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September 24, 2014

The Brief Media Runthrough: Iowa Edition

Filed under: Football,Media — Chas @ 9:02 am

Pitt became a charter member of the Big East football conference back in 1990. Ending a lifetime of independence. For a few years it was 6 conference games and 5 non-conference games until the addition of Virginia Tech in 1993 to make it 7 conference games within an 11 game season. Flash forward to 2014, it is the ACC for Pitt with 8 conference games and still 4 non-conference games. The 24th year of Pitt having conference and non-con games. Pitt has yet to make it through a season without at least one non-con loss. That’s how traditions get made.

One other final note. The issue of adjustments. Decrying Pitt not making adjustments after the half would suggest that Pitt was doing things wrong in the first half. On offense, there were no adjustments to make. Can you imagine the complaints of outsmarting yourself if Pitt came out throwing more to start the second half?

On defense, I’m at a loss to figure out how Pitt was going to generate a pass rush without leaving receivers completely uncovered (and yes, given how easily they were beating the corners at times I can see that point). There are no personnel changes that could be made as the defense, especially is too thin and young. And some credit needs to go to Iowa’s O-line which was expected to be an issue for Pitt.

The quarterback hurry is a nebulous stat with inconsistent application, but Pitt’s stat crew at Heinz Field is fairly strict about it, and in Saturday’s game there were four quarterback hurries from the Panthers’ defense.

All four came from defensive backs on blitzes, as Pitt got virtually no pressure up front. According to Chryst, Iowa’s offensive line deserves a lot of credit for neutralizing Pitt’s front four.

“I think they were pretty good,” Chryst said. “I thought their line was the best one we’ve played to this point. I think that was part of it. They didn’t do anything different; I don’t think we were winning a lot of the one-on-one battles.”

Something echoed by the DE Coach and Defensive Coordinator.

“Quite honestly, most of their passes were seven- and eight-man protections with two-man routes,” House said. “Unless you’re bringing [zero-coverage] blitzes, you’re not going to get home on that stuff.”

House also noted that Pitt forced Iowa into only five third-and-long scenarios, which limited the amount of blitzes the Panthers could bring in passing situations.

One part of the problem was Pitt’s lack of depth at defensive end. Regular starter David Durham played limited snaps with a shoulder injury, forcing freshman Rori Blair into regular action against the power-oriented Hawkeyes.

Defensive ends coach John Palermo said he was pleasantly surprised by how Blair, at 230 pounds, matched up physically against Iowa’s massive offensive line, but, like any freshman, there were some mental lapses.

“I guess my biggest fear has come alive in that he would have to play 50 snaps in a game against big guys all day,” Palermo said. “Whereas the original plan for Rori was to play him in our nickel or third-down situations, let him get his feet on the ground. Now he’s having to play on first downs against a good football team.”

Short on DEs available — which led to the obscured great story of Rori Blair getting his first start after everything he has been through. James Conner playing DE has been shelved given his workload and production at RB.

Who is available to replace Avonte Maddox or Lafayette Pitts as cornerbacks? It’s nice to proclaim, “sit ’em down ” because they aren’t performing well. But if the guys behind them aren’t ready or worse at this point, that won’t make a difference in the outcome.

One other change that happened in the second half, that probably wasn’t noticed. Iowa got back their starting safety, Jordan Lomax. Lomax was ejected in the second half of the Iowa State game for a targeting penalty. Per the rules, he also had to sit out the first half of the Pitt game. In one half of the game he had three tackles and a pass break-up. One more factor in how the Iowa defense tightened up in the second half.

Statistically, Pitt’s defense presents well. But, we all know the saying, “Lies, damn lies and statistics.”

I’m not saying Iowa fans were stunned at the game, but they were surprised to see their team being the one to make adjustments at halftime.

Good news, Pitt knows it is a running team on offense. I had been confused on that issue for a while, so thanks for clarifying the issue.

Pitt can still win the ACC Coastal. There is also a good chance that every team in the division finishes 4-4. Both outcomes do not seem improbable.

Before the Iowa game there were questions about why Pitt isn’t getting the ball thrown to him more. Tyler Boyd finally gets the ball thrown his way a ton — and he makes a lot of catches. But since Pitt lost the questions become about where are the TEs and what about the other WRs? Just thinking out loud, but if Pitt is only passing on 30% or so of its offensive plays, odds are someone’s going to suffer.





We hear complaints about Pitt students’ no-shows. Well, Pitt is not alone…

link to ftw.usatoday.com

Comment by MariettaMike 09.24.14 @ 10:17 am

Pitt’s youth will pay dividends as the season progresses and is two years away from becoming a top 10 team. Hail To Pitt!

