I’ve railed for a little while about the horror of the Pitt-Rutgers game landing on Yom Kippur. Especially with the USF-Pitt game on Rosh Hashana. Not nearly as upset as On the Banks may be, but I have been relatively peeved about having to be fasting and booze free for the game.

Apparently my resolve and faith were not being tested enough. Calling the 3:30 game on ESPNU will be the unbearable duo of Pam Ward and Dan Hawkins.

Sunset is at 6:57. I will try to make it.

Here we are in week six, coming up on the halfway point of the 2011 season.  There are still a lot of questions surrounding this team and while some fans may think they have been answered, that is surely debatable.

To recap:  We beat our two creampuffs, Buffalo and Maine to start out the season in rather easy fashion.  Both teams scored 4^th quarter points against us and in both games the offense got off to a pretty sluggish start in the 1^st half.  It isn’t a reach to say that PITT underachieved in those games based on the pre-season hype surrounding the new offense being installed by Todd Graham.  Buffalo: 35-16 & Maine: 35-29 wins.

In our third game against Iowa we started out like gangbusters with our offense showing some real cohesiveness by scoring 24 points, against a decent BCS team, through the 3^rd quarter.  That’s when the wheels fell off both offensively and defensively.  Iowa passed their way back into the game and took a 27-24 lead.  In a complete turnaround our offense couldn’t get a single first down and was shutout over the last 12 minutes of play.  31-27 loss.

At home against Notre Dame we reverted back to stumbling around on offense, scoring six points by the half and six more in the 3^rd quarter and … you guessed it… skunking the 4^th quarter with no points.  Our defense came to play finally and we held ND to 15 points, certainly enough to win had our offense not stunk out the joint.  15-12 loss. (more…)