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November 25, 2011

Summing It Up

Filed under: Fans,Football — Chas @ 11:08 pm

Ugh.

Depressed.

Frustrated.

….





Well said, 85. Graham has done all he can to make things easier for Sunseri. I don’t blame him at all for Sunseri’s terrible QB performance. If he continues to let him take snaps he deserves every bit of criticism he will certainly get…

Comment by K.R.Y. 11.26.11 @ 9:51 am

To Tony Dews and MattIce,
Quit referring to Tino as a kid he turns 23 in December that is a man playing with boys, and he has another year of eligibility. Tino should be going on to his life’s work which is not playing football !

Comment by Spindler's Spirit 11.26.11 @ 9:51 am

Todd Graham has a lot of work to do inorder to win over the fan that he has now lost.

People can be patient with someone who shows up and quietly goes about their job making steady gains without promises. They will not forgive a person who comes in guns a blazin making tremendous promises and trying to sell them some fools Gold. High octane was fraudulent and now everyone feels deceived by the over selling. Todd Graham needs to deliver something to the fans. Something real and not falsified with fast talking empty promises

Comment by Pitt fan in Atlanta 11.26.11 @ 9:56 am

On a positive note. The defense keeps getting better. They should be great next year. We will miss Alexcih adn Lindsey, but with Donald and Mosely-Smith as anchors in the middle, better faster linebackers, Price and Thomas with a year in the weightroom and more depth with all the transfers we should be terrific. What a plus if Mason returns.

Has there ever been a better special teams guy than Tags?

Comment by gc 11.26.11 @ 9:58 am

Tino’s ticket has been punched but he has missed the train once again. There is NO FUTURE for Pitt football with Sunseri at the helm.

Time for TG to get that through his head no matter how well Tino practices. Sunseri can’t take the heat of battle. Some guys freeze up under pressure, some guys relish the moment. Hopefully Voytik will be the guy who thrives in the adversity that has become know as Pitt football. Somebody, anybody BUT Tino Sunseri HAS to be put into the driver’s seat come spring ball.Tino has proven beyond the shadow of doubt that he will dependablly whither under the pressure of a close game. This experiment is OVER!!!!

NEXT, PLEASE, NEXT, ANYBODY STEP UP, THE SUNSERI ERA HAS ENDED!!!!

Comment by Dr. Tom 11.26.11 @ 9:59 am

We all expected growing pains with a completely new offense. What we’re dissappointed about is that it’s the end of the season and we’re not getting any better. The most disconcerting thing is how we’re playing in the 2nd half of games. How many games have we blown 2 half leads?

Comment by Justinian 11.26.11 @ 10:03 am

85 & K.R.Y.: Todd can put Tino on the bench and at worse, run a wildcat. Todd is the head coach and if Tino continues to hold onto the ball too long, Todd is not doing his job by leaving Tino in the game to be humiliated.

If Pitt can have multiple players substitute at other positions but QB, the most important position, shame on Todd for lack of preparation. Again, my opinion.

Comment by MariettaMike 11.26.11 @ 10:09 am

For a change I agree with the “retiree”, Mr. Smizik. His critique of the “Fall of the House of Usher”, is unfortunately, correct–in my opinion. BUT–But– he failed to mention the outstanding play of Taglianetti, Donald, Linsley and yes even an offensive gridder(Donald of Penn Hills, a sophomore). When Zach Brown went down, this scribe knew we were in trouble. When a team loses by ONE POINT, an observer shoulf realize the game COULD have gone either way. Mr. get the final word. to his satisfaction and that word is”DENIGRATE PITT”)oops! 2 words). Hey Bob, how ’bout a nice word about the Blue and Gold of’da Burg”? These collegians tried ,but failed. That’s more praisworthy tham merely sitting in tghe press box for, it seems, eternity. shooting arrows at the gladiators. Tell you what, Bob Smizik, I will REALLY retire if YOU DO THE SAME. Rev. George of Columbus

Comment by Rev. George Mehaffey 11.26.11 @ 10:15 am

Well guys, I have to off the this blog, because it’s just too depressing for me right now. There have been a lot of great games in the Pitt-West Virginia series, and this wasn’t one of them. Both teams deserved to lose the game. Unfortunately, we are more adept at losing close games down the stretch.

Comment by Justinian 11.26.11 @ 10:22 am

Tino is what he is a safety who played QB he is a bad QB TG must play some one else next year or i am done with pitt football.
give myers the next game he cant be worse than tino that is a sure thing no one can be worse.