Comment by MariettaMike 09.24.14 @ 10:21 am

@@@@@@

Akron loves to throw the ball. Game will be interesting for
our secondary. Need a W and a record of 4-1.

My last comment on the Iowa game….Pitt needs to continue to
build depth….lack of depth is our greatest shortcoming.

Comment by JR 09.24.14 @ 10:22 am

For your reading pleasure and further discussion:

link to espn.go.com

Comment by Pitt Dad 09.24.14 @ 11:06 am

I’m puzzled by House’s comment. He says most of Iowa’s passing was from 7/8 man protection and two man routes. As far as pass defense goes, isn’t that ideal? Don’t you want two man routes? Shouldn’t that be the easiest coverage? Yes, it slows the pass rush, but the QB, even with extended time, only has two choices.

Comment by PittMan 09.24.14 @ 11:22 am

Pittman, that would normally be ideal if you had to shutdown corners and were able to generate some pressure on the QB in the first 4 seconds of the play. Unfortunately, when the QB has as much time as needed, the receiver is eventually going to get open. Having Durham in the game, who is larger/stronger/more experienced than Blair likely would have made some difference.

Comment by VAPITTALUM 09.24.14 @ 12:06 pm

They didn’t make adjustments until running into a wall somewhere in the 3rd quarter. They stopped running up the middle and tryed getting Conner to the outside, that also didn’t work. What they didn’t try and seem to be absolutely against is passing the ball on first down. As it is sarcastically stated Pitt is a running team, in order to stay a strong running team would it not be a good idea to start mixing up the play calls to keep opposing defenses off balance?

Comment by Steve h 09.24.14 @ 12:45 pm

In light of some recent talk of recruiting to build defensive depth, I took a look at the current roster and was stunned to see just how relatively young this group really is. Bear with me on this…

DEFENSIVE BACKS
There are 13 DBs lists on the roster and nearly 2/3 of this entire group is in either their first or second year of the program.

There are six true freshmen (Maddox, Amara, Motley, Williams, Anderson and Idowu).

There are two true sophomores (Webb and Trenton Coles).

Of the remaining five, three are redshirt sophomores (Mitchell, J. Pitts and Lewis).

Only Lafayette Pitts and Ray Vinopal had more than three years in the program at the start of this season.

DEFENSIVE LINE
The roster lists 17 defensive linemen, 11 of whom are either in their first or second year in the program.

Five are true freshmen (Blair, Trahan, Dintino, Herndon & Roy).

Six are RS freshmen or true sophomores (Soto, Jarrett, MacLean, Moody, Neavin & Taleni).

One is a true junior (Render).

Four have 4 yrs in the program as RS juniors or true seniors (Price – injured, Mosley-Smith, Cook and L. Smith). Durham is the only redshirt senior.

From all of this, a few things stand out to me:

1. First, it’s easy to forget this, but this current roster still has only two full classes that were exclusively recruited by Chryst’s coaching staff. The true juniors and redshirt sophomores were part of a class that a mix of Graham recruits that stayed or that Chryst locked up quickly after being hired. The older players go back to Graham and in a few cases Wannstedt.

2. The upperclassmen are OK as a group, but not great. Vinopal has been decent. Mosley-Smith and Durham have been…OK. Lafayette Pitts has regressed and is now being pushed by a true freshman. Devin Cook is coming back from injury but he may never get his spot back from younger guys. LaQuentin Smith is a depth player at this point, and Ejuan Price is always hurt.

3. Part of the reason this team has struggled to generate a pass rush may come from the relative youth that has had to play on the defensive line. In terms of one-on-one matchups, there isn’t an area where age and experience can make more of a difference to a football team than it does on the offensive and defensive lines.

When 5/8 of your DL two-deep is comprised of true freshmen, redshirt freshmen and true sophomores, you’re talking about relying heavily on guys who just haven’t physically matured and are not as developmentally strong as some of the players on the opposite side of the ball. Iowa’s offensive line featured two seniors and two juniors.

Take Blair, for example. At various times last week, Blair – a 19-year old kid who has played well – was going up against Brandon Scherff, a 22-year old who projects as a top-ten NFL draft pick next spring. It won’t always be that extreme a gap, but the point remains that it’s not exactly an ideal situation.

4. I think this reveals that there is an effort already being made to build depth, but as it is with much of this team, a lot of these players are still early on in their learning curves at this level. It will be interesting to see how they progress next year and into 2016.

And it goes without saying that efforts to recruit more players and better players need to be there as well. I think they’re off to a good start because I think a lot of these guys will turn out to be very solid players, but the more they can bring in, the better. Obvious statement is obvious.

