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October 6, 2014

Monday Morning QB

(This is a weekly series of articles entitled “Monday Morning Quarterback”.   I will try to post them two days after the football games are played so as to have our wilder emotions under control by then.  It will be my take on the positives and the negatives we saw happen and a chance for commenters to agree or disagree and to add their own thoughts.)

These MMQB articles are getting harder and harder to write given the inconsistencies of our coaching staff’s decisions, our team’s efforts and our individual player’s success’ and failures, even from play to play sometimes.  I’m still not sure exactly what caliber of PITT football team we have this season.   I’ll put down some more personal opinions at the end of this article.

POSITIVES

1.  Todd Thomas’ play at OLB on defense. He came rigged to play last night and ended up with 12 total tackles; seven unassisted, five assisted with one tackle for loss, most of which seemed to come in crucial situations. He was all over the field and at least two of his tackles stopped important 3rd down conversion attempts.  There is a lot of fan discussion this morning about how DC House is substituting for Thomas in certain situations, most specifically passing downs and against the spread formations we have seen in some past games.

I don’t necessarily agree that Thomas needs to be on the field 100% of the time as some of us do. The fact is that after Thomas’ two ACL injuries and surgeries, and let’s remember that he missed his whole freshman year in 2010 and major parts of 2011 & ’12 with those injuries, he isn’t as fast as he was when he first reported to PITT.  That’s one reason he gets replaced by Nick Grigsby as the ‘Freeze LB” and Bam Bradley as an OLB in those certain situations especially on the passing situations.

Both of those kids had major plays on defense last night; Bradley have three solo and two assisted tackles and Grigsby had three solo tackles so they combined for eight stops in very limited play.  That is production from that particular defensive game planning.

So. it is hard, at least IMO, to say that we’d have been better off having Thomas in on every play.  Another factor to consider that as a rsJR and rsSO respectively Grigsby and Bradley may well be replacing Thomas and Gonzalez as starters next season.

2.  Our second stringers continue to shine in their very limited roles.  Both RBs Chris James (2 carries for 18 yds) and Isaac Bennett (1 for 23) did well in relief of Conner and seem to have a knack for being able to jump off the bench and produce positive plays as soon as they are asked to do so.  We need to see more of both of those guys along with Ibrahim carrying the ball.

I have stated earlier that should Conner go down with an injury we’d see Isaac Bennett be almost as productive rushing the ball, he’s that good.  On the season he has carried the ball 17 times for 105 yards for an excellent 6.2 ypc, one TD and a long of last night’s 23 yards; his receiving has been productive also with six catches for 61 yards (7.5 ypc) and a long of 22 yards.  IMO he needs the ball way more than he’s getting so far.

Our younger receivers WR Adonis Jennings (1 catch for 6 yards) and newly burnt redshirt true freshman WR Jester Weah, who was inserted because he’s the fastest player on the roster,  got more experience on the field.

We may question why Weah was used at mid-point in the season and it’s because the staff most probably sees that the only way Voytik is going to be able to complete deep pass routes is to wind up and throw the ball as far as he possibly can in a certain direction, much like he did in the bowl game, and they are hoping that Weah will get enough steps on his defender to be able to adjust to the passes, accurate or inaccurate ones, on the fly.  We’ll see him play more in future games and he had two passes thrown to him last night.

Freshman CB Pat Amara had a key interception that not only stopped a UVA drive but lead to a PITT FG that closed the gap to a 11 point deficit.  That INT came right after PITT scored our first TD of the game and really helped us to keep that 2nd half momentum going in our favor.

 3.  As spotty as they were I have to say that our defense did a pretty good job over all last evening.  Even though we lost by five points our defense kept us in the game in that crucial second half by not allowing any UVA 2nd half points which allowed us to mount a comeback try.

Looking at the box score might lead one to think we didn’t do that well on defense but sometimes that isn’t the whole story.  Yes, we gave up way too many yards on the ground with the UVA running backs seeming to be able to waltz through big holes in the DL and past our missed arm tackles, but we also kept a solid lid on their passing game at 121 total passing yards and put strong 2nd half pass rushing pressure on their QB to force a lot of 3rd down conversion tries which didn’t work.

In UVA’s five 2nd half possessions our defense held them to this:

1st – three and out

2nd – INT

3rd – 3rd down and 10 – QB sack – Punt

4th – Punt

5th – Punt

In the Defense’s defense, had Voytik not thrown that Pick-6 INT in the 2nd quarter we would have held a decent ACC opponent to 17 points on their home field and most probably would have won the game. That isn’t shabby no matter how you cut it.

