There is a lot to discuss about PITT’s solid, and welcomed, win against the USF Bulls at Heinz Field last night. Team play, individual play, units charging ahead even with the injury of a key player… but most of all it is important to discuss just how wrong the author of yesterday’s article was, whoever that may be. Here are some key Blather whiffs.
“Sorry, I’m not optimistic at all about this match. I think USF deserves it’s #16 ranking this time and shows why against PITT tonight. 38-17 USF
WRONG! PITT wins 44-17, surprising the hell out of almost everyone and on national TV yet. I don’t know if USF deserved that high ranking or not but this was the biggest game so far in 2011 and we came through with flying colors.
“Our running game, the most overrated part of our offense, will fall short and it will be ugly out there.”
WRONG! PITT rolls up 308 yards on the ground for 5.3 ypc. Ray Graham slips his name under the door for Heisman consideration with 226 yards on 26 carries for 8.7 ypc and we reiterate that this is a run-first offense. All this done with a make shift OL who played their hearts out.
He’s (B.J. Daniels) having a career year this season and has all the confidence in the world, as do his teammates in him. Stand by for heavy rolls as he rips us up tonight (with his passing).
WRONG! PITT’s pass defense holds Daniels to 226 yards on 18/36 attempts with zero TDs, very respectably limiting him to a 50% completion percentage. The best thing though is that we held fast on the third down passing situations this game. By my count USF was 0/9 in 3rd down pass attempts… that’s zero completions folks, not just zero 1st downs passing off those third downs.
“USF has given up five total sacks this season so the supposed strength of our pass defense, DL pressure, will be minimized.”
WRONG! We had at least two sacks in the second half and kept good pressure on Daniels to make him hurry a lot of his throws, especially on third downs. Our containment of him wasn’t the greatest but the kid is a very good runner and made the best of his opportunities when they came.
“…this PITT team just doesn’t know how to close out games and can’t understand what it actually takes to win against a good opponent.”
Wrong! There is nothing as satisfying as shutting out an opponent in the second half and scoring 24 points while doing it. That shuts the barn door completely. Here’s how it looked for the Bulls after the halftime break:
| START | QTR | POSS. | YARD | PLAYS | YARDS | RESULT |
| 15:00 | 3 | 01:20 | USF 29 | 3 | 6 | Punt |
| 10:33 | 3 | 01:41 | USF 13 | 6 | 36 | Punt |
| 04:55 | 3 | 02:13 | USF 29 | 6 | 22 | Turnover on Downs |
| 01:28 | 3 | 01:28 | USF 20 | 4 | 24 | Fumble |
| 13:32 | 4 | 00:47 | USF 39 | 3 | -7 | Punt |
| 11:29 | 4 | 00:38 | USF 30 | 2 | 34 | Fumble |
| 04:44 | 4 | 00:13 | USF 26 | 1 | 6 | Fumble |
| 02:08 | 4 | 01:42 | USF 25 | 10 | 71 | Turnover on Downs |
“Offensively we could come around a bit as the passing game may smooth out a little, but I don’t expect it to be able to carry the day anytime soon ...”
WRONG! 503 total yards on offense, 307 yards rushing, 216 yards passing and five TDs scored pretty much says it all. Perhaps most importantly we converted 60% of our third down conversions, 9 of 15 attempts which extended our drives and allowed us to at least get into FG range. A telling point with this is that we only had to punt twice the whole game.
Sunseri’s play has to be both noted and praised. He really did show a different side out there yesterday then he’s shown in the previous four games. His passing was crisp and effective and his command of the offense, along with the projection of confidence he showed, was very refreshing. It gives us hope that he actually could make that jump in production that a second year starter should show.
Had Shanahan not been thinking about what to do after catching the ball he wouldn’t have dropped a sure TD pass and another big gainer. But Sunseri was putting the ball where it needed to be for the majority of his throws save for his deep attempts. There may be no solution for that problem.
The bottom line is that PITT played their first full game yesterday and in doing so alleviated fears that there was a lot of smoke being blown over on the Southside. I prefer to have at least two samplings before I even begin to acknowledge that a trend may be happening but if we can follow this up with another solid showing against Rutgers next week I’ll be convinced that we really were “this close”. It makes me think that those two games against Iowa and ND were pretty good games on our part rather than poor games on theirs.
