I’m going to keep this brief as I try to give myself a breather after games like this. When I’m feeling ticked, frustrated and more likely to overreact. Still…
Make no mistake, it isn’t like Pitt deserved to win this game. Too sloppy. Too stupid.
I’m not saying Notre Dame did anything to cover themselves in glory. They did their best to piss it away. It was almost like an inversion of last year’s ND-Pitt game where Pitt had the game well in hand and then nearly gave it away late.
That said, this game has me highly upset for the shear volume of mistakes.
Dave Wannstedt continually preaches mistake free play. This season has shown none of that. From the execution of the players to the decisions by the coaches to the frickin’ equipment.
…the fact that it took Pitt an entire half of having guys slipping and falling all over the field to change cleats is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. What exactly was going on in pregame warmups? Isn’t that what you are supposed to do on a new field or playing surface? Aren’t guys supposed to run around, see if they can make cuts, see how the shoes they are wearing feel, see the slick spots and rough spots on a field? I can’t quite figure this one out. Tino Sunseri and Max Gruder both said a lot of players changed cleats at half-time and once they got the right cleats, they were fine. This may seem like a small thing, but it isn’t. There is something to be said for getting it right the first time.
This, unfortunately has been a hallmark of Wannstedt’s teams. They are always close but never quite make it. It’s always one play away. One mistake that shouldn’t have happened.
And yet Coach Wannstedt insists on gameplans that are supposed to minimize mistakes. At some point doesn’t the coach have to ask himself why the same thing keeps happening?
No. Of course not. There is no problem with the system. The system is fine. It’s always the execution. It is always just some bad luck. It is always something else. Someone else.
That said, I think Sunseri is still very nervous back there and so sticks with the things he is comfortable with – as you say, throwing over the middle isn’t one of them.
I also don’t accept the fact that Pitt is not a desirable coaching position. Look what Dixon has done for basketball. Pitt has football tradition, name recognition and could be poised to get back to winning ways if the right leadership was in place.
When DW was hired, i think everyone thought good hire, but had that nagging “uh-oh” because of his history. By all accounts, he is a tremendous individual, role model, cheerleader for the university, recruiter (although this is now even in question for certain areas), et.c, etc. But for God’s sake, can the university please make a move and hire a mover and shaker for football?! Football is a business – period. A sustained winning national program at Pitt would add an unreal amount of revenue.
I have to say I tend to agree with many of the thoughts that wbb has about where Pitt exists and has existed on the overall college football landscape, and where the expectations should probably be for the program (a lot of nine-win seasons.
I agree with what Chris says about the realities of Wannstedt’s recruiting – better than it was under Harris and his predecessors, but still not bringing in enough upper-echelon kids through and through to expect to routinely knock off the stronger OOC opponents.
I also agree with pretty much all of the points that Virgil made in his post above as well (as an aside, apologies for our back-and-forth a few threads back, Virgil. That was the culmination of a pretty bad few days.)
But as much as I agree with all that, I also look at the points that some others make regarding the successes that other programs have achieved and wonder, why not Pitt?
I’m not talking about Pitt existing on the same plane as Florida, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, etc.
I think what’s frustrating is that we’ve seen other perennial Top 40 or Top 50 programs elevate themselves consistently to that “next level” – teams that win 9-10 games a year in and year out and look a lot sharper doing it.
These would be programs like Oregon, Oregon State, Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa, TCU, Utah, Boise State. Hell, even WVU. They may not be programs that exist on the same level as the elite, iconic programs, but they’re there just about every year with nine or ten wins. They’re competitive in bowl games and other non-conference games against quality opponents.
I don’t know how some of these teams manage to do it, especially at recent levels. A look at the Rivals and Scout pages of Utah, Boise and TCU reveal classes chock full two and three-star players (I know rankings aren’t everything *cough*DarrelleRevis*cough*).
Perhaps the major thing is a coaching staff that knows its system and knows how to work its players into that system. It knows you don’t win by trading TDs for FGs. It knows that when you have talents like Graham and Lewis on the roster, it’s OK to get them in the same backfield and find ways to exploit matchups. It knows you do what Wally mentioned above – hit the ground sprinting at Labor Day. It knows that you don’t play to have a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter; you make sure the effing game is out of reach midway through the third quarter.
coaching
end of story
TCU has a coach that exploits matchups and they play the game to win, not field position!
Pitt football has been mismanaged since 1982, Gottfried was decent but Bozik ran him off and Wlat was different but you have to admit he got us to a BCS Bowl and Wanny will not have as many bowl apperances over the same time period.
You need an innovative coach!
Sadly we have a vanilla coach and it shows, he plays not to lose and for field position, hence 6-6 at best this year.
While our defense is down this year mostly because they can’t cover and our pass rush is crippled from not having Romeus, the theory works fine. Bama runs the same D as us, their D looked fine until Saturday.
Wanny CAN coach, his players just aren’t executing. I think alot of this has to do with the injury to Romeus, Fields getting booted and the team not being 100% behind Tino.
Switch QBs and we will see a different result. Wanny needs to make a few tweaks to how we do things, i.e. blitzing to make up for the lack of a pass rush and swtiching QBs. But we don’t need to fire the guy
Rutgers lost at home to TU FRIGGIN Lane
There have been successful head coaches who are great recruiters and poor X and O guys. They hire excellent coordinators and leave the coaching to them! Johnny Majors was an energetic CEO; not the best tactician and in his first stint he had great assistants (i.e. Jackie Sherrill and Jimmy Johnson).
There, I just figured I’d summarize every post here with one sentence so we could get onto thinking about playing a, suddenly respectable, Syracuse team Saturday.
Let Wanny shoot himself in the foot until he runs out of bullets!
Why have high expectations??? We should be happy to be on same field as elite programs!!!
Tino is 21 and has been in the program for 3 years… but he has so much “upside” from here!!!
Who cares what happens when we play real teams?? We have a chance to win the worst major conference ever!!
does that sum up all of the apologist posts?
I don’t think feared is the right word. But can you actually say those games are in the bag?
We played 3.25 quarters of a death struggle with FIU before we wore them down.
Rutgers did pretty much the same thing. So at best I think we are at parity with RU.
If we are peers to RU, Syracuse, Louisville which I suggest we are…then it is likely we could end up anywhere between 3-0 and 0-3.
I think those two are the extremes so more than likely we are looking 2-1, 1-2 in those games.
1-2 is a disaster, as that means at BEST we can expect to see with the remaining four teams a split and 5-7.
I still stick to the prediction we will be 4-3 in BE play and finish 6-6 with no bowl.
DaveD
It’s time to……..change uniforms and colors again!!!! Yes, that will solve it. I’ll be waiting for the Pederson press conference!!!!
I AM STILL WAITING FOR AN ANSWER TO MY PHIL BENNETT QUESTION…anybody want to comment?
If we tank completely this year what is going to happen to our recruiting?
Another question…does Tony Wise get involved with O line recruiting. Pitt is in a very sorry
state.
LOL
So it wouldn’t matter anyway. Lot’s of excellent points fellow Panthers, and yes we need to bring back SCRIPT PITT AND THE MUSTARD YELLOW AND OLD BLUE COLORS circa 1976-1981. It’s all in the Uni’s.
Just once, I wish somebody call a spade a spade at one of Wanny’s sermons and ask the man if he ever once considers that he, himself, is maybe, you know, part of the problem.
