So much for my belief that the entire Pitt performance would hinge on the O-line. Instead, a defense that has played very well the last three games — at least after spotting a team the easy opening march down the field before figuring out what they were doing — never got it together.
Part of it was simply a hobbled K’Wuan Williams being abused because the Pitt defense never tried to give him any help. Why? Because dammit the scheme is fine. All is well. If he was well enough to play, he could cover in the man-to-man secondary.
Williams left the Syracuse game early with a knee injury and was questionable to play this past week as recently as Thursday. Chryst, though, said he wouldn’t have put Williams out there if he wasn’t ready to play.
“You can do a lot of things call-wise, but in the end there are going to be some times when they’re one-on-one and I’d take [K'Waun] again,” Chryst said. “They made some plays and I give them credit for that.”
Teddy Bridgewater was 7-10, 172 yards in the second half.
But it was more than a well-executed passing attack. The run offense of Louisville kept Pitt’s defense honest. It wasn’t amazing — nearly 45% of their rushing yardage game on just two runs — but it was effective and they got into the endzone on the ground.
Louisville was the better team. You may feel that Pitt could have won that game. I certainly do. You aren’t going to win when you are beaten in every phase of the game. That’s what happened to Pitt.
Louisville’s offense was better. Their defense did more. Their special teams was more consistent. And the coaching — and adjustments in particular — was decisively better.
I happen to agree with Chryst to have gone for it on 4th and 1 near the end of the half. I like being aggressive, and in the previous series it looked like the defense had things figured out. Forcing Louisville into a 3-and-out. The play-call though, was idiotic. Everyone knew the run was coming. Even with the O-line run-blocking better, straight up the middle wasn’t going to work. Let Shell run a little outside. Somewhere where there might be a little space.
Sure enough, the O-line couldn’t even push forward. Instead, they went backwards. Shell literally stopped, in what can only be called shock, as the O-linemen fell at his feet as he took the handoff.
The bigger problem for me with the way Chryst called the game was the lack of urgency. With a little more than half a quarter left and Pitt down 10 points and starting inside their own 30. There was no rush to get plays in to the huddle. Especially when they were moving the ball and you could see that Louisville was looking confused. Instead the plays were not coming in quickly from the sideline. The Louisville team had time to regroup. It may have been a longshot to pull out the win, but there still felt like there was a chance. It took nearly five minutes to go 51 yards and stall out the drive.
That lack of urgency. Of getting plays called. That essentially forced the decision to go for it on 4th and 8, rather than try a 40-yard field goal. There was just under five minutes left at that point, and there wasn’t much reason to trust the Pitt defense to get Louisville off the field quickly. The defense in this case played sneaky trick of letting them score another TD in just 2:28.
I’m not saying that Pitt had to go no-huddle. But Pitt was taking its time. Guys were standing around waiting for the offense to give the play to Sunseri. Letting Louisville make substitutions when it was clear they were starting to struggle. The play clock was regularly getting down to single digits — with the clock still moving. Just no excuse for that.
The second half also saw Louisville outcoach Pitt in terms of making adjustments. They saw that K’wuan Williams wasn’t able to keep up with the receivers. That they could beat the Pitt corners, and that the safeties weren’t in position to help. They exploited that with 3 passes of 25+ yards in their first two possessions of the second half to flip the 21-17 Pitt lead to a 31-21 advantage.
There is definite improvement on this team at positions. The players are definitely learning and getting better. I am not down on Coach Chryst for the long-term. But in-game, it is clear that he is struggling with things. Expected to some extent with a first-time head coach, but really frustrating to watch.
I think we will see all of Pitt’s games next year on TV here in MD except maybe for Navy where I will attend.
Run the time down, nothing to lose, if u make it fine enough time to score some points. If not they can’t do anything.
That said, I’ve become comfortable with the fact that PC is going to need a couple of years to get his recruits in here as well as learning how to be a HC. I have accepted that this very well could be an under .500 season. I’ll expect a minor bowl next season and after that PC will need to produce.
pitt it is – There is a K committed for next season – Chris Blewitt.
I realize he cannot cover much in pass defense, but his play was notable.
In my mind, when I think Buffalo, snow and ice come to mind immediately. After thinking about it, probably a nice time to go up there actually.
Enjoy the trip, bring home a winner!!
Not kicking the field goal was the right call. I don’t think Harper had better than a 50% chance of making it. The probability of making the field goal and converting the 4th down were about the same.
Oh well. Let’s see how the team responds this week.
Chris Blewitt Kicker
Ryan Winslow Punter
As mentioned by a few folks above, the biggest issue with Chryst thus far has been game/clock management. It will be interesting to see if there is growth there. Don’t just assume he will get better with more experience: look at Andy Reid and Jason Garrett as prime examples of how that’s not a given.