It couldn’t have happened at a better time either. This big win was not only at home and on national TV but more importantly happened on the first game of our BE schedule. We needed this in many ways but the real key is that we’ll now be able to go into the meat of our conference games knowing that we can play with anyone else in the BE. That can’t be overstated.
So, the above shows you why I chose a career in the military rather than hanging around sports book shops. I’m usually off on my score predictions anyway but, for the most part, I think I’ve been pretty good in the past with figuring out how the flow of the games would go. Last night shocked me on both counts. I had figured that if we won at all we would just squeak by.
My thoughts were about 180 degrees off the mark for the USF game and the state of our team and thank goodness for that.
Our players now know what it’s like to win big and on national TV. Hopefully, they will keep the momentum going into NJ. Hail to Pitt! ?
Defense was aggressive. Coach Graham redeems himself in one game, impressive! Hope this starts a trend.
Jarred Holley, congrats. You’re the toast of Easton and Metuchen. Plus the whole secondary did great, scaring Daniels from the throwing the long ball (as did they last week vs. ND).
Seriously, next weekend do not wear Pitt regalia for the RU game. We/I will otherwise get mugged.
On the attendance: I agree with the Big10 (12) on not scheduling Thursday night games because students have class the next day and alumni from out-pf-town can’t make the games — I live in GA and can’t make weekday games. GA Tech loved playing weekeday night games. I had season tickets to Tech’s games and never got home from Thursday night games until after midnight which cut into my beauty sleep. Pitt played on a short rest week but now get’s a few more days rest for the Rutger’s game. The win last night makes it more satisfying.
Last but not least I myself need to eat some crow. It certainly looks like I was wrong about Tino. Maybe myself and many others were just too impatient with him trying to really grasp the system. If Tino can play like he did last night through the rest of the season it will be a big year for Pitt in the BE. His decision making seemed to be spot the majority of the game, he made plays with his legs not allowing USF to jus hone in on Graham, He did miss on the deep routes but he did have the one pretty nice ball to Shanahan that was just flat out dropped. I’m not sure Tino will ever be the guy who heaves the ball 30 yards in the air spot on to a wideout, but he showed last night that he DOES have what it takes to win big games.
One last thing…I really hope that Lucas Nix is okay and his MRI comes back negative. He is a great kid and would be an enormous loss. The OL played admirably last night, but Nix is head and shoulders above anyone else in that unit.
Here’s looking forward to more of what we saw last night from the players and coaches alike! Hail to Pitt!
On a few off the field notes, I was happy to see the Bisnowaty commit. For all the people worried about Graham’s ability to keep the western PA talent look at his current list of 2012 commits. Outside of Voytik, all of them are from Pitt’s traditional recruiting grounds. I’m sure Rushel Shell enjoyed watching Pitt smoke the #16 team in the country on national TV last night especially the way they did it by running the ball….You want an up and coming team that can feature you to the tune of 200+ yards on ESPN in primetime??? Well example A was that game last night. Playing and winning games like this really goes a long way with recruits…Just ask the 08 recruiting class
So much has been said about the offense but like steve and BCPITT said Holley and the defense were excellent. I do think Daniels is overrated, but the ability to force him to make plays with his arm was crucial (because he can’t). Seemed like the plan was to always keep K.Williams one-on-one on the near side and give up those underneath yards, helping out everywhere else. Got a bit nervous at times because it seemed they could pick him apart fairly easily, but I guess the overall results speak for themselves.
Fun game. Wish there were more folks there but thought the energy was good.
But I have to say, this was the first game where “high octane” was present, and it was shown to work very well. I give credit to Coach Graham, Tino, and the entire team.
One data point does not make a trend, however. A slip-up against a team they should beat, will cause a lot of people to question this game. Going undefeated into their game against West Virginia, will proove the “high octane” philosophy can work for Pitt.
The one caveat is that I suspect that USF does not have a good defense. Note that against the only other good team they played (N Dame), they also gave up 500 yards. I am going to be very interested to see if this offense remains hot vs Rutgers; not expecting 500 yards but am expecting a productive unit.
Nonetheless, everything is good (except Nix’s injury) Plus, Graham’s performance not only gave him some well earned national exposure, it certainly didn’t hurt the recruitment efforts of R Shell
Well, I vowed that I wasn’t going to post here again until Pitt started winning, and I inferred that that wasn’t going to be for awhile if Tino Sunseri was allowed to keep fu*king up the offense with his unacceptable play.