Comment by Stoosh 09.24.14 @ 1:46 pm

+1 Patience boys.

Comment by alcofan 09.24.14 @ 3:00 pm

a couple of notes:

1) there’s this link to gozips.com

2) PC and staff members are attending 4-star DB Jerome Whitehead’s game on Friday, which is the last one before he announces on 10/1.

I like they seem to be showing a little more interest than a year ago, especially in an area of need.

One thing going for Pitt is that his former teammate, Robert Foster, is seeing very limited PT at Bama.

One thing against Pitt is that he was at WVU last week to see Hoopies play OU, and saw Dravon Henry staring at CB. (his other finalists are OSU, PSU and VT) … and I’m out

Comment by wbb 09.24.14 @ 3:29 pm

Chas,

You didn’t include what I thought was far and away the most interesting quote from the Post Gazette story.

Again Defensive Ends Coach John Palermo…

********
“I don’t know how you can take the workhorse from offense and put him over there on defense,” Palermo said. “I mean, he’s obviously had great success over there.”

“I don’t know how you take a guy like him and say, ‘OK, go rush the passer now.’”

********

Why was this ever a question?

Comment by PittofDreams 09.24.14 @ 3:33 pm

Regarding the RUNNINGBACK James Conner…

link to pittsburghpanthers.com

Comment by PittofDreams 09.24.14 @ 3:40 pm

@ Stoosh, your analysis demonstrates that you are not a Stooge.

Please can we move on from the Iowa game. In case you didn’t get the memo, yes, the game was within our grasp but Iowa executed the plays necessary to bring the win in for the visitors. NEXT!

Comment by Dr. Tom 09.24.14 @ 4:11 pm

Stoosh – Your Analysis also applies to the whole team (53 Frosh (true and RS), and 28 Soph (true and RS)…this team is a work in progress and is getting better and better.

Comment by markp 09.24.14 @ 4:17 pm

Love the optimism.

Hate that I’m stuck going to the RU Tulane game Saturday.

Comment by steve1 09.24.14 @ 4:44 pm

Stoosh- thanks for the analysis.
Just some quick comments on defensive line –
Shane Roy has height and on videos has a unique knack of knowing where the quarterback is and getting to them.
Mike Herndon has size and should be more agile because he played linebacker in high school, which could be a plus if used at defensive end.

Comment by mizzoupitt 09.24.14 @ 4:57 pm

Stoosh, no doubt they are young. It remains to be seen which ones will turn out to be impact players. I still see a marked difference between the overall caliber of offensive player vs defensive player being successfully recruited. How many of those defensive guys were recruited by big time programs?

Hopefully Chryst and company have found some diamonds in the rough, but only time will tell.

Comment by gc 09.24.14 @ 5:47 pm

link to twitter.com

very cool, c’mon Mr. Whitehead

Comment by gc 09.24.14 @ 6:32 pm

See the Pipeline to Pitt poster

Comment by gc 09.24.14 @ 6:34 pm

@gc

Sorry to be dense. But, I don’t do Twitter. What is on the link that relates to Whitehead? The Beaver Valley list?

H2P

Comment by pmdH2P 09.24.14 @ 7:20 pm

It’s a poster with all of Pitt’s Beaver County stars.

Comment by gc 09.24.14 @ 7:47 pm

By the way I don’t do twitter either, but if you click on EJ Borghetti’s twitter link on the right side of this page it comes up.

Comment by gc 09.24.14 @ 7:50 pm

Interesting stable of Akron Zip QB’s. Tra’von Chapman and Chandler Kincade as well as a stable of big five conference transfers. I mentioned this over the summer that Chapman had matriculated there.
They remind me a bit of Y’town State in some ways and they will play hard under the fighting Bowden’s.

Carpe’ Zips!!

Comment by dhuffdaddy 09.24.14 @ 10:11 pm

Best Blather paragraph ever:

One other final note. The issue of adjustments. Decrying Pitt not making adjustments after the half would suggest that Pitt was doing things wrong in the first half. On offense, there were no adjustments to make. Can you imagine the complaints of outsmarting yourself if Pitt came out throwing more to start the second half?

Comment by Reed 09.25.14 @ 5:47 am

Pitt will be a powerhouse in the ACC by 2016 and the seats in Heinz Field will be almost full.

Hail To Pitt.

Comment by MariettaMike 09.25.14 @ 6:54 am

Stoosh, nice analysis, shouldn’t you end your post by ragging Pederson?

Comment by Caw Miller 09.25.14 @ 11:50 am

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