No question, Tino Sunersi is having his best year passing the football. However, with a passing game ranked 22nd nationally, the improvement has not been reflected in the most important stat of them all… SCORING… where Pitt finds itself way down the list at 83rd.
With interceptions down (2), it seems the big problem is SACKS (18)… an even bigger problem than you would think.
The fact is Pitt has scored ONLY ONCE on a drive this year in which Tino was sacked. That drive was the Carswell TD against Cincy in the second half.
And the problem of sacks for Pitt is not just with the offense.
Pitt’s Defense is ranked 75th in sacks averaging less than two a game both home and away. That’s actually a little worse than Louisville which at 73rd managed to produce FIVE DRIVE-KILLING SACKS against Pitt.
Bottom Line… the objective of any smart opposing defensive coordinator is simply SACK TINO… at all costs.
One sack and chances are Pitt is punting.
The BAD NEWS this week… Buffalo is ranked 33rd in sacks averaging FIVE sacks at HOME.
becuse he so far is not a game day coach and that is why you all wanted wanny gone.
so if we have another wanny what was the point of changeing coachs.
time will tell we will wait till next year but
if he cant make game time adjustments next year we have got a pig in a poke or to put it anouthre way wanny 2.
QB s will chryst has recuited a QB the outher was bye TG but were are the OL men only 2 so far and not highley rated at that that is abought as good as wanny did 2 per class so chryst is doeing no better with OL men than wanny and not as good with DE which wanny allways had luck with.
so wanny only recruited well at certain postions
you say well chryst is doeing no better so put that in your pipe and smoke it or so far wanny 2
If our QB could roll out and avoid pressure for a LITTLE bit, he could at least either run out of bounds or chuck an incomplete pass to the sidelines — or maybe even make a play?! Taking sacks helps your passing stats far more than escaping and throwing out of bounds, but it kills offensive momentum by putting us continually in long yardage 2nd and 3rd down situations, which just amps up D pressure even more.
This alone is reason to try Anderson or Voytik, who in Anderson’s case is clearly more mobile and apparently in Voytik’s case too…according to practice viewers.
I didn’t have as much of a problem as most with the decision to NOT kick the FG towards the end of the game, but I thought the play call/decision making was strange. The long pass over the middle required Sunseri to loft the ball up over the safety and drop it into the receiver, something he’s never been particularly good at doing. Moreover, they threw it to the shortest guy on the field. If you are going to try that, I’d much rather have one of your bigger guys down there to deal with the likelihood that the pass comes in high. Saddler had a step, but he had no chance to catch that.
3 DB coaches with 3 different ways to backpedal. And all of them sayin’ theirs is the best way.
It’s a wonder the kids don’t just throw in the towel and backpedal straight into the locker room.
Hey, we’re ranked #3!!!!!!!!!! STEVIE!!!
But can we drop the Graham is a better coach argument based on his record in the Big East. The BE is SO MUCH BETTER this year compared to last (same with the perception). We had no current BE teams in the preseason Top 25 last year. WVU was in it solely because of Geno and their past dominance, yet they still only went 5-2 in the BE. Last year Louisville went 7-5, this year they are 6-0. Last year Cincy was coming off a 4-8 season and still was trying to find their identity. This year they have found an identity and are 5-0. Last year, Rutgers finally came out of the shadows and recorded a 9-3 mark with a great defense. This year, they have some offense as well and are also 6-0. Syracuse, despite its record is a better team this year. UCONN and USF have both sucked this year and last. So in comparison:
RU 2012 > RU 2011
UofL 2012 > UofL 2011
Cincy 2012 > Cincy 2011
UCONN 2012 < UCONN 2011
USF 2012 Syracuse 2011
and oh of course…
WVU 2011 > Temple 2012 (but Temple, surprisingly, is still a solid team)
Look at Pitt’s 2011 schedule compared to Pitt’s 2012 schedule as well. Through this Point in the season last year, we played Maine, Buffalo, Iowa, Notred Dame, USF, and Rutgers. We beat Maine, Buffalo and an overrated USF team and were 3-3 (1-0 in the BE).
Thus far in 2012, we beat Gardner Webb and an overrated Va Tech team and are 2-4 (0-3 in the BE), with losses to a ranked U of L team, a ranked Cincy team, an FCS opponent, and a better Syracuse team.
If Graham had implemented his new defense/offense against this year’s FCS YSU’s team last year, I sure as hell would still have bet against the Panthers, considering we almost lost to a shitty Maine and a shitty Buffalo team in the first two games of the season.