Comment by FRANKCAN 11.26.11 @ 10:42 am

Thank you JW on the Thomas question. As for the rest, water is over the dam, I’ll still go to the games, we might end up better one day who knows!

Comment by michael 11.26.11 @ 11:07 am

FRANKCAN:

Maybe Reed can comment on Myers because he has had the opportunity to observe the Panthers fist-hand.

The “rumors” I picked up around the Pitt faithful inner-circle is that he is slow of foot, very slow release, strong arm, but a bit of a under achiever when it comes to meetings and game prep.

Also Smizass had to throw his 2 cents in, it’s a pity a Pitt grad constantly degrades the program.

Comment by Joe Kumpf 11.26.11 @ 11:11 am

Can’t wait to watch Graham’s teams the next few years. He had the team ready, made some great play calls tonight, the D was strong, and I absolutely love what I see from some of the freshman he brought in (I. Bennett, R. Jones, L. Smith, E. Price). Once he has a QB who is capable of A. seeing a rush and throwing the ball away and B. hitting a reciever past 20 yards (things even the worst Div. 1 QB’s do on occasion) he will be a great success here at Pitt. Glad we have TG, anyone calling for his head needs their own examined, he is going to do tremendous here in the future.

Comment by OntarioLett'sGoPitt 11.26.11 @ 11:19 am

JW, you can criticize me for being critical of the defensive coaching but my point is that we still had a chance at the end of the game with WVU pinned inside their 5 yd line and we should have been extremely aggressive there to make a play and of course we were not. if your f… QB can’t make a play, maybe your defense who played a heck of a game could win the game for you.

Comment by pittfan92 11.26.11 @ 11:23 am

What OntarioLett’sGoPitt just said.

I think in the long run, Graham was and still is a great choice for this program. Taking just the offensive side of the ball, there have been times this year even with Tino running the ship that we were able to see how prolific “High Octane” could be. The problem is that we’ve never seen it consistently because Sunseri hasn’t been able to execute it anywhere even remotely approaching “consistently”.

In a pro-style scheme, you can hide that a little bit better. In this kind of offense, if you don’t have that, you can’t really run the offense because the entire execution of the play hinges on the QB reading the defense and making quick and definite decisions with the football.

So what now? Well, I read a lot on here from a few who are constantly referencing back to measureables and recruiting rankings and arm strength. They don’t need a kid with all the measurables in the world to run this thing. They don’t need a kid who can throw it from his goalline to the opposing 40 without a problem, because this offense doesn’t stretch the field vertically the same way it did under Wannstedt (on the outside).

What Graham needs is a QB who can read and react quickly and make accurate throws, particularly over the middle on crossing routes. This has compromised what this offense is supposed to be. When it comes to putting the ball in the air, Sunseri can’t read quickly enough, and can’t make those throws consistently. As someone mentioned above, it’s one of those many things that Graham has taken out to try to simplify things to work with this group.

I’ve said this before – go look at Kellen Moore. He lacked ideal measurables – 6’1″, 185 lbs. – when he came out of high school. The only offers he had came from Idaho and Div. I-AA Eastern Washington. But he’s accurate. He reads defenses quickly. He makes decisions quickly. In that system, that’s what he needs to do, and he’s been just fine at Boise State.

So next year, maybe that QB that Graham needs is Mark Myers (since we haven’t seen him, I’ll assume the best – that he just needed a full year in this system). Maybe it’s Trey Anderson. Maybe it’s Chad Voytik. Maybe it’s a JUCO kid who isn’t quite on the radar here yet.

I think we know it’s NOT Tino Sunseri. I can’t see Tino ever improving on his tendency to hold the ball too long, and I can’t see Graham dealing with this for another season.

Comment by Stoosh 11.26.11 @ 12:04 pm

Clairton 24 Sto-Rox 6 at the half.

Comment by alcofan 11.26.11 @ 12:31 pm

Everyone seems to think if we could just get one decent QB, all will be well. What if Voytik turns out to be the next Marino and gets hurt in the first game? Cincinnati had, like 5 QBs who could play a couple of years ago, and if one had a bad day another went in. Graham had better recruit quantity as well as quality and get more than one ready to play. Or is his system so complicated the coaches don’t have time to prepare more than one?

Comment by 66Goat 11.26.11 @ 1:09 pm

Penn State rapes and PITT SUCKS. It never ends.