NEGATIVES

1.  First in my mind is our team’s death dealing habit of committing penalties at exactly the wrong times. The short story is that we had 10 penalties for 75 yards. The long story is the details of when they occurred and how those penalties caused us to give up any momentum we might have had in numerous possessions.

A perfect example of this was our second possession of the 1st quarter when we were down by only three points.  We get the ball on our 11 yard line and “boom, boom, boom”; we run Conner for 14 yards, Conner for 10 yards and James for 15 yards to get us to the 50 yard line.  We were kicking the crap out of the UVA DL then we get a False Start flag for -5 yards, then twp plays later pull an illegal formation penalty for -5 yards which puts us into a 3rd and 17 yards position and thus forces us to punt.

That drive, with the the way it was going, could easily have been finished with at least a FG or possibly a TD and could have changed the complexion of that 1st half.  But no, we shot ourselves in the foot twice and killed the drive.

The very next possession, still down by only three, we started at our 20 and marched down to the UVA 13. That was done mainly on Chad Voytik’s two best pass plays of the day with a 34 yard pass for a Bennett circus catch that rallied the team, and a 3rd and 4 23 yard 1st down pass to Weatherspoon.  All of a sudden we are poised to take the lead and…  we commit another False Start for -5, are back at the 18 yard line and have lost any momentum we had on the drive.  Instead of a TD we settle for a 36 yard FG to tie the game.

Now jump to the 3rd quarter and we are down 24-10; we drive from our 33 yard line to a 3rd and 1 at the UVA one yard line.  Another -5 yard False Start and we are back at the six, all momentum drained and we settle for another FG.  A TD there makes it 24-17 with 23+ minutes to play and a much easier score to deal with.

So you see that it isn’t only the lost yardage of the penalties that hurt but in last night’s case had we not committed those three penalties at the most inopportune times our whole 1st half of play would have been different.  Had we not had that other 3rd quarter penalty ON THE UVA ONE YARD LINE!! then we are within striking distance of the win.

IMO this issue is what lost the game for us more than any poor defensive plays or the Pick-6.

2.  The Offensive play calling and personnel usage. I mentioned above that I believe we have strong talent in the offense, specifically in the Running Back corps, that is being grossly underutilized.  I get the reasoning behind riding the James Conner tiger to victory and the theory behind trying to beat the other team to death with him and a huge offensive line.  I really do.

But when recent history (Iowa and Akron) shows that when it isn’t necessarily working as planned then an adaptation has to be made by the coaches.  It is as if this staff got enamored with the great results we had with that line of attack in our first three winning games and can’t bring themselves to deviate from it when it is as plain as the nose on my face that it has to be done.

Conner is a beast and he is giving every single measure of effort he can possibly give out on the field of play but sometimes that just isn’t enough, especially after the opposing defenses figure out that our QB isn’t much of a passing threat.  Give Conner a break sometimes and run full series with Bennett and James out there as the primary backs.  Get Ibrahim in there for more carries and short passes, those are working well for him so far.  In essence, use the good talent we have on the team to best place our players in the position to win the game.

As we have seen in the 2nd halves of the last few games Conner’s effectiveness has diminished as he racks up those many carries. There is something to be said about keeping him fresh for the 4th quarter also.  We know Conner’s banging the hell out of the run defense but the truth is he’s getting the hell beat out of him also.

3.  The continuation of the Defense giving up “Big Plays” that should never happen. Even though I wrote above that I feel the defense played well over all, we again saw the killing lapses in defense that give our opponents an easy score that helps to mitigate the good efforts of our defense otherwise.

Last night there were two plays in particular that really hurt.  The first was an easy 30 yard toss and catch by UVA’s QB to their TE Canaan Severin when they were at the 50 yard line early in the game.  Severin was in the middle of three PITT defenders when the pass was lofted to him then he turned up field and Layfaette Pitts totally short armed the play and tried to bump the TE down with a shoulder.   Honestly, Pitts looked like a rookie out there on that play.

The second was a back breaking, totally embarrassing 48 yard run by UVA’s Kevin Parks (29 carries for 169 yards and 1 TD).  Watch it again if you can stomach it.  Our LBs took themselves completely out of the play then our DBs took poor angles to try to bring him down when he was sprinting to the goal line.

