing is kind of weird. No way he rides the bench however on a short week for the first BE game.
He if Wannstedt couldn’t get us to a BCS bowl or win a Big East championship, why should we ever expect anyone else too.
Besides Wanny, at Chicago won the……oh, it wasn’t there. Right, at Miami he won…..woops, nothin’ there either. Ok, ok, at Pitt he won??????????? Ok, I’m sure he won something somewhere!! ha ha LOL!!!
Well, if your goal is pure mediocrity, I guess he’s done well everywhere he’s been!! LMAO!!!
1. I’m as frustrated as anyone, but can we at least knock off the “Fire Graham” BS, please? Walt got eight years. Wanny got six years and like Dan said a few posts up, Wanny’s tenure was mostly mediocrity mixed with crushing big-moment defeats and mind-numbing gameplans. Graham is sure as hell going to get more than four games.
2. I thought the defense played an absolutely terrific game, and the coaches on the defensive side of the ball did great job for the most part. To do what they did against Floyd was something in and of itself, and the disguised coverages/blitzes were clearly in ND’s head most of the game. This, of course, is with the exception of that one drive…
3. …which I’m not sure I’ll ever completely understand what happened. It became pretty apparent that they scaled back on the pressure, which allowed Rees a few chances to find the TE. I can get that they didn’t want to get beat deep and you have to respect that with ND, but that was still tough to see as to that point, it really looked like Kelly had no answers.
4. That said, going forward, I’m very encouraged by what the defense did today. This was likely the most prolific offense top-to-bottom that Pitt may face all year, at least until WVU (or maybe Utah). I feel a little less worried about the abilities of Graham and the coaches to come up with a plan to deal with teams like USF, Utah, Cincy and WVU, as I don’t think any of those teams bring quite the total package that ND’s offense brings.
5. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to lay the blame for this all at the feet of Tino Sunseri (some veteran offensive linemen took some awful penalties at very inopportune times, too). And I do have some concerns about SOME of the offensive playcalling, but that may work itself out.
But it does start with Tino to the degree that I’m starting to wonder how much his limitations (particularly on the deep passes) are having a trickle-down effect on the running game and the intermediate passing game.
Defenses don’t have to respect the deep ball, and can thus keep their safeties in more of a run contain mode. You could see it today all day. Harrison Smith might as well have been a fifth linebacker for ND half the time today; I’m not sure he ever lined up deeper than 8-10 yards off the ball.
6. The frustrating thing to me is that you can see shades of how well this offense can work and how effective it can be when Tino has his flashes of brilliance and actually executes. Thought he took some big steps running that read option today. But he’s never run a complete offense like this – he didn’t really run it at Central Catholic and he certainly didn’t run one like it prior to this season at Pitt. With an offense that’s predicated on “three seconds and out” when it’s time to throw the ball, he holds the ball far too long.
Graham harped on it after the first two games, yet Tino obviously didn’t learn his lesson. And that manifested itself at the worst possible time – late in the 4th quarter with the chance to take the team on a go-ahead drive, and he takes two horrible sacks because he holds the ball too long.
I don’t know. I hoped for the best but was afraid we’d see these kind of growing pains with this offense.
1. Pitt showed improvement in many areas today and played a good game against a very good ND team.
2. We were physically outmatched on both lines but ourD line was much quicker than the Irish.
3. Jacobson loss really hurt but aside from the 5 encroachment penalties, the new kid blocked pretty well. Each of those penalties could not have come at worse times.
4. Gruder is completely lost at LB as are several of his mates. In the series where Rees went 8-8 and scored the late TD, #80 the ND TE just manhandled him on 4 straight plays…including the TD and 2pt. conversion.
5. On that drive, Irish receivers were all running wide open, sometimes 2 to 3 at a time.
It was the same Chinese Fire Drill we saw in quarter 4 at Iowa…however, for the most part they played much better.
6. Pitt’s kicking game was excellent all day.
7. Pitt played inspired but cautious FB and should have won the game.
8 And now for the bad news, while Coach had a leash on Tino most of the day and played conservative, Tino’s complete lack of football IQ and understanding of situational football just killed us all day. 22 – 30 and 159 yds will just not get it done. When the time came for Rees and Tino to make a play to win the game…well you know the ending.
A beautiful Fall Day at the stadium. Reminded me of the many Saturdays at Pitt Stadium. Crowd was 35% Irish fans, 25 % Pitt fans 25 % students and
15% empty yellow seats…about 10,000 empties.
Coach Graham has the same decision to make as last week. Does he stick with Tino and hope he can at least manage the game, or go with Trey Anderson and have an actual chance of winning the game! No way we beat SF with Tino…and yes, I agree, he did have his best game…but his best game is merely average for most QB’s. In his defense, there were no side arm balls and his throwing motion has improved greatly.
I left the game very angry and am still not over the loss. All the sacks Tino took were inexcusable…but the 2 on the final drive..oh well you all saw.
On the one where all 4 ND lineman met at the QB, Tino had the perfect screen set up with nothing but blue jerseys in front..all he had to do was lob it over the ND lineman and Grahm would still be running.