Comment by Justin 11.26.11 @ 1:09 pm

I cant even read the rants. I read cooks article and got pissed. Damn im so sick of this bullshit. Pederson should be fucking fired. I hate Todd Graham.

Comment by Justin 11.26.11 @ 1:12 pm

Its just beyond frustrating. 14-0 lead defense played well. Three turnovers. 6 points in 3 quarters bith without a first down. I just don’t understand how it is possible Sunseri is not one iota better at this point. The sad part is I wish I could pretend to be surprised.

Comment by BCE 11.26.11 @ 1:18 pm

Anyone seen any highlights from the Pitt-Penn game?

Comment by Ronald 11.26.11 @ 1:19 pm

If you had the good fortune of never watching Pitt football this year and tuned in to watch Tino, you would have thought he was a freshman who got shoved into the game unexpectedly after the starter got hurt during the game. He looked so lost. He’s just not that good. I actually feel sorry for him.

For so long, he’s probably been THE MAN. Successful in high school, walked in his Dad’s shadow, but just in way over his head now and at times seems oblivious to it. He’s got heart, but not the talent and apparently he is our best shot, so he’s in a tough position for a 20 year old.

He cannot start next year. This year, Graham gets a pass and is stuck with Wannie’s QB. Next year, he owns it and he cannot (and likely will not) hitch his wagon to Tino. We are going nowhere with him…let’s at least start grooming our future.

Graham is a great hire…we just need to give him some time to get his type of players in the offense. Tino is so overwhelmed..he is dizzy from the High Octane fumes!

Comment by Mark 11.26.11 @ 1:22 pm

tell me- have any of you ever played D-1 sport? have you ever had the pressure in sports he has? getting bombarded by “fans” constantly

Comment by MattyIce 11.26.11 @ 1:24 pm

if u blame tg, u need to be punched in the jaw. he has sacrificed speed and 3/4 of his friction offensive play book because of Tinos lack of skill and mental capabilities not to mention ad-libbing because of a demolished o line and the loss of the nations 2nd leading rusher. cv needs 2 start next year. I’d rather have a mediocre tear and have Chad get his freshman mistakes out of the way than a mediocre year with sunseri.

Comment by pk 11.26.11 @ 1:48 pm

frickin

Comment by pk 11.26.11 @ 1:49 pm

MattyIce, do you really think Sunseri is here on Pitt Blather reading these posts and thinking ‘how dare they beat up on little ol’ me’?

This is what you sign up for when you sign the piece of paper giving you four free years of tuition and room & board. What’s that run at Pitt these days? $120,000? Nobody at that level lives in a bubble. His Dad is a FREAKING D1 COACH! Don’t you think he’s been exposed to this sort of thing from birth?

Get over yourself. Soon Tino will as well.

Comment by Bobby 11.26.11 @ 1:51 pm

Watched Tino’s post game interviews. He never said I need to throw the ball away, or get rid of it, he just says we need to do this or we need to do that, never taking ownership. At one point, he even blamed having several young guys in the game and said, they Darius and Isaac were making mistakes…what a joke. Take some ownership. That interview is where you say, “It’s on me, I caused our 10 sacks, protection was good, guys were open and I just didn’t execute” You let the coach point out others mistakes. Never blame other players.

Comment by OntarioLett'sGoPitt 11.26.11 @ 2:03 pm

@MattyIce, save it for somewhere else. This is a sports blog, with peoples opinions, especially peoples opinions about Pitt sports.

Have we ever played in the NFL or NHL, no, yet I bet we all have opinions about it.

Have we ever been a congressman, senator or president, nope, but we all have political opinions.

We have opinions on movies, music and current events too.

This is a sports blog, about Pitt sports, and peoples opinions on those sports.

Not sure what you expected to find on here, but, that is what this is, peoples rants.

If you’re looking for only positive, I suggest you go to Pitt’s website, they only tell you good things.

You wanna talk about pressure, how about having a full time job, a wife, and 4 children to provide for, most of us on here know all about pressure.

Real pressure!!

Comment by Dan 11.26.11 @ 2:05 pm

Also I love what I see from Isaac Bennett, he was terrific and runs extremely hard.

