We had a close loss yesterday to a Big Ten Iowa team in their hometown Kinnick Field.  The final score was 27-24 and was determined by a last second 57 yard field goal Iowa’s placekicker.

To keep all the game links in one place here they are… then we’ll move on to background issues later in the article:

Fittipaldo’s report Post-Gazette 9/20; and  DiPaloa’s Trib after game article.

There were missed opportunities to win this game, or at the very least actions could have been taken that would have given us a better shot at a win.

Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi made a couple of choices that in hindsight makes us wonder.  For instance he made a questionable decision earlier also when he chose to punt in a 4^th and inches situation when we were sitting at the Iowa xx yardline

called a Pitt time out just a split second before the missed kick that would have sent us into overtime.

Instead of overtime Narduzzi gave that second chance to Iowa to affect the win by a three point score.  I don’t think you can get too mad at Narduzzi for that move however because in his first year as a HC anywhere he is relying on ‘scripted’ situational decisions & probable outcomes.  Basically it was one of the mistakes we all knew Narduzzi was going to do in his rookie season.

Fittipaldo addresses this issue in a later article posted today where Narduzzi said this about the 4^th and inches decision.

While Narduzzi second-guessed himself for calling the timeout, he defended his decision to punt.

“I was happy with the way our defense was playing,” Narduzzi said. “I was a little disappointed with the punt we had. I wouldn’t argue with the fourth down. If you don’t get it, everyone is going, ‘Oh gosh, what did we do that for?’ Hindsight is 20-20.

“We called a sky kick. Ryan [Winslow] kind of didn’t hit it right. They get the ball at the 20 instead of inside the 10. We wanted to make them go 90, and instead it probably ended up being a net 17-yarder. If I would have known that, I probably would have gone for it. What’s the difference? But I was hoping we could make them go 90.”

I scratch my head at the last part of his quote: If I would have known that, I probably would have gone for it. What’s the difference? But I was hoping we could make them go 90.”  What the difference is a possible seven or at least three point swing in our favor

That call alone shows that Narduzzi hasn’t taken off his Defensive Coordinator’s hat for good. He had way too much faith in a defense that had already allowed the Hawkeyes to move up and down the field a time or two for 17 points.

The truth be told our defense just wasn’t good enough in the 3^rd game of the season to assume that we would hold Iowa to a punt sooner or later in their ensuing drive.  That didn’t happen and after an 11 play 80 yard drive that burnt 6:46 off the clock they scored a TD to go up 24-17.  Our defense may be able to guarantee a stop in that same situation three, four or five games from now but Saturday it couldn’t and Narduzzi should have known that based on his experience with good defenses.

When posting yesterday’s open game thread I asked two questions that I wanted answers to.  They were “how do the QBs play?” and “Can our CBs stay in man one-on-one coverage against a better passing attack and hold their own”.

I think we certainly can figure out the answer to the 1^st part and looking deeper into the Iowa passing game and our defensive play think the 2^nd part got answered also.

As to the CB’s: Iowa’s C. J. Brethard showed us exactly what a good QB does when given the opportunities. His pure stats aren’t overly impressive as he was 27/40 for 258 yards with no TDs and one interception.  But it was the way Brethard played that was a big part of the Iowa win.

In the first Iowa TD drive that put them up 10-0 he completed three passes for 55 yards. What the three passes were is the story’ a 52 yarder to go from the Iowa 19 yard line down to Pitt’s 26. His next pass was complete for a first down.  So, two plays had two important outcomes.

In their final TD drive, the one that resulted from the punt decision addressed above he took his offense 80 yards on 4/4 passing with three of those for 1^st downs and after two runs started the drive he hit a 32 yards pass to his WR who was down at the Pitt 37.

Those big plays were over our CBs and while that happens in football games it wasn’t like we were giving up double coverage in the defensive backfield to get excess pressure on the QB.   Our defense had 1 sack for 11 yards; 1 Pass Breakup and only 3 QB Hurries.  Beathard had time to throw on Saturday and made the most of it. Perhaps the 1 on 1 coverage was adequate but Brethard made the big passing plays at exactly the most opportune times.

Narduzzi himself addressed this after the game:

Narduzzi said he was pleased with his team’s “toughness” but not its pass rush.  Middle linebacker Matt Galambos had Pitt’s only sack, and Iowa quarterback C.J. Beathard took advantage of a clean pocket to complete 27 of 40 passes for 258 yards.

“I don’t know if we attacked him enough,” Narduzzi said.

To the QBs: Peterman’s ascension to the QB1 position is covered this morning by DiPaloa’s Trib article.   It should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has watched Pitt play the first three games of our schedule.

This is exactly why he’s in the driver’s seat and Voytik is sitting on the right side looking at the road map, Peterman brought Pitt back from two 7+ point Iowa leads in the 2^nd half to put us in the position to win the game.