We have seen this happen in everyone of the last five games and in the last three these typs of lapses have basically lost the game for us.

 Ying & Yang

This is a special weekly section dedicated to the quarterback play of Chad Voytik.  Why Ying and Yang you ask?  It is because we are seeing a duality of play from him so far this season that is maddening and all too believable.  At certain points in the matches he’s making plays out there that make you think he’ll be an OK player for us, and then you look at his full body of work after the game is finished and you realize that there is as much, if not more, bad as there is good with him.

Last night the good Voytik showed up with two TDs passes that were thrown with velocity and accuracy for 17 yards to WR Garner and another one of six yards to the TE (!) Holtz.  Those were good and timely scores that helped us come from behind to striking distance to attempt to win the game late in the 4th quarter.  He also had a nice 23 yard completion to Weatherspoon that was a well thrown pass.

Then you realize that it was his poor play in the 1st half that led us to the need for a dramatic comeback.  I’m referring not only to his easily avoided Pick-6 interception in the 2nd quarter to give UVA a lead that they never gave up, but also to his overall lack of consistent play.

As in his last couple games his UVA stats are telling us a story that we aren’t seeing out on the field.  He was 16 for 30 (53%) for 195 yards (6.5 ypa) and 2 TDs with 1 INT for a Total Quarterback Rating (QBR) of 25.5 (which is not good and I’ll explain more on that in a later article).

At first glance and without getting into the weeds that isn’t a real poor outing but taken as a whole, but with applying the in-game context he had a very Sunseri-like evening where his stats show a decent game but the results, due to his dicey decision making mostly, say another thing altogether.  Week six and I’m not seeing the steady improvement I thought I would out of him.  I said earlier that I thought Voytik wouldn’t get yanked unless he started doing things that made us lose ballgames instead of just not winning them, so I think that Pick-6 he threw needs to be a wakeup call for Chryst and Rudolph to start getting Trey Anderson some series in case a change has to be made.

I read comments where our fans were wondering if we ran any screens (yes, to Boyd early in the game) or had Voytik specifically rollout to pass (yes, on a few calls) or have short patterns for him to get easier completions on (yes again).  The staff did call plays to his strengths but he threw too hard and behind Boyd’s trailing shoulder on that ‘tunnel screen’ and was inaccurate on at least half of those other short pass calls.  I said it before and I’ll say it again – the staff isn’t handling the ball after it is snapped.  They are not the ones throwing passes to receivers who are short of the 1st down marker either.  However, Voytik did use the TEs more this game so that is a nice step in the right direction.

That’s it – three thumbs up and three thumbs down.  How did you see it?

 





Reed, no matter what, the stigma that follows Tino here is way too much to overcome. They will pick the not ever come from behind fact, ignoring the W-L record, or the fact that he didn’t have to come from behind if you come up and take the lead.

They will rave about Savage’s cannon, and ignore the fact that under Chryst in 2012, Tino had more than 300 yards than Savage did in 2013 despite the fact that he had only 4 more passing attempts … and he didn’t even have Boyd to throw to like Savage had.

And the most poignant (alleged) fact … Savage was a sacrificial lamb last year with the OL he had, but of course the sacks the 2 years before was all the QB’s fault … all because an egotistical coach could not blame his offense for being ineffective.

Comment by wbb 10.07.14 @ 6:19 pm

Russell Wilson is shorter than Voytik and Johnny Manziel was also only 6’0″ listed.

The difference is, their OC’s put them in play situations that are more geared to their talents.

So far most of Voytik’s better and even great throws (although you wouldn’t know it based on the announcers reactions) have been off busted plays where Voytik stayed on his feet long enough to make a good throw to a moved WR.

Still don’t think they are putting him in the optimum position to succeed.

He isn’t a pocket passer.

Comment by Emel 10.07.14 @ 6:34 pm

And second the line is still pretty bad at creating and maintaining a pocket and they’re horrible at blitz pickup.

Need to roll him out from the left and then to the right with moving pockets and then have plays where you throw back to the opposite side of the field to a wide open RB like Ibrahim or Bennett.

A couple successful plays like that will have the Defense back on their heels instead of being on blitz full bore ahead mode.

Comment by Emel 10.07.14 @ 6:38 pm

The week after PSU hosts and makes a big fuss of Jerome Whitehead, he chooses Pitt … and now, 4-star QB Brandon Winbush from NJ flips from PSU to ND.