One game does not make a season, but WTF did Todd Graham put in Tino’s Wheaties yesterday??? Sunseri deserves all the credit that is due him because he knocked it out of the park in last night’s game. I know that Ray Graham was “THE GUY” last night but the real key to victory was Tino Sunseri’s play. Without him doing his job effectively, we lose.
With the two heart breaking loses that Pitt has taken over the last couple of weeks, this one could have had Pitt folding their tents with another loss. Pitt showed that they were there for business however and played like a different team than the one we’ve been watching for the first four games. I sincerely hope that this is a turning point for the team. I was amazed on how well the offensive line played last night AFTER Nix went down with injury. How does that happen??
Go get them from here on out. Tino, prove me wrong and keep performing like you did last night. Beat Rutgers, lets see Rushel Shell declare Pitt as his future team on the 14th during Hopewell’s national TV exposure and then lets give the Utes some payback at homecoming. If that all pans out, then us Pitt fans are going to be in a very, very good mood for the rest of the football season I suspect.
Hail to Pitt!
This is what I’ve meant when I said over the offseason that Sunseri had the tools for this offense, but that he wasn’t exercising the option to run enough over the first three games this season. I watched him in practices before the season and he was doing very well in keeping the ball and taking off, then that disappeared when we started playing actual games.
What it does, when you have that component in the gameplan, is open up the way for both Graham and for the passing game. The defense has to respect the chance that the QB can hurt them with his legs. This is exactly what the triple-option is designed for and the role of a running QB in it can’t be underestimated.
Sunseri has shown his scrambling ability in the past when the play breaks down, but he really needs to understand in his mind that his legs are that third weapon in addition to the handoff and pulling the ball back and passing.
It is also why I’ve been so adamant that there is a real reason that both Sunseri and Anderson are #1 & #2 respectively on the depth chart. Myers just isn’t the type of QB to fit that role. You can’t try to understand Graham’s philosophy about his offensive system without knowing that the QB has to be both a good passer and a good rusher.
Apparently Bisnowaty’s high school (Fox Chapel) runs an offense similar to Pitt’s offense. Hopefully any adjustment period will be relatively short.
According to the PG, Shell has narrowed his choices to Pitt and Alabama.
Pitt is very much in the mix for Chartiers’ Wayne Capers.
Last night’s game certainly didn’t hurt!
Ray Graham might be the best back since TD graced our fields and there were some great ones, I only hope they don’t run him to death.
They looked really good. A few breaks went Pitt’s way, but very promising.
However, once Graham feels that this offense is truly up to their potential and running on all cylinders I wouldn’t be surprised if he stops doing that and reverts to keeping the hammer down at the end of the games.
Pitt Family, have a great weekend and bask in the win until Monday and get ready for New Brunswick.
HAIL TO PITT
Although I think OL is the hardest position to start at for a freshman, familiarity with the schemes would certainly help bridge that gap. We all know how much we will lose on the OL next year and pumping new blood will be important — FYI Scout has a 4* OL from Olney (same school as stud WR Stefon Diggs) with a Pitt offer and “High” Interest.
As far as Shell is concerned, I said it in my earlier post…He just watched Pitt ride it’s stud RB for close to 230 yards to a win on national TV vs the #16 team in the country. He would be “THE GUY” on this team, not just one of many horses a roster full of stallions @ Bama. Honestly as far as the pros are concerned both schools have been churning out NFL caliber backs recently…
Bama:: Glen Coffee (before he retired after 1 yr), Mark Ingram, and soon to be Trent Richardson Pitt:: Shady McCoy, Dion Lewis, and soon to be Ray Graham.
He will be playing in the ACC against more marquee opponents and getting more national exposure because of that.
If Pitt can keep this level of play and competition going the rest of the season, I see a very bright future for the Panthers.
I knew Pitt would come to play, particularily after 2 heart-breakers in in a row. This game was a “must win” for them and played the game like it. You could tell in the very 1st possession that Sunseri was getting rid of the ball much quicker and Pitt’s up-tempo offence kept South Florida off-balance all night. In the 4th quarter when it looked as if South Florida might get some things going, the Panthers’ defense pressured them into mistakes. They took a giant step forward last night and the offensive line moved them off the ball without our two best offensive lineman. Not a bad way to start their Big East Conference season.
Other than that, this is the best win since the WVU upset, although I think, in retrospect, that many of the posters on here were right in that maybe SF wasn’t as good as a #16 would suggest. No matter. Graham has changed everything with this win and now has 9 days to build on it. One thing is for sure in my mind: the big difference between last night’s win and many of the wins over the last 20 years is that last night FELT like a win versus a survival contest in which Pitt was the tallest midget. Good for the kids in that locker room, especially Tino!