It was evident after the Akron game that the choice by Chaney was Nate Peterman and that Peterman was going to be the starting and team leading QB going into Iowa… at least to me it was.  With that those two INTs, happening so early in the game, didn’t mean much at all.  Peterman is playing because this staff likes the vertical game and the fact that when Peterman throws the ball it goes for 1st downs most of the time.  Saturday he had 20 completions and 10 were 1st downs which is an excellent showing.

As DiPaola writes:

Peterman recovered after throwing interceptions in the first two series, one in the end zone. He finished 20 of 29 for 219 yards and two touchdowns. During the final drive, he was 9 of 11 for 81. In the second half, his numbers read 16 of 20 for 139.

“I like how he came out in the fourth quarter and tore it up,” Narduzzi said. “I thought he did a good job putting the ball where he needed to. It was an impressive drive orchestrated by him.”

Most impressive was a 19-yard completion to tight end J.P. Holtz on fourth-and-13. Peterman prefaced the play by giving Holtz a little pep talk.

“I told J.P. right before the play, you just have to win (beat the man-to-man coverage),” Peterman said. “That’s the only place to go with the ball. Like last week, J.P. made a great play, great route, great catch.

The big difference between Peterman and Voytik is their confidence in the passing game, both their own and the confidence of other’s who are watching them play..  When Peterman takes the snap and drops back the fans get excited because he makes good things happen quickly and often.  Voytik’s play however is the opposite, when he drops back you are kind of waiting for him to take off running rather than passing the ball because he can’t keep himself in the pocket.  That is a lack of confidence.

As far as the mental aspects of the passing game Peterman is obviously more poised during and after his drop back and understands how and where the pressure is coming from.  If you watch him closely you see that he moves with the pocket and steps forward to stay protected right before the throws.  He’ll leave it if necessary and can make throws on the roll, but it is his last choice to do so.

That has two benefits; it gives him more time to make a best target decision and it gives his OL the feeling that the QB trusts them to do their job.  A few years ago I asked an acquaintance who played on the offensive line in a D1 college about this and he told me that he hated when the QB bailed out too early all the time because that QB never gives the OL the time needed to form and keep the pocket.

It is a big deal to have that mutual trust between the two positions and Peterman has given that to our Big Uglies.  I’ve not talked with any Pitt offensive lineman but I wouldn’t be surprised if they feel better with Peterman behind them for that reason.

Physically Peterman is way ahead of Voytik in the passing game.  He’s stronger as shown by how he throws those deep outs on a flat line, more accurate on his throws, uses all the field in front of him, including the middle, which gives his receivers the best chance to pick up yards after the catch and to keep the Safeties from cheating toward the sidelines for their coverage.

It is safe to say that he’s our QB now and going forward. It took three weeks and Narduzzi and Chaney gave both kids a shot at playing themselves into the starting role going into the ACC schedule. I hope that no Pitt fan thinks there that there wasn’t an honest competition starting from the first day of fall camp because it was fair and balanced over the first two games.

This QB development raises some questions from onlookers and the most asked about is if Voytik will transfer out of Pitt and finish out his career somewhere else.  It’s my firm belief that Voytik isn’t going to transfer nor should he.  It isn’t like he needs to be the starter somewhere so as to impress NFL scouts because. he’ll never get a whiff of being drafted or even signing on a free agent in the NFL. He just flat out isn’t that talented.

So then the question becomes what school in any Power 5 conference is going to ask Voytik to transfer in and become their starting QB?  The truth of the matter is that he lost the starting job on a mediocre football team to someone with limited playing experience because he had played very poorly in his first three games this season.

That isn’t the type of resume’ that will make you attractive to most schools and while someone may take a flyer on him I don’t think it is in the cards for him to do so.  I’ve read that some fans think he’ll stay because he came to Pitt for a pre-Med education but he dropped that two years ago and is majoring in Finance.

The bottom line with all this is that it has become evident that losing James Conner to injury not only hurt our running game but also helped to lessen Voytik’s ability to move the ball down field under his hand. When you get 55 yards rushing at a 2.0 clip you need a QB who can get yardage in big chunks and that is why the staff has chosen Peterman.

All that said, I also think the staff will keep playing Voytik for a series or two each game to keep him sharp in case of injury or if Peterman craps the bed as a starter. I I have always liked HCs doing this but DW never seemed to want to take his QBs off the field at all and the other HCs didn’t have viable back-ups to consider playing regularly.

But we’ll see a big jump in play from Iowa to the Virginia Tech game after Peterman gets a solid two weeks of taking QB1 snaps. It is interesting to note that he also got the 1^st string snaps between the Akron and Iowa game and we saw him play better overall than we did in his first two games..  When the staff doesn’t give Voytik any 1st string snaps at all during game week it sends a firm message that the competition is over.

FYI: Here is where Pitt stands nationally in Offense, Defense and Special Teams categories after three games.