Comment by wbb 10.07.14 @ 7:00 pm

Well, after this weekend, I think we know that we’ll only go as far as Voytik can take us this year. I think that means there will be moments of levity and hope and as many moments of the opposite. The UVA game turned out to be better than I thought, and I’m glad for that. I’m just going to accept that this season will be no better than last, and be OK with it. It’s hard for me to imagine Voytik improving next year. But, I do think that next year will either be the year we let Chryst go or celebrate him for his success. At the halfway point, we’re showing our youth on the roster but even more so in the coaching booth. We need to see at least as much growth from the coaching staff as we do from the players. But, despite the wins, the program is in better shape now than it was when Chryst showed up. I was always taught that you should leave a place better than you found it, and by that measure Chryst has done well.

Comment by PittHW 10.07.14 @ 8:02 pm

Its not Voytik its the Offensive line.

Comment by alcofan 10.07.14 @ 10:00 pm

OT, but an interesting story in the Trib about Pitt assistant Marlon ‘Smoke’ Williamson’s pipeline into Detroit.

link to triblive.com

Comment by Jackagain 10.07.14 @ 10:02 pm

Savage at times last year looked pretty inept as well.

I mean we had a NFL 4rth round pick QB who made the team, Tyler Boyd, best freshmen WR in NCAAF, another WR who was drafted in the 5th round and made the Cowboys(Street).

Two RB’s that both gained around 800 yards.

And the Outland, Nagurski, Lombardi and Bednarik trophy winner.

Yet we still go 6-6. And have to play a MAC team in a bowl game.

The Football Gods don’t wear Blue & Gold obviously.

Comment by Emel 10.08.14 @ 12:24 am

At least in the bowl game, we beat THAT MAC team.
Enjoy the small glimmers of good fortune that do befall us. Akron could have been MAC Champs last year.

Comment by Dr. Tom 10.08.14 @ 5:01 am

Half full: This has been a program in total disarray and happens to be the youngest squad in the NCAA.

Half empty: Where do I begin?

Comment by wbb 10.08.14 @ 6:12 am

Here’s the thing about “comebacks by QBs”… it’s much better to not be in that position.

I’d MUCH rather have a QB who puts up enough points earlier in the games to win than one who constantly has to try to mount comebacks. But they do become necessary, I just don’t think it is that a big of a factor at all when discussing the overall worth of a QB.

I’m not saying Sunseri was great or even very good – I’m saying that at this stage Voytik isn’t either and isn’t developing a track record to point to and say he’ll ever be that good. As to his ‘intangibles’ I’m kind of seeing the opposite out there. It looks to me like he’s slipping in confidence and still being panicky when faced with any pressure at all. Sometimes he has the deer in the headlights look between plays during crunch time that we don’t want to see out there.

I just don’t expect a light to suddenly go on with Voytik along the lines of ‘the game slowing down’ or anything. What I kind of expected was that each week he’d build on the the last game’s experiences and then gradually progress to be the QB who could lead our teams to wins with his passing and on field demeanor. Of course, there is still room for that to happen this year but the sands of times are trickling toward being empty as we are going into the 2nd half of this season.

We aren’t losing games because of Voytik’s play only, although that Akron Pick-6 was a killer IMO, but we aren’t winning them on his play either. If anything our team has to be better than the last two years’ teams to keep up with the drop in QB play.

On a message board someone wrote that I have ‘given up’ on CV and that really isn’t the case. As you guys know it was more like my expectations were such that I hoped he was more of a game player than a practice player based on what I saw. Now, other guys who watched him in the practices and camps way more than I did felt differently and said things like “He’ll be fine with a few games under his belt” and I could see that POV also, and am still waiting for it to happen.

I’d love to see him be able to make those good passes that he’s had, and he’s had some real nice ones, to become the norm. But sometimes I re-watch the games and wonder if I really believe those passes are that ‘good’ or if they are normal plays for a D1 QB to make and I just revel in them because he’s not making them very often.

My fear, and it’s becoming more solid, is that Chryst will stick with Voytik through thick and thin and not sit him down, even for a couple of series per game, because Chryst is dead set on making Voytik succeed at all costs. I am a guy who usually trusts the coaching staffs to do what’s really best for the team and I did think it was the right thing to do in picking Voytik as the starter and giving him as many QB1 snaps as possible in the preseason. But now I want to see Anderson get mentally and physically ready to step in if needed and he has to have playing time to do that IMO.