Last but not least, one of my favorite events, taking the boat over to the stadium from Station Square, has gotten intolerable. They only had 2 boats available as there were 3 weddings on the others.I got on board at 11AM and we docked at noon. Missed kickoff completely. One F’n full hour with a gay (not that there is etc) lisping annoucer babbled nonstop about the new tunnel to the south hills. Wabash…
That’s it from here. Hope you all got some enjoyment out of the game…for me, Singing Sweet Caroline with a 12-7 lead (and hope) was the highlight…Hail to Pitt!
As for all those posts cutting down Coach Graham, I would at least give him one season! Also what does everyone think about our other options at quarterback now?
Off the top of my head, the two trick plays seemed horribly ill-timed, and I disagreed with the sweep toss to Ray Graham on 3rd and goal.
I think HC Graham was banking on ND selling out the middle and leaving that pitch wide open, so maybe credit ND’s defense for staying home there, too. But they seemed to be getting some surge running up the middle on that drive.
you caught me off guard when you said “Todd Graham may eventually do as well as Dave Wannstedt did.”
I thought the whole reason that Wannstedt resigned(was fired), and why the fans wanted him out, was because his teams never had the type of sustained success that was expected. Now we are setting Wanny’s accomplishments as the benchmarks for which we strive. We must have lowered our standards.
Funny thing, the past two years have been very winnable games vs. Kelly’s ND for this rinky dink Pitt team. I always felt Chubbie Charlie’s teams were way more talented, and we pulled off two against them (makes me appreciate the massive talent of Shady).
I have never felt better than today on cancelling my season tickets and not drinking the TG Kool-Aid.
Comment by Tony Dews and Don’ts 09.24.11 @ 7:50 pm
Oh don’t know guys, I’ve never known a linebacker with the name Tristan. (sound’s like a girl, hits like a girl) This is another guy like Tino, who just hangs around forever, Tinni is going to be 23 years old, Tristan is probably as old, as I believe he redshirted too. Why is this guy playing. He’s a senior, he’s NOT GOING to GET ANY BETTER! Play someone who actually MIGHT GET THE F*CK BETTER. I don’t really care who the hell it is.
Like I said before, I don’t remember one good lick, someone on defense laid on an opposing player, you know a hit that fires up the whole team, the WHOLE FRICKIN YEAR. While they played better today, was it a case of them playing better or ND self-destructing, as it seemed ND could walk down the field when they needed to.
And they did.
Do the coaches have these guys really hitting each other in practice, cause you play like you practice.
“6. The frustrating thing to me is that you can see shades of how well this offense can work and how effective it can be when Tino has his flashes of brilliance and actually executes.”
You’re JUST starting to wonder about Tino’s limitations affecting the rest of the team.
REALLY?
Flashes of Brilliance. That gave be a head turn.
What flashes of brilliance. He has flashes of being competent, NEVER BRILLIANT or Brilliance.
You know I apologize, I just must see things differently. My bad.
Comment by Dan 72 09.24.11 @ 10:59 pm
Yes we all know that ending too well. Nothing unexpected, the D2 Maine QB outplayed tinno.
As did a guy last week with 2 games of experience, the 1rst year starting qb of Iowa.
Isn’t Rees a freshmen, at most has only 2 games of experience before today. Outplayed a 4rth year Redshirt junior who’s 23 yr’s old.
I had planned on going to Pitt’s homecoming this year, but I will go to the Rutgers – Navy game instead. I think that the game will be more entertaining.
Melvin, just when you begin to make some statements that suggest you know the game, you make some really asinine comments. Last year, DW recruited the highest rated QB in NJ. When DW got fired, he (Nova) decommitted and went to Rutgers. He is the No. 2 QB as a true freshman. DW recruited the top rated (or one of the top rated) QB in Ohio (Myers). DW recruited the top rated (or one of the top rated) QB in PA. (Gonzalez). You are the only one that I know of who seems to be critical of DW’s recruiting.
Happens to all of us.lol
Wanny I believe is just one of those hard luck guys. Had a nice record at Miami until Ricky Williams decided he wanted to just smoke pot and as you said he had the loss in the Cincy game, which in my opinion was the Brian Kelly ‘factor’ getting groomed for the ND job offer.
Well, if we want to argue semantics, no, I haven’t just noticed this problem with Tino now. He had these same issues last year. The problem was that it was in a different offense, and I needed something larger than eight quarters against Buffalo and Maine to confirm what I’m seeing in THIS offense.
And as far as “flashes of brilliance”, maybe that’s too strong a term. But I did think he had a decent first three quarters against Iowa, and that he strung together a couple of few really good drives yesterday – doing what he needed to do for the offense – so much so that Urban Meyer was complementing him during the broadcast. I don’t want to put too much stock in it, but Meyer does know a thing or two about quarterbacks and what they need to do to run an offense like this.
Do I think Sunseri is the right QB for this offense? No.
Do I have any faith in him as a starter going forward as a QB who could lead this team to a Big East championship? Absolutely not.
At this point, I’m open to anything else Graham wants to try – Anderson, Myers, bring Gonzalez back under center. I don’t care. Tino can’t seem to get the timing of this offense down consistently, and even when he does he can’t make all the throws necessary to keep the defense honest. BUT, he has had moments where he’s put it together and run this thing the way it’s (mostly) supposed to be run. His problem is that he can’t string those moments together into long drives, and we end up trading touchdowns for FGs, just like we tended to do too often under Wannstedt.
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