Comment by OntarioLett'sGoPitt 11.26.11 @ 2:09 pm

To all the Graham excuse makers or should I say enablers: I remember all the defensive comments made by fans defending Wannstedt after his 5-7 first year. And all the posturing and lying going on now doesn’t build confidence in the program. Pederson hired Graham after Graham had just signed a contract extension with Tulsa. Pederson lied last year, telling the press Wannstedt had resigned when in actuality Pederson fired him. Pederson lied several years ago when he said Pitt fans were not interested in playing Penn State. Pederson lied this week when he said Pitt fans aren’t interested in continuing the series with West Virginia. Instead of lying to sound like a big shot, why doesn’t he just say he doesn’t know? For whatever good qualities he has and good decisions he as made, Pederson doesn’t get high marks for Graham. Graham might turn out to be one, but how long will it take?

Comment by TonyinHouston 11.26.11 @ 2:14 pm

MattyIce – Playing DI football is not like joining the Army. Enough of the apologizing.

Comment by The Truth 11.26.11 @ 2:21 pm

This may come as a surprise to you people but Todd Graham forgot more football than anyone on this forum even thinks they know. TG on the 1st time he looked at last years film knew what he had in Tino. If M. Myers was an option he would be the starter.

Did anyone see any improvement at the LB, DL, OT, and especially the DBs??? Though so!! that is coaching and that is the second best thing TG brings to this team. The best is the players he is bring in. He knows that a new QB is a must. BTW, Tony it is learning disability. You better look in a mirrow and you see what that term means.

Comment by joel 11.26.11 @ 2:52 pm

Here is my reason for requesting that Graham leaves this school. He has told everyone that his system takes three years to grasp. Going into this year, Tino had two years of eligibility. A college education at Pitt should teach 95% of us that Tino cannot grasp the system in two years, when the coach says it takes three. The other 10% of us will believe whatever bs the coach and the Peterson are spewing. The point is that if the system takes three years to grasp, there are 3 QB’s that could have used this year and next year to learn and then be in a good position during their third year to make great strides. We are now going to be stuck with two more years of this at least, as the kids (Voytik,Myers,Gonzalez)begin to learn. Tino next year will be grasping at a 50% margin at best. Pitt needs to go in a different direction. The coach has said it takes three years so why be so arithmetically challenged. The funny thing is that everyone seems to think the coach should get three years to get his system in place. I disagree completely. I would like anyone to go in to their new employer and explain that they need three years to perform and get their people in place. Then,to show your boss you are progressing the program, you keep underperformers in their current spots. Does anyone think that would fly in the real world? Graham needs to understand that he is digging an early buyout package for every Sunseri start.

Peterson will go immediately after Nordy retires. Nordy better not think about screwing Pitt on the way out by rewarding Peterson with a new “K”. Nordy’s legacy will be matriculating Pitt to the ACC and upgrading their sports facilities. The new Chancellor will hire a new AD, begin construction on a campus stadium, return to the mustard and higher a non-gimmick coach.

The offensive line was not the problem last night so quit trying to rip them. They ran the ball well, actually looked good doing it. Don’t blame injuries either. They all received full rides because they have talent.

I watched the game in my Pitt gear amongst 22 of my favorite WV supporters at a party last night. Two of the WVU attendees were former players at the University and an additional 1 played in the NFL. They mocked Tino from the second quarter on because he missed easy reads and couldn’t throw an accurate pass (albeit alligator arms carswell’s pass was spot on). The comments regarding alligator arms ranged from “he has hung players out for two years and got them racked” so who wouldn’t short arm a pass over the middle. They said that the tape doesn’t lie. I tend to agree with the hoopie faithful on that note although I don’t study tape like they do.
They all laughed at the Graham locker room speech!! Is that what you pay two million for? Oh good grief charlie brown, Nordy needs to clean house.

Comment by dhuffdaddy 11.26.11 @ 3:17 pm

I for one like what cook wrote in the PG he said tino sucks not in thoes words but that is what he ment i for one was glad to see it in print.
It was a bought time some one called tino out.
I just hope TG knows how sick of tino we are.

Comment by FRANKCAN 11.26.11 @ 3:24 pm

TonyInHouston,

Not sure exactly what you’re getting at.

Supporting Graham here isn’t necessarily also backing Pederson. I’ve got many reservations about the way Pederson handled things, but I think support of Graham as the new coach is mutually exclusive from anything you cited that Pederson’s done.

And what else are we going to do? Change coaches every year until we find that once-in-a-blue-moon instance where a new coach comes in with players he didn’t recruit and wins right away?

It takes time. History has borne that out any time a program makes a coaching change that overhauls a system the way Pitt did going from last year to this year. Just because Wannstedt couldn’t get out of his own way as a gameday coach in Year Six doesn’t mean Graham will have the same problems. This team didn’t quit on Graham this year. The defense got better as the season went on. Young players stepped up at various positions and played well. There’s a solid core of young players to build around here and more on the way.