Emel – I was wondering if we had over 10 wins last year if Donald would have won the Heisman – he was that good.

Comment by Reed 10.08.14 @ 6:36 am

Reed… you and I have been on the SAME PAGE for sometime now regarding Voytik.

But actually he has been WORST than I expected.

Again, instead of TAKING THE GAME to the Defense, he seems always be RETREATING in Face of the Rush.

This hasn’t changed since his High School Days.

And that’s after being tutored for THREE YEARS by Chryst.

Comment by PittofDreams 10.08.14 @ 6:53 am

The quarterback gets too much blame for the losses and too much credit for the wins.

Comment by Grizzly1 10.08.14 @ 7:08 am

Voytik was totally awful in the Akron game. His first half alone made me question wheter his game would ever be above the line.

He was better vs. VA, still not good enough. I don’t believe he will ever be great, but I haven’t given up that he may be good enough.

Time is running out though, and I wouldn’t be dissapointed if the give Trey a shot next week.

Comment by gc 10.08.14 @ 7:26 am

Grizzly1, The long time axion you listed is 100% correct.

Comment by wbb 10.08.14 @ 7:42 am

Certainly CV’s play has been below the expectations we had going into the season. What now? We’re half way thru the season: do we go with Trey who is in his last year; do we go with the true freshman; or do we stick with CV? Glad I’m not PC! Probably what makes the most sense is the suggestion that both Trey and CV play and see what shakes out. One things for sure: there are no easy answers if we want to salvage this season

Comment by pittman4ever 10.08.14 @ 8:40 am

pittman – Trey Anderson is a rsJR this season so would have next year also if needed.

I still think we stick with Voytik as the starter but get Anderson some meaningful series each game so as he’s ready.

Comment by Reed 10.08.14 @ 2:22 pm

PC was doing that in earlier games.

PC did that in the FIU game which while Anderson didn’t stay in, it did seem to ‘put a charge’ into Voytik’s play after he came back into the game.

So what has caused PC not to sit Voytik again, since he HAD done it before.

Comment by Emel 10.08.14 @ 3:19 pm

gc – here’s the thing about ‘good enough’ QBs – you never really know that they are unless you have a decent team around them to help win games. At PITT if you aren’t a “star” then you stink. Case in point –

Fans dragged Bill Stull over the coals in 2009 when we went 10-3 and said that we ‘won games in spite of him’ when in reality he had a fine year for us that season.

He completed 65% of his passes for 2633 yards, a very good 8.2 ypa and 21 TDs, and he was 10th nationally in Passing Efficiency that season. That is a is a good year no matter how you cut it. He accounted for over half of the offense and about 45% of the points scored yet you couldn’t find one PITT fan who thought he was any good.

It is all in the fan’s perceptions. – Every PITT fan seemed to love Tom Savage in ’13 yet he didn’t measure up to Sunseri’s ’12 year in any major categories, basically same number of wins, but he was the Golden Boy with the Golden Arm (even though Sunseri’s YPA was bigger) after Sunseri left… because the fan’s wanted him to be.

Comp/Att % Yds YPA TDs INTs Rating
Savage 238/389 61.2% 2958 7.6 21 9 138.2
Sunseri 256/393 65.1% 3288 8.4 21 3 151.5

BTW – we’d kill for either of those years of production this season as Voytik is limping along at a 126 QB rating.

BTW – in that ’09 year Cignetti gave Baldwin the ball to run with one time… for 61 yards and then never did it again. So – our current OC isn’t the only one who tends to forget successful plays.

Comment by Reed 10.08.14 @ 4:43 pm

I agree with the numbers but Savage was way more fun to watch because of the deep balls to Boyd and Street.

Comment by gc 10.08.14 @ 6:57 pm

Like Rutherford to Fitz. Absolutely entertaining. When you watched Sunseri you were always waiting for disaster unless he had a big lead.

Stull would have been legend if he could have pulled off the big one vs Cincinnati.

Comment by gc 10.08.14 @ 7:02 pm

gc – I’m starting to do the same thing with Voytik as I did with Sunseri – that is holding my breath and assuming something bad will happen when a pass attempt is coming. I scream “Throw the ball!! Throw the ball!!” until he actually throws it.

Didn’t do that with Stull or Savage though.

Comment by Reed 10.09.14 @ 3:16 pm

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