Ryan Turnley has been outstanding at center for Pitt. When you consider how quickly he had to learn the position just this summer, he has been tremendous. Well, guess who else has been battling an injury?

Ryan Turnley – and this is something we obviously couldn’t report – didn’t practice much at all last week with that foot injury but he really sucked it up and played and I’d expect him to do the same this week. But say he re-injures that or something — what in the heck is this unit going to look like? You really have to give Spencer Leftwich a lot of credit for putting together a rag-tag bunch with a lot of injuries and youth and getting it to be somewhat cohesive and coherent.

Turnley was limping around out there and Coach Graham singled out Turnley for battling through last night.

I honestly don’t think the O-line can take one more injury. Behind Turnley at center are Greg Gaskins or Ryan Schlieper. Schlieper is probably going to start in place of Rotheram unless Nix is back soon. So, be afraid. Very afraid.

It’s not pretty. Not pretty.

Junior running back Ray Graham suffered a right knee injury that will require surgery. He entered the Connecticut game as the nation’s second-leading rusher (134.1 yards/game). Graham finishes the year with 958 rushing yards on 164 carries (5.8 avg.) and nine touchdowns.

Redshirt freshman offensive lineman Matt Rotheram sustained a fractured left ankle and will undergo surgery. One of Pitt’s most versatile linemen, Rotheram played in all eight games this season and started the last two contests at tackle and guard, respectively.

Additionally, junior receiver Cameron Saddler will be out for the rest of the season with a fractured sternum. Saddler played in all eight games, starting seven, and had 19 catches for 207 yards (10.9 avg.) and a TD. He was injured following a 40-yard catch-and-run that set up Pitt’s third touchdown for a 21-3 lead over UConn late in the first half.
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Pitt has lost six prominent contributors to season-ending injuries this year. Previously injured players include sophomore safety Jason Hendricks (shoulder), senior offensive guard Chris Jacobson (knee) and redshirt freshman Salath Williams (shoulder).

All three are being declared out for the rest of the season. Still waiting to find out exactly what kind of knee injury, but obviously it isn’t a minor one.

Five players on offense. Add in Lucas Nix missing half the games to date, and over 25% of the original 2-deep to start the season on offense has or will miss at least 1/3 of the season.

Get well, guys.

Can you believe that there is no Pitt football this Saturday, but basketball instead? It’s true. The first of a couple exhibition games tip-off this Saturday at 4pm.

The fighting LaRoche Redhawks will make the arduous 12.5 mile trip to the Pete. The defending Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) champs will look to show everyone that just because they are D-III, they are more than exhibition patsies.

Anyone buying it? No. Good. I’ll just shift to some general basketball stuff for Pitt.

In his first season at Pitt there was a vocal minority declaring Dante Taylor a bust. Why? I counted three basic reasons. The first was that he wasn’t DeJuan Blair. An outlying freak who was able to be a big impact player as a freshman. The second, he was a McDonald’s All-American. Pitt hadn’t had one of those in a couple decades. Any McDonald’s All-American is immediately assumed to be a potential NBA star, and headed there early. Third, his recruiting class included two one-and-done big men in DeMarcus Cousins and Derrick Favors. Sure they were the top-top five players nationally and Taylor was somewhere in the teens. When you just ranked big men, they weren’t that far apart.

Luke Winn at SI.com helped debunk some of the hyperbole with some useful data, and an actual comparison of other top-ranked big men of the 2009 class in their freshman year also debunked some of the idiocy. I listed 14 top big men (PFs and Cs). All but four of them (Cousins, Favors, Daniel Orton and Tiny Gallon) are still playing college ball in their junior year.

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Lots of things to like about that win. But a lot more that can really bring you down fast.

The obvious is that Ray Graham is injured. Still no official word, but seeing his knee buckle when he planted on it, and the way he went down does not make me optimistic. The pain he was in made me wince. The MRI is scheduled for today. I expect we will hear something around noon.

Unfortunately he was not the only loss. Cam Saddler was finally having a great game. There is no question the knee injuries in the past have completely sapped any burst or explosiveness, that he had coming out of high school. He still can be productive. Last night was the first time where he was catching passes in stride, allowing him to get yards after the catch. And then to suffer an apparent injury to his wrist. a fractured sternum.

Then there was redshirt freshman Matt Rotheram. Getting his first start, playing at Right Guard for this game. Rotheram had passed others on the depth chart in the previous weeks and was now starting. He went down with a leg injury, that would appear to be a season-ender. [UPDATE: fractured left ankle.]

If you are keeping track at home, that is 3 OL, 2 WR, 1 S, and 1 RB down for significant games.

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You can say UCONN sucks, you can say it was an aberration and you can say it won’t last.  But what you can’t say is that Tino Sunseri failed to give Todd Graham everything the HC wished for in a QB last night.  In doing so it allowed Graham to justify, in his own mind I’m sure, his decision to keep Mark Myers at third string QB so far this season.

After going out on (another) limb this week and stating that Sunseri was going to be the “Starter for Life”, Graham for once didn’t have to turn around and saw off the limb he was sitting on. What he got from his QB was Sunseri’s best game in his three year career and a effort that overcame what every PITT fan said would be unachievable, a win where our star RB Ray Graham couldn’t influence the outcome.

When all else failed, with Ray Graham going down, another OL out with an injury, Cam Saddler having his best game as a Panther then being injured, Sunseri stood tall and delivered.

I know! What the hell was that!

But Sunseri put on a passing clinic last night.  His actions were decisive, he looked off defenders, he hit the receivers quickly and his throws were strong and accurate.  Few passes went over 15 yards in the air but that is the design of this offense, to get the ball into the receivers hands quickly and allow them to get YAC.  Which we did by having over 325 yards picked up by the receiver’s after the catch.

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