Graham has a lot to work on – gameday adjustments could come a little quicker, for example. And he will. He’ll get better and evolve as a coach in this program. But he also needs to get more of the pieces in place that he needs, and it’s a process. Walt got eight years. Wannstedt got six years. Let the process play out a little bit.

Comment by Stoosh 11.26.11 @ 3:24 pm

This game was a pretty good example of TG maturing a bit as a coach in a “power” conference. If you look at the Iowa game Sunseri and the defense for the most part played well enough (until they got gassed at the end) to win that game. TG’s insistence to play up-tempo, “extend-the-game” style of offense was ultimately what decided the game and gave Iowa enough clock to comeback. TG should have used RG more and and shortened the game on Iowa instead of pass, pass, pass, punt that was so common in Pitt’s earlier offense.

Yesterday, we got a large dose of our deepest position, running back. Bennett showed he belonged. Ran hard, picked up his blocking assignments for the most part and wasn’t much of a drop off. TG learned to shorten the game on WVU and it should have been enough. This is where Tino comes into the story.

This year has been a combination of a few coaching decisions costing us games with an indecisive, bone-headed qb costing us the others.

Myers should play the entire game next week to see what is really there. Sometimes you might have a guy who turns it on under the lights and he could be that kind of guy even if he’s not the hardest practicing kind of guy.

I fear that TG would rather get this team bowl-eligible than starting a new QB with his thinking that “Tino gives them the best chance the win.” Clearly it has been proven all year that is not the case.

DW gave us a good defense, let’s hope that continues in the years to come. And let’s hope TG continues to mature as a coach and let’s hope Tino takes a seat.

Comment by MelbaPlace 11.26.11 @ 3:43 pm

dhuffdaddy,

Regarding the QB situation, Sunseri and Myers are more geared to drop-back, pro-style offenses. They were bound to struggle with this system to some degree no matter how much time they had. Sunseri seems mobile enough to run the read-option competently, but the other part of that is reading, recognizing and executing quick-snap throws and he fails miserably there.

It’s been said that Myers has struggled with the read-option part and has had work ethic issues. Can he make the throws? No one really knows. Probably better than Sunseri can, but to run this offense you need to be able to execute all three facets. If he can’t run the read-option, that’s just as big a problem as Tino’s inability to execute the passing part of the offense.

Voytik, Anderson and Gonzalez all ran a spread/read-option in high school. Gonzalez supposedly struggled the same as Sunseri – could executing the running part of the offense well enough, but he struggled with accuracy in the passing game and reading the proper throws. Getting himself in trouble with the marijuana bust put him behind everyone else as he was suspended. I supposed there’s a chance he moves back to QB in the offseason, but these coaches may have already seen enough of him to know he can’t run it the way he wants it run.

Anderson was brought in as a low-risk gamble after Graham had six months with what he inherited and apparently realized Tino was the best of a bunch that really wasn’t suited for his system at all. It was a shot in the dark because the kid had run a similar triple-option offense in high school. I get the impression that Graham hoped Sunseri would stay healthy and execute the base offense at just a competent level, which would’ve bought a year to get Anderson to get completely acclimated to this level of football. When that didn’t happen, Graham turned to Anderson for some sort of spark because he wasn’t getting it from Sunseri.

Voytik has also run the triple-option in high school. Much of what I’ve read and seen on film of him leads me to believe that it may not take him long to pick this up.

So how does getting rid of Graham help any of this? What then? Bring in another coach whose “system” is more geared toward a ball-control scheme? Great. That puts them back at square one with two QBs not suited for that (Voytik and Anderson), a complete unknown in Myers and an incumbent in Sunseri who many of us agreed was average at best in Wannstedt’s offense.

No, you know what? I’m going to defer to Graham and specifically to Calvin McGee and Mike Norvell here. Norvell worked under Guz Malzahn and Chad Morriss, so he’s seen the blueprints of those offenses. Calvin McGee oversaw two offenses – one at WVU and one at Michigan – that eventually unearthed Rasheed Marshall, Pat White and Denard Robinson at quarterback. I’ll take my chances with the fact that he knows what he’s doing, and just needs to find the right guy.

Comment by Stoosh 11.26.11 @ 3:49 pm

Also, Trey Anderson should never start another game for Pitt. That experiment didn’t work. He’s not a D1 QB.