This was a great win and a confidence booster to the entire team, off to Buttgers!!!
Congrats to Pitt..see you at Rutgers!
Graham had a monster night. From the look of it, FLA looked gassed on O & D line right after halftime. If we had made a couple more plays early in the game & had TDs not FGs we would have broken 50 pts!
Kudos to TG for not being a rigid idealogue and making adjustments in the preparation, game plan, and in-game planning/ adjustments. The scheme was much more suited for Tino’s abilities. While he still missed some throws and was not tremendously accurate, plays were called that allowed him to perform.
They aren’t saying a word and they finally shut their mouths at Heinz field last night as well because Wanny NEVER beat a ranked opponent by 27 points. You have to go back to Walt Harris in 2001 and Pitt smoking VA Tech to find such an ass whipping.
I hope that this game quiets the “We never should have let Wanny go” crowd forever and if any of you still think that PLEASE MOVE ON.
This is the kind of game that hopefully will be an eye opener for our potential recruits. Filling the pipeline with high quality players who want to step up from the Big East to play VT, FSU and Clemson. HAIL TO PITT!!!
As someone pointed out earlier, one game does not constitute a trend. On the other hand the team and coaching seem to be improving every game which does constitute a trend. The coaching staff did adjust their philosophy of “pedal to the metal all the time” by running the clock in the fourth quarter. On the defensive side of the ball more blitzes were called and the defense became less “vanilla”.
This will be the first of many wins against ranked opponents by Coach Graham. We now need to take care of business against lesser ranked teams by keeping this same focus and intensity. Hopefully Heinz Field will be packed for my yearly trip to see Pitt play against Utah.
Hail To Pitt!
On a serious note this was Tino’s best game. He came out better at reading/reacting quickly and it showed. He had the hiccups he had been having but they were not costly. But will not rag on him in this game because he actually showed credible solid improvement. Keep it up Tino, continue to slow things down in your CPU so you make the right decisions and you and the team will do well.
Ray graham was great, the young Oline guys impressed and what can you say about the D. I got fired-up when they showed Graham talking to them on the sidelines. We know the O is going to be great under Graham, if the D can be great too…………………LOOK OUT BABY!!!!
Have been in the Burgh all week, but couldn’t attend the ND game due to another obligation. It was just coincidence that USF was the next team up, given they’re my “hometown” team.
The Panthers seem to have their number. I commented to the folks around me that there’s at least one team that will be glad to see Pitt going to the ACC. We ruin their BE season almost every year. I gladly reminded my USF alum friends in Tampa of that.
USF is no slouch. Holtz is a good coach and they have talent. I expect them to handle WVU in Tampa, which will be good for us.
Graham was awesome. Tino looks like he’s finally getting it and understands that he has to pull the ball and run to make the offense effective.
K. Williams is still giving too much cushion but overall the defense did a good job. Even saw Tristan Robert showing good tackling form a few times.
Maybe things are coming together like TG promised. Too early to get cocky, but I like what I saw last night.
With Tino running more and more, Anderson is potentially one play from having to take the helm. They need to get the kid reps when they can and being up 41-17 was probably a good time to do that.
Hard to criticize TG, because he did a lot of things right last night, but that’s one that stood out to me. Plus I still don’t understand his timeout philosophy. Sometimes I think I’m watching the NBA with his choices of when to call a timeout.
1. You didn’t “finish” the last 2 games, but you’ll finish this one – together
2. Haven’t earned the right to “high five” around the sideline with 6 minutes left..
3. and – we keep pushing until the refs tell us the game is over.
It may take a couple more games before TG backs off of this. Whether we like it or not!
Also I see that Dokish has a new blog and yesterday before the game, he wrote that Pitt could be a national power again. Even an optimist like me thought he was going too far but not after seeing that win last night. That offense is the real deal.
Hell, if Tino plays like this for the rest of the season, you won’t hear much protest from me if Anderson gets nothing but mop up duty from here on out.
The guy that left me scratching my head about last night was my man Shanahan. I’ve never seen him drop such easy balls, and not just once but twice back to back. Usually automatic for him with such easy catches. Thank God we ended up not needing that first drop for a sure TD. I forgive you, now go sic the Scarlet Knights.
