2 game losing streak. Road game. Another slow-paced defensive-minded opponent.

Miami is off to a 2-6 start in the ACC. In no small part because their schedule has been brutal for what should be a middle to lower middle team in the ACC — Syracuse (twice), Duke, FSU, at Maryland.

The team plays a matchup zone defense.

“Theirs is a matchup zone, we haven’t seen a lot of that matchup zone this year. We’ve seen more of it in other years, but not so much this year,” Dixon said. “They also play a little bit of the Syracuse zone, a type of 2-3, but we saw it a little more in the Big East. It is something that coach Larranaga hasn’t played a lot of [in the past], but is this year because he feels it matches his personnel.

“They match up more with their three perimeter guys, they play more man-to-man on the ball than say a 2-3 zone.”

Dixon said the key to Miami’s zone is it slows teams down on offense. That meshes with the Hurricanes’ philosophy of keeping the possessions low and scoring down.

He said the only way to attack it successfully is to be patient. Dixon thought the Panthers were pretty good at that Sunday in the loss against Virginia but noted they were not good at making shots.

“I think we are good against a zone,” Dixon said. “The matchup zone is something that we prepare for, but we are also built to have success against zones because we pass it well and shoot it well. But it is something that we are going to have to be patient with and adjust [to] as they adjust as the game goes on.

The Canes have some length on the perimeter which is why they play the zone.

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Last year, there was a wide variance on Pitt’s recruiting class in terms of where it ranked against other programs. From 20 to greater than 40.

This year, the consensus is far less spread out. ESPN.com once more has Pitt outside their top-40 (and 9th overall in the ACC). Scout.com says #42. Rivals.com #43 and 247 at #44.

The loss of Wade Freebeck probably dropped Pitt anywhere from 1 to 3 spots in the rankings.

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Morning everyone. Got some coffee? Good. Did you add something to it other than a dairy product or sweetener? I’m not judging.

As expected the snow in the Cleveland area is closing schools, so I am homebound for at least the morning with the kids. The wife is still deciding whether to drive in to work. Either way, the National Signing Day open thread is ready for business.

The whole thing is so much more twitter driven, that this feels a little archaic, but it serves its purpose.

Pitt’s website goes live with signing day chatter at 8 am.

The key twitter accounts to follow are naturally from PantherLair (Rivals.com), PantherDigest (Scout.com) and Panther 247. Along with the Pitt football twitter account and local beat writers Sam Werner and Jerry DiPaola.

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Long. Extra long day of work. Put in the extra hours in no small part because the snow that is falling — yet again — will almost certainly cancel school  — yet again — for my kids. So, get the extra stuff done ahead of time so that taking most of Wednesday off is not a hassle. That it would just happen to land on signing day and let me stay home and watch tweets of a confirmations of recruits was just an extra bonus. Not an extra bonus — not being able to post/comment on a last minute flip of a recruit.

Just remember, Pitt. It’s not you, it’s him.

Quarterback Wade Freebeck said choosing Vanderbilt over Pitt wasn’t easy.

“It was very stressful,” he said Tuesday night. “I’m stressed out.”

Freebeck said he chose an opportunity to get a degree from Vanderbilt, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the U.S., more than he passed on Pitt.

Freebeck said Vanderbilt’s “pedigree” — it was 17th in U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 university rankings — was the deciding factor.

“Football is football,” said Freebeck, who said he carries a 4.7 grade-point average at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “For me, if I can utilize it to get the best education, that’s what I want to do.”

He said giving Pitt coach Paul Chryst the bad news — after he had committed June 30 — was difficult.

“It was nothing Pitt lacked. They are definitely on the right track,” Freebeck said. “I was disappointed to have to tell him something like that. He was very understanding, a good person.”

I doubt that Chryst will give an answer, but at the presser this afternoon I would really like someone to ask him if Freebeck told him directly when he was at Pitt over this past weekend.

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