Comment by MelbaPlace 11.26.11 @ 4:02 pm

Pitt is now 13-11 in the Tino era. Actually when you factor in playing legit teams, you have to omit the 4 rent-a-wins of New Hampshire, Florida International, Buffalo & Maine. So omitting the rent-a-wins, Pitt is 9-11 against D1 competition.

Now considering the BigEast has been extremely bad the last two years, so bad that Uconn won it last year and Louisville at 7-5 might win it this year, 9-11 is putrid. Pitt has much better players at most positions than all these schools.
EXCEPT FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION. THAT BEING QUARTERBACK!

And of these 9 wins against legit (?) D1 teams, none of them have been against anybody really good. The best win last year was who….Kentucky?, USF? Cincy ? Syracuse? Rutgers?
None of those teams were really any good.
The best win this year was against who….Louisville (7-5), USF or Uconn? Again all these teams are not very good at all.

When you have a D2 QB you ARE NOT going to beat any good D1 teams. In fact, Maine’s D2 QB was better than our starter. That pretty much sums it up. And please don’t tell me he threw for over 400 yards against Uconn, the average Western Michigan QB threw for almost 500 yards against Uconn with 5 TD passes. Sunseri’s performance against Uconn was what you call an anomaly.

a·nom·a·ly (-nm-l)
n. pl. a·nom·a·lies
1. Deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or rule.

Comment by EMel 11.26.11 @ 4:02 pm

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And Joel, not to criticize you but I am saying that TG said it takes three years to learn his system. Why let someone who only has two years of eligibility left to sniff the field? Especially after watching his tape.

As a result of his allegiance to Tino, TG still does not have any game film of Gonzalez, Myers and minimally on Trey and is now in his self-created pickle for next year. That is TG’s fault.

The linebackers have not improved this year as you suggest. Gruder, Williams and Roberts still can’t cover anyone in pass defense and often fill the wrong gaps in run defense and are too slow to recover. Agree that Price and Thomas show promise if you consider Thomas a LB.

DB improvement? Are you serious? They have not improved consistently at all. A couple of nice plays last night, but for the most part, not consistently good. Run support is atrocius. Have they ever come up with a big defensive stop? A fourth and six would have been a good place to begin. It is easy for DB’s to play well when they are only being asked to cover for a few seconds because of a great pass rush. The DL I agree with. They play well and Donald is awesome and I only hope he keeps his tenacity. Watch the Rutgers tape again, the DB’s were a mess.

Pitt has no identity offensively. Bennet runs hard and Shell will run hard. Did anyone notice how WV bowed their chests and came out and bullied the defense by going to the power run game in the 2cnd half. They out physicalled the defense. Not surprising given all the negativity coming from the qb position. The OL was not the problem. The qb was. Period.

Comment by dhuffdaddy 11.26.11 @ 4:07 pm

Trey Anderson has NEVER started a game for PITT.
So you are wrong there Melbaplace.

If given a legitimate chance and enough work with the 1rst team and not having to play in 40 mph winds so that Tino would not look even worse. He would still operate this system BETTER than Sunseri.

Funny, those that have seen 24 games of terrible play from Sunseri(with an anomaly here and there against truly horrible teams) can’t seem to come to the conclusion, he stinks. But they can after seeing Anderson play for 2 or 3 quarters, total.

Amazing…really amazing.

Comment by EMel 11.26.11 @ 4:09 pm

While I am full of negative emotions today, I am trying to keep everything in perspective and remember how many innocent couches suffered b/c of Tino.

Comment by CalvinHobbes 11.26.11 @ 4:12 pm

I’m off the “start Tino b/c he’s better than the alternative” bandwagon. I don’t care who we start, the ball boy, Graham’s 5 yr old kid, Jock Sutherland’s dead body, it will be an upgrade.

Comment by The Incline 11.26.11 @ 4:14 pm

Nobody else has started a game since Sunseri was handed/given/giftwrapped the job last season. Actually they handed him the job in Spring Practice 2010. He had done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WARRANT being handed the job in Spring Practice other than the fact he last name was Sunseri. Had it not, he would have never even sniffed the field.

Glad to see you finally come on over Incline.
Welcome to the Start anybody but Sunseri Club.
haha

Comment by EMel 11.26.11 @ 4:28 pm

Not to wish this on any 23 year old, but for a guy who gets sacked so many times, runs into sacks, runs into his own linemen, his backs. This guy never gets hurt. I think they said he got hurt in the Miami game last year, but was that just a ‘mercy’ pull by DW since Miami was just teeing off on Pitt in the 2nd half.