I think it’s just the way our schedule has been ordered that have changed out perception of claiming last year’s coaching staff was better than this years.
BTW, not to mention another new scheme and a little less talent overall on the roster.
I would guarantee you last year that Chryst would have had a similar, if not a better record as Graham through the first six games of the season, with maybe even a couple wins against Iowa (remember Graham’s scheme made the lead crumble?) and ND (it was only 15-12 and if Tino played half as well last year as he has played this year I would guarantee a different result). Rutgers in both years was a loss IMO.
Just something to think about…
I thought of the same play as you. A skinny post to Yogi or Cam. Both required precision timing.
Dan72 – I have to differ with you on Dan Mason’s play and abilities. At the risk of pissing off many Mason fans…
Because I’ve been in some pretty heated discussions on this issue, here and on the message boards, I played very close attention when the defense was on the field – focusing on Mason’s actions on every single play.
What I saw was that He was manhandled on a regular basis and couldn’t get off a block, can’t change directions well on the move and doesn’t have the speed to close on the ballcarrier in open space unless the RB is already been bounced around.
He did have six tackles and all but one were where the RB was scrambling to try to get past the DL on the interior. One tackle he had was down the sideline after the RB had picked up a good gain.
Because of his loss of speed he missed on tackles regularly. Watch these highlights on ESPN on UL’s scoring plays rushing the ball.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/_/id/221/pittsburgh-panthers
Especially the play when it was 24-21 UL. Totally unblocked and whiffed.
I didn’t ask opinions of any of the guys around me about Mason until mid-4th quarter because I wanted to gauge for myself how he actually played and produced out there. All agreed his limitations are highly visible, his play was pretty poor and that our depth is terrible past the starters.
I think it is great that he’s even able to get out on the field and yes, he did make some tackles, but IMO his playing is indicative of just how very truly screwed we are at LB. If he’s the best we have to play MLB when Gordon is out we will continue to get trampled on defense by any decent teams left on the schedule.
Comment by PittofDreams 10.16.12 @ 12:27 pm
And that was a mercy TD on PItt’s last meaningless drive in a 34-10 blowout. So in effect, we have ZERO scoring drives of any sort, TD or FG when he decides to flop down and go into fetal position.
With such experienced players at the 3 WR’s positions, QB, TE and feature back, 19 ppg isn’t too good, innovative or fresh. Not to me at least.
Graham looks pretty good at Arizona State, they’re averaging 42 ppg, are 5-1 and 3-0 in the PAC 12. And that is with a first year sophomore QB. Just sayin.
Coming of a 51-17 victory they have a huge one this week against #2 Oregon on Thursday nite.
I know I’ll be watching.
My quibble was with telling him to leave after this year. We can address that later, but since you wrote about it, it seemed incumbent on me to recognize the areas where you are correct.
Hell, I made my son apologize to his coaches and teammates tonight because he screwed around in practice and wasted their time: the least I could do was accept Dan’s play for what it was.
But again looking back, we scored 7 of those points on the blocked punt, so that brings it down to 28 and another 7 points with 49 seconds to play on that meaningless mercy TD which also added about 100 total yards to PITT’s offensive total (380) and Sir Tino’s. So that brings it down to 21 points and about 300 total yds. Which is about our average, somewhere hovering between 19-22 ppg, depending on whether we get a meaningless TD at the end of the game or not.
Has PITT tried any flea flickers, anything with Ronald Jones throwing the ball, anything tricky at all, to try and catch the other team offguard, off balance ?
Just wondering… it all seems kinda vanilla to me
With an occasional boneheaded decision thrown in here and there, that leaves you scratching your head. And then going “WTF did I just see”, lol
P.S. Since at 0-3 we ain’t (emphasis) going to win the BigEast in our final go round, any plans to get other QB’s some experience for our next season that might actually have games of significance. You know, just in case Savage isn’t up to it or get’s hurt in camp or early on after not playing for 3 years.
It’s called planning for the future.
If the football players want the season to be over let’s not stand in their way.
I will offer them three observations of my own.
1.) That’s what blogs are. Fans celebrating and venting. More negative when a loss, more celebrating when a win.
I believe that to be obvious to most everyone.
2.) If we lose to Buffalo, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet”!!!
3.) If we lose to Temple the following week, I doubt you’ll see much venting on here at all, and your worries will be over.
Now, for Chas and his advertisers sake, hopefully we win them both.
We lose them both, Chas, I hope your advertisers are locked in for the year!!!
I guess I could google it, but would rather hear from fellow panthers.
