We’ve been waiting for this for months. Ever since the announcement some 6 months prior. Arguably that was the moment when it was truly understood that Pitt was in the ACC. It was really happening. It wasn’t being done grudgingly. Pitt was bring truly welcomed to the ACC and offered a huge opportunity. Not only a marquee conference home game against the conference’s best program over the past 20 years. Pitt was given the ACC’s spotlight Labor Day opening conference game on ESPN. The only game on TV. No regional diversity. No competition with Breaking Bad. Nothing else. Just FSU-Pitt.
Pitt’s had the spotlight moments before. Even in the recent years of frustration. And yes, spit the bit. Badly. At the same time, Pitt has had the moments. Especially when most people don’t seem to think Pitt can hang with the opponent.
“Virginia Tech, no one gave us a chance,” Street said. “Notre Dame, even though we didn’t come out on top, we proved we can keep up with those teams. That’s what we’re doing now.”
I’m not going to pretend that I think Pitt will win. Florida State has been a more stable program. They have a lot of talent all over the field. They have a good coach in Jimbo Fisher and the rest of that coaching staff. They are ranked in the top-ten for a reason.
That said, I think Pitt can win. I think Pitt is capable of meeting this moment and not flinching.
Let’s find out.
Bingo! I really wish a large portion of the fan base would stop looking for boogiemen (Stadium, Script, AD’s personality, attendance) and start recognizing it’s about the players in the uniforms and the schemes they are running.
While I don’t put a whole lot of faith in recruiting rankings, I am…concerned…that we are trying to close the talent gap with the top of the ACC by rounding out the roster with 2* players and then “coaching them up”. I didn’t see a whole lot of coaching prowess on display last night. Especially the D.
Lack of speed and athleticism will always show up most on defense since it requires you to chase. You will always notice speed and quickness disparity on your defense.
I like Pitts but he didn’t appear to,have enough closing speed to,stay with the quickness of FSU. Ditto for,the opposite corner. The Safeties are flat out Terrible. LB’s were exposed for,their inability. I agree with the previous poster that PC needs to get over the pouting and play Thomas a lot.
This as our intro to the ACC. It wasn’t by mistake. We were outclassed in the level of individual talent. Plain and simple. Better get to recruiting, Forget about the WPA kids. Go south for speed, size, and athleticism.
Pitt was schooled on how to take on an opponent away from home. Hopefully, they will learn from this game. We all knew Pitt was out classed from the start, so we should not be suprised at the outcome.
Regardless of their win / loss record, Pitt will get better.
Please get Vinopal and Gonzalez off the freaking field.
You’re right.
However, lotsa teams beat more talented teams, and they do it by scheme. And it happened many times this first CFB weekend already.
If the other team is much faster (in this case, FSU is, and we knew that going in…), you neutralize it by keeping it contained, bumping WRs off the line of scrimmage. You disguise coverages and blitz packages to confuse their freshman QB to make him hesitant for that extra second. Just like FSU’s DC’s game plan did to us.
What you DON’T do is play their faster WRs 5-10 yards off the ball! Most of the time their WRs made a catch, there wasn’t even a blue jersey in the TV screen.
That flawed scheme played right into their hands, and made Winston look like the second coming of John Elway at Stanford.
If this is Matt House’s best work, then let’s pray that out shiny new head coach has the nads to cut him loose early in the season, to get anybody else (i.e., someone who’s fit for this difficult job…).
Hail To Pitt.
Yes Pederson was boo-ed.
But I was embarrassed when the Pitt fans boo-ed the representatives of each of the ACC schools as they were introduced.
Low class – very low class!
Lets start with the positives:
– the O-line was solid, maybe not spectacular, but they played well, best in 4 years.
– Tyler Boyd is the real deal. Kid is not at all in awe of the situation
– special teams looked good, We have a legit scoring threat in Blewitt
– Overall the team seemed ready to play. They came out and drove right down the field. Other than the killer INTs, they played relatively mistake free. But being mentally prepared wasn’t enough to overcome the talent disparity.
Mixed:
– RBs – both Bennett and Conner had a few good carries, but I didn’t think either showed an ability to make a guy miss and pick up extra yards. I don’t expect a lot of long running plays this year. At least we have serviceable options
– Savage – he definitely has the arm to make all the throws, and appears to be in control, but his decision making is just a hair slow, and against a team with FSU speed, that split second matters. The 2 INTs just couldn’t happen if Pitt was to have any chance in this game.
– Team Speed – I’m sure many will disagree but seeing it live Pitt did not appear to be completely out of their league speed-wise. Yes, some difference, especially with the LB’s. But speed was not the main reason Pitt lost. Compared to early last season (think Cincy game) this Pitt team looks much faster. But this is a new league…
The Ugly:
– Defensive strategy – nothing good to say about how the D lined up tonite. Perhaps no scheme wins this game, but the vanilla base D Pitt played 90% of the game wouldn’t have challenged a jr.high QB. Winston was impressive, but Pitt did nothing to pressure or confuse him. I counted 4 blitzes while he was in there. In my mind, once you’re down you may as well take your chances rather than be repeatedly picked apart.
– Vinopal can’t start again. Let one of the Clairton freshman start.
– DEs are undersized and slow (except Price who is just undersized).
– LBs were mismatched in coverage. Really have to play Thomas. They were ok vs. the run, but that was irrelevant.
– TEs need to be involved more in the passing game, though I suspect they were often assisting with pass protection help last night.
– The Crowd – not those that came, but those that didn’t. My biggest disappointment of the night was to see so many scarlet shirts in the lower bowl, where 100% of the seats are season ticket donation seats. C’mon Pitt fans, why even buy tickets? If you are looking to make a statement, try NOT buying tickets. You are only perpetuating the mediocrity. And there were probably 5,000 empties in the upper deck. Still, the place was rockin’ until the late first half TD clearly put the game away at 28-10.
Overall, not sure how much can be determined from this game, other than Pitt is light years away from competing with the big boys in the ACC. I think .500 will be the ceiling for this team, 4-5 is more likely. I don’t see any cake-walks.
Can’t wait to watch the UNM game with 20,000 of my closest friends. H2P
1) game reminded me of Wanny’s debut vs. Charlie Weiss and ND, Palko to Lee for an early seven to zip lead and then a shit show
2) FSU fans are classy. I was surrounded by them in Sec. 512 and they were nothing but polite.
3) I didn’t believe the hype about Boyd and he looked great, so does Conner.
4) We can’t judge Savage on one game alone.
5) Keep wearing your Pitt gear and stay loyal. I saw our fans throwing their hats off in the parking lot at the end of lots of whining. One bad night will hopefully not make a bad season.