Is he being gingerly sacked, I know on some of the longer runs of his, it seems like the defenders are actually running away from him. Don’t believe it, watch a replay of the Bowl game from last year or the USF game from this year.

Strange but true.

Comment by EMel 11.26.11 @ 4:39 pm

Stoosh:
I think there were many, many improvements from Pitt over last year’s Brawl. Attitude, competitiveness, overall defense, all so much better…I think that’s what makes the QB role so hard to take – along with the over-injured, generally inept offense. Will we have three ready-to-go QBs next year, just in case the injury bug strikes again??

Comment by TonyinHouston 11.26.11 @ 4:46 pm

I’ve waited until now to comment after everyone has aired their Tino complaints … and certainlY tHere is much to complain about our QB.

However, the OL and WR also has to share the blame .. just because our QB didn’t throw the ball away after 3 seconds doesn’t absolve the OL and WR from any blame. So what we if Tino would have had 5 more completions and 5 less sacks … we still lose the game.

Last year Tino was sacked 21 times in 13 games; this yea, 50 so far.

Comment by wbb 11.26.11 @ 5:19 pm

I should have said .. so what if Tino had 5 more ‘incompletions’ and 5 less sacks .. we still lose.

WE could have used a playmaker .. someone stepping up an makeing the play … instead of Street not holding on to a long pass (yes, it was a bit underthrown but still catchable) and how about Carswell short-arming the other long pass (hell, that may have been the best pass Tino threw all year)

WE NEEDED A PLAYMAKER … hell, we had Shanahan returning punts!!!

Comment by wbb 11.26.11 @ 5:24 pm

Some good points wbb. Agree with Shanahan returning punts. Hell, if you want to play that safe, dont even put anyone back there. Pretty sure we wont fumble then. Carswell’s attempt (?) at a catch late in the game may have been the worst case of alligator arms Ive seen in a while. For the offensive line, consider this. WV for the majority of the game only rushed 3 guys, dropping 8. We basically had 2 guys blocking every rusher. With that type of protection you should be able to eat your lunch back there. That all being said, Sunseri is not very good and the fact that this scenario has played out all year Ive got to put some blame on the coaches. I am a Graham supporter, but what we saw these last few games is just ridiculous. Like watching a midget football game where you know there is no way in a hell this 10 year old is going to drop back and complete a pass. Make some changes / adjustments / or whatever you want to call it, but put something out on the field that resembles a team that has spent some time practicing. For what we got last night, why not put Ronald Jones in for every snap and just run the ball. I think I’d take my chances with that compared to what we got. And to top it all off, WV’s defense has been there weakeness all year. They are not a great defensive team.

Comment by Z-Boy 11.26.11 @ 6:01 pm

Tino sucks… Bottom line Graham better find a Juco Qb to come to Pitt in case Voytick isn’t ready to go as a true freshman. Tino cannot get the job done. Did he complete a forward pass in the second half? Another year or even one more game is going to put Pitt fans on a collective suicide watch.

Comment by CJK 11.26.11 @ 6:25 pm

1975 to 2011 would be 36 years

Coaches during that time
1) Johnny Majors (National championship and heisman)

2) Jackie Sherrill (perennial to 5 finisher)

3) Sarafino Foge Fazio (second worst PITT coach ever(

3) Mike Godfried (better than average but gets the start for the trifecta – beats Penn St., ND, and WVU in the same season! Will always have a special place in PITT fans heart for that one!)

4) Paul “I can’t hack it anymore” Hackett (worst coach in PITT history)

5) Johhny Majors (second coming was for PR reasons only after Paul Hackett tried to dismantle the program with his ineptitude. He did his job)

6) Walt Harris “Pitt should be glad to have me since they aren’t the dream job that they think” enough said…got fired one statement too late. Perennial underachiever saved by VT win every season

7) Dave “Mr Entitlement” Wannstedt. Deputy downer himself. The perennial downplayer. How could any player play for a coach who constantly preached that they werent as good as people thought?

8) Todd “low octane, big talk” Graham. He has two more year at best. No BCS by 2013 No Job in 2014. You get your one year pass with excuses. Suggestion – next year leave the big talk at home.

So that would be 8 coaches in 36 years. (one coach every 4.5 years). Folks, it aint easy picking a coach who can win. A lot of fraudulent coaches out there.