The defense cannot create turnovers or pressure the qb consistently. The game is won in the trenches and can be lost by an ineffective qb. Our trench play is average and our qb play is average between the 30 yard lines. QB play is terrible in the red zone because he panicks and can’t finish. Did anyone think that last pass to Saddler had a chance? Saddler could have been 8 feet tall with a 36″ vertical and the pass would have missed.
As an aside, Chryst was not going for a field goal on the last possession of the half. He wanted a touchdown as he has no faith in the special teams and why would he. Our longsnapper is out hurt and the replacement is not good. Sorry guys, just my opinion. Paul Chryst will succeed and my only hope is that steve pederson is not around to see it.
Great vid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u24V3IGQU3s
Friggin Jackie Moon??? Looks like it was an absolute blast!!!!
That was the worst thing to happen to Pitt athletics since Ed Bozik was born.
As per Pederson just after his hire “… we have to prioritize getting a lot of people to Heinz Field for football games” AND “What our program needs is stability.”
Well Steve, you haven’t delivered. Not by a long shot.
Penn State will need a new AD in June.
Now, wouldn’t that be a dream come true?
I’m sick and tired of this football nonsense. I sold my ND tickets and cancelled my flight to ND and I’m not going back into Heinz Field this year. Pitt fires Wanny for a less competent, less inspriational version of Wanny.
Give me the competent proven winning a-hole coach over the unproven bumbling nice guy coach every single time. College football isn’t a personality contest.
If any one has ideas please post them.
On Offensive, while Sunseri is having his career year (thanks to Chryst and Co.), the offense is ranked 83rd in scoring.
On Defensive, the team is ranked 56th in scoring giving up a total of 151 points.
A GREAT scoring offense can get by with a 56th defense. On the other hand, a GREAT score-stopping defense can get by with an 83rd Offense.
Put them together and you got a losing proposition.
If you look a little deeper you can see the reasons for Pitt’s scoring dilemma.
On Offense, it’s not just the Offensive Line giving up sacks. It’s not just Sunseri taking sacks (see above).
The fact is you have an unathletic, inexperienced line vulnerable to being beaten by the rush COMBINED with a less-than-mobile quarterback with limited pocket awareness who has difficulty avoiding the rush.
A losing proposition.
Defensively, you have a slow defensive front seemingly also lacking in athleticism or physicality or both which through six games has yet to show the ability to pressure let alone sack the quarterback.
Also, as demonstrated against Louisville, a Defense vulnerable to being caught off guard by halftime adjustments made by the opposing ocaching staff.
Hindsight being what it is, it seems the losing propositions on both sides of the ball were baked in before the season even even began.
Question is, “What if anythin can be done about it now?”
Wardapalooza – I also sold my ND ticks. Had a very nice trip planned but Pitt will not be able to score against the ND defense and our offense is so vanilla with Tino at QB, this game could be over at the half.
Also, in contrast with Dan 72 and Wardapalooza, I am not selling my ND tickets (why…it’s a great roadtrip), and will continue to support Pitt, purchase season tickets, and attend every home game — win or lose — because that’s what real fans do. See you guys when the bandwagon is boarding again.
Lots of places have great basketball AND football venues.
Tired of the “city”, “urban” campus thing.
You’re a big time AD at a big time university, you should have thought this out a little better.
What would have been the answer?? I don’t know, but, he should have, he’s the AD. Who know’s, raze some buildings, buy some property, whatever, a smaller 40K place, I don’t know. Would have been a lot of work, a lot of hurdles and lots of fighting I’m sure.
If he ever thought, that Heinz Field was going to have 65K people 5 or 6 Saturdays a year, he DID NOT know his product.
No, we’re not Texas, Penn St. or Michigan, massive state schools, that have hundreds of thousands of alumni. I realize that.
THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION!!!
If he thought, he would get a coach, that would bring Pitt back into the top 10 (the only way you’re gonna get 50K or more down there, besides ND, PSU or WVU) he simply has not performed.
Yes, we have great hoops and I acknowledge that.
College football, in a nutshell, and why most of us love it, is TRADITION and ATMOSPHERE.
He got away from one, and has not brought the other.
It’s that simple. We’ve had about 70 games at Heinz the last 11 years. Yes, the one Cincy game was sold out, great atmosphere, a couple of the WVU and ND games, great.
The other 65 games, have had 30K most of the time, 40 a few times, but, mostly, 30K empty yellow seats.
That’s a failure no matter what excuses you use.
A half empty stadium, is a failure. You knew the parameters ahead of time.
“well, if we can do this, this will happen”, “if that would have happened, this would be different”,
“if we can back to winning, this will follow”.
Well, none of that has happened!!!! Same quotes and talking points every year.