Considering how good I feel today about Pitt’s win, I can only imagine how the guys who were actually responsible for it, the players and coaches, must be feeling today. ENJOY!!!!!! Beats the snot out of losing two close ones in the 4th quarter doesn’t it?
Curious how we lose our 2 best o-linemen and then have our best blocking game of the year…
I was also hoping to see Tino & Ray take a seat about a drive earlier…An injury there would have been devastating…
Could have been natural improvement but Tino & Cam Saddler seem to have had a fire lit under them last night…
Although there were lots of coverage issues again, the defense continues to improve week-to-week. I thought last night was the best hitting and most physical the D has been this year.
Ball security is an issue with the young receivers. Three fumbles last night could have very easily made us feel like ND playing South Florida.
A great morale boost for the team and even better national publicity. Can we continue to build on it and will the fans start to show up with a couple more wins?
I agree with most all if not all the previous posts,
it was actually fun again to watch a PITT game.
Wooohooo.
I’m glad Tino had a good game since that will usually lead to a PITT win. Still not totally sold on him, as this is only 1 game and RG was tearing up the USF D. But Tino started to run the Triple Option somewhat against ND and keep that ball and get some positive yardage and they continued that in the 1rst half against USF. And that’s when the QB has to keep the ball in the read Option, THE 1RST HALF, for then you have the opposing DE’s always worrying about that play and therefore they can’t come off their stance and mount a full charge without that read option in the back of their mind for the rest of the game. They have that little indecision and they hesitate and that’s all you want. That success on the Read Option ALSO SLOWS DOWN THE OPPOSING PASS RUSH, as was evident last nite as well.
Anyway, what a phenomenal game from RG, words can’t describe his value to the team. And had he not sat out most of the 4rth quarter, he might have hit 300 yards. The Zach Brown had I believe had 16 carries last nite, which considering we almost lost him earlier in the game, was good to get him some work.
I like Tampa T, was expecting Trey to come in the game in the 4rth quarter when the score was 41-17, if only because you’re only one play from losing your QB and he could use the reps.
Other highlighes:
Kevin Harper after a shaky start to the season, has come on like gang busters, hitting 2 long FG’s over 45 yds and another at 39 yds or so.
Read somewhere he hit the longest FG at Pitt since the famous 48 yarder by Conner Lee in 13-9 Hillbilly no National Championship game for you game.
Cam Saddler finally did something, catching 6 balls to lead the team.
Todd Thomas’s amazing speed, tracking down BJ Daniels when he broke out of the pocket for a huge loss. He almost made an incredible one handed interception as well. When he fully understands the defense, Thomas is going to be great.
The O-Line was very good. Hats off to Ryan Schlieper(sp?) from NA(who came in for Nix) and Cory King who replaced Jacobson. If you remember WVU, under DickRod, they never had highly recruited O-linemen, with this Zone blocking it never hurt them from running for gabs of yards.
Also the center of Pitt (name?) had another near flawness game.
The Punter Yoklik (sp) also had a nice game including a 50 yarder. First game we didn’t pooch punt, THAT MIGHT BE THE KEY, NO MORE POOCH PUNTING TG!! lol
The D-Line did a good job in containment.
Now the bad:
The LB’s in pass coverage are still very weak.
Devin Street didn’t have one catch, and last week only had minimal catches. That is a concern, for he is one of our few WR gamebreakers.
Was a little worried there when we were up 34-17 and we got the ball on a fumble at the 50 yard line or so….and we went nowhere…3 and out.
Also the next series was another 3 and out.
I was hoping we would bury them then, especially on the series we got the ball at the 50. Oh well.
As a said yesterday, this game was HUGE and WE HAD TO WIN IT, or the season could unravel.
PITT stepped up bigtime. Now on to Piscataway, which is…thataway>>>>
The biggest problem I had last night was feeling embarrassed over the attendance @ Heinz. I don’t know what the official numbers were but a Thursday night game on national TV vs the #16 team in the country and it looked like a ghost town. Especially after it began to rain and Pitt had the game pretty much in hand late – that place cleared out at a breakneck pace. Unfortunately I live 6 hours away, have no time off, and as a somewhat recent graduate with a family I am dirt broke and couldn’t attend, but a lot of the student section was filled with yellow seats…I know those student tickets can’t be more than $50 a season because I never paid more than $35 from 04-07, so it’s even hard to use the broke college student thing. Hopefully a game like this will really lift the overall feeling about the program and start to draw more down to the North Shore.