Comment by Pitt fan in Atlanta 11.26.11 @ 6:40 pm

Reading that Smizik article about Jackie Sherrill is enough to make you sick. Think about it, it was 1982, think about where Penn State was and is now. It could have been Pitt, Thanks Posvar, great decision. Pederson is to blame for the mess we have now, the Haywood debacle has screwed this program for the next five years. A man over forty with a child out of wedlock that is under three is a huge red flag, Pederson should have been fired for missing that. Because of that mess Graham was able to sleaze his way in for a big payday, no one else wanted to touch this mess, or had already accepted better jobs. Now we’re stuck with dubious recruiting, poor game day decisions and a coach that none of the fan base believes in.

Comment by Jaimz 11.26.11 @ 6:42 pm

Dubious recruiting by Graham?? Really?? Please explain.

Comment by Hollywood 11.26.11 @ 6:51 pm

On a positive note, Phile State got crushed by Wisconsin 45-7. It’s not often they let Phile State get beat like that, it was long overdue.
And very enjoyable to watch, I must add.

Biggest farce of a 9-2 team(well now 9-3) I’ve ever seen. Only Paterno being able to make that schedule, that didn’t include EITHER Michigan or Michigan State, two of the top teams in the Little 11, er 12. What….no Land Grant Trophy Bowl this year ! What’s up with that, college football will never be the same.
I guess they wanted to make sure he got the most victory record by a coach before he went off into dementia.

Rutgers pulled a Pitt, going up to Uconn and getting their hats handed to them when they could have won the BigEast for the very first time.
Schiano is another one, who I don’t understand how he keeps his job. Guy always bungles any big game Rutgers is in. 3rd tier bowl for Cignetti and former Pitt pals again! And Cincy got their act together under Munchie the QB and beat pathetic Cuse.

Next week two pathetic teams vie for bowl eligibility. Think I’ll take a pass on that epic struggle. Our vaunted qb is due for a big game against the pathetic Cuse defense, even Munchie had a big game(in his 2nd career start) against that horrid D, today. So the season will end with the vaunted qb playing well against Cuse and whatever joke of a team we play in the Sloppy Joe O’Brady Bowl. And said vaunted qb will be the Sloppy Joe Bowl MVP, as I predicted many weeks ago.

Setting him up for his big encore senior season as Pitt’s QB. I can’t wait ! (not really)

Comment by EMel 11.26.11 @ 7:13 pm

Oh I almost forgot.

Truth & Virtue. (Does TG know this is the school motto, and for that matter how about Smiley)

Hail to Pitt !

Comment by EMel 11.26.11 @ 7:20 pm

Please, please can somebody give EMel a job? The number of posts are more than the number of sacks Tino gives up! Somebody hire him or at least get him a date so he has something to do!!

Comment by Tinosmom 11.26.11 @ 7:41 pm

I think that MattyIce is really Tino !

Comment by Spindler's Spirit 11.26.11 @ 7:53 pm

So again, TG says 3 years to learn my system. Tino has 2 years of eligibility. Immediately scrap that guy. I think the faithful would have been happy with announcing a starter, let’s say Anderson for two weeks and let’s see what he does under the lights with an entire week of preparation. If he does well, great. If not, Myers turn. Let them prepare fully for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. If they all stink up the joint, Wanny is the fall guy for not recruiting a D1 QB.Perhaps TG can blame Tino as a Wanny recruit in the hopes of getting more time. Wrong! So Brady Hoke had his system and changed his system to fit his players strengths. Uh Oh! A coach can change his philosophies to fit his talents and actually win. Not modifying your coaching philosophies to fit your talent while you transition does not work (see rich rod in michigan).

Getting to a bowl is not the goal of a team. Winning the conference Championship is not the goal of the team. The team should have new goals every week. First week goal, win game 1. Second week goal, improve over first week. Win second week game. If first week game was a loss, the new goal is to win game 2 and each player and coach improving.You can’t be bowl eligible if you don’t win game 1 and so on. You can’t win your conference championship until you win the first conference game an so forth. It is sports psychology fellas.

That speech was weak….

Tino trying to stay in bounds at the end to keep the game clock running was priceless….

Low football mentality from the qb….time, place, circumstance, trends….

Comment by dhuffdaddy 11.26.11 @ 7:53 pm

Tino’smom should take her son home and lock him in his room until Jan 2013. Homeschool him. Keep him off the field.

Emel’s rapid fire, insightful posts are enjoyed by most venting fans on here. Rock on Emel. Keep firing away.

Comment by Bossdaws 11.26.11 @ 8:03 pm

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