@Timmeh we will have to just agree to disagree. Graham has won everywhere he has been, look at ASU this year. There isn’t just any evidence that Chryst is a winning coach yet. I hope it changes and I hope you are right that Chryst is a good coach.
When you fire Wanny, then you have to remain committed to the future of college football in terms of offensive philosophy even after Graham leaves.
I actually like Heinz Field, when it has people in it and has atmosphere.
You cannot make believe atmoshphere. There has to be a full or almost full stadium to have college football atmoshphere.
Whether the stadium is 100K, or 20K, it has to have people in it, to generate real atmosphere.
Pitt Stadium is done, it’s gone, we all know that.
Is this just the way it is, and the way it’s gonna be, and just swallow it???
If that’s the case, the term “visionary” that was used with S.P. was totally false.
Is this what he envisioned??
Also, why keep on about it? One, someone brought his name up. Which, is easy to do, as he is our AD, he is in the papers, on the tv, and at university functions.
Pretty hard to get away from.
Extremely hard to get away from, when you go to a game with 30K of your closet gold friends staring at you.
The bad news is Coach Chryst, at this point in his career, needs work, as does his entire team. He needs to put a couple “W”s up with Buffalo and Temple next on the schedule to keep the natives from becoming restless.
If he can just put together an average 6-6 year, even without a mean nothing bowl game at season’s end, I think he’ll get a pass for this year. However if he loses a game over the next two weeks people are going to be pretty disenchanted with the results of his labors up to this point and most likely it will go down hill from there.
Tino Sunseri is who we knew he was but all that being considered, he is conducting himself to the upper limits of his potential. There are so many different weakness on this team that it is taking a lot of the heat off of Tino. Which I’m sure he is more than happy to share the blame with others concerning the team’slackluster results so far this season.
Here’s hoping for a 6-6 season. That actually hurt just typing that sentence. Anyhow, Hail to Pitt.
Chryst really has to – we can’t get along with a limited Dan Mason in the middle. As of today Mason may actually be starting against Buffalo. Which, getting back to his actual play, is bothersome.
I really don’t like the fact that we are playing this game in Buffalo with some 2nd string guys starting. Hate to say it but we could lose this game also.
Hail to Pitt!
The section below Trees is sparsely populated and no doubt there would be foes, but geographically it is next to the new venues (where is that track by the way Stevie).
Grocery stores etc… Would have to be part of the deal.
Comment by PittofDreams 10.17.12 @ 9:28 am
You are correct sir !
On offense it’s obvious what the problem is, and only the most blatant Sir Tino apologists would see it. (hint the many, many, many missed wide open TD overthrows, underthrows, to the right by 5 yds, to the left by 5 yds, etc, etc.)
On defense it’s the lack of creating turnovers.
Only game besides the glorified scrimmage where they created turnovers that resulted in TD’s was against a self-destructive VA Tech team that day, mostly in the 1rst Quarter of that game.
Back to the offense, they had the same problem last year, SCORING, as we lost 4 games by a total of 12 points. See rush coming, panic, flop to ground, fold into fetal position. Wash, spin, repeat. Yes offensive line isn’t the greatest we all know that, but the QB does nothing to try to escape or avoid the rush. Nor does he unload the ball to avoid the yardage loss. Can’t have anything upsetting his completion % apparently.
Wash, spin, repeat !
Don’t care if you like the guy or not, he’s proven he’s a winner. And guess what…. Mike Norvell is his OC at Arizona State avg’g 42 ppg, which he would have been here had Graham stayed. Of course it was Sir Tino or Graham. Guess who we got stuck with ! Yep him and Stevie Cornhole.
They don’t have a leader, and I don’t think they will find one. I like PC, see good things happening with him, but he is making mistakes 1st year coaches make.
But if the season is to mean anything to these guys, they have to do it on their own. Coaches coach, players play;some players coach, but no coaches play.
@Dan. Thanks, I think, for the hard true Panther fan tag. I am going to Buffalo for the game and I will eat where TXPantehr suggests, but mostly I am going go because I want to see how players play when no one is watching them (game is off everyone;s radar screen).
Are they going thru the motions or are they playing a game they love to play and having fun doing it?
I want Pederson gone,but I want the players to succeed.
This game will tell me what is going on between the collective ears of this team and staff…body language, effort and push.
I’ll leave the X’s & O’s to others.
Final note to Chas.
I grew up not far from that wasteland off I70 you described in your last post. It looks like central California (without the sun or hope of the coast) because the land was strip mined/surface mined long before regulations were put in to protect and restore the land. The soil can’t really support any growth other than sage.
Fly over it sometime and you’ll get a better perspective.