On Saturday, September 13th our PITT Panthers will take on the FIU Golden Panthers on their home turf in Miami, FL at FIU Stadium (20K seating). FIU, a university with 37,475 students, is in Conference USA (CUSA) and has a 1-1 record at this point in the season. They lost their opener to Bethune-Cookman 14-12 then went on to beat a NEC member school in Wagner University by a score of 34-3. FIU is coached by an old NFL head coach Ron Turner who took over from Mario Cristobal a year ago. In Turner’s first season with FIU they posted a 1-11 record and just missed getting into a bowl game.
The Golden Panthers are returning 10 starters on offense and seven on defense. They are coming off a poor 1-11 year in 2013 where their losses were by an average score of 37-10! Phil Steel’s forecast for them is four wins and eight losses and you can see that they have a way to go to be competitive at this level of college ball.
So far this season FIU looks like a team with two identities, a poor offensive team with a solid defense to go along with it. On defense they are ranked pretty well nationally with: 6th in Scoring defense (8.5 ppg); 9th in total defense; 17th in passing defense (134.5 ypg) and 26th in rushing defense (91 ypg). That is some fine defensive play even considering the level of competition they had.
Pitt is headed south for a matchup with the Golden Panthers of Florida International and as Chas mentioned earlier, there’s not a lot of important information to discuss. FIU is a team in rough shape; they’re one of the worst teams in FBS and have a true freshman starting at QB. To be blunt, if Pitt isn’t comfortably ahead in the 4th quarter it is cause for concern. The goals for the game are 1) health 2) comfortable win and 3) get backups good in-game experience. Anything beyond that is a bonus. Another statistically great game from James Conner would be a boon to his Heisman whispers.
With that said, it feels a bit prudent to look ahead a little. Pitt’s next two BCS opponents, Iowa and Virginia, have key games this week. Iowa plays in-state rival Iowa State and Virginia faces off against the newest ACC member, Louisville (Louavuhl). Thus far, Iowa appears to be a team that is trending lower than expectations and Virginia is exceeding them. (more…)
I am sure the players, coaches and announcers are completely focused on the upcoming opponent this Saturday. But I can’t say I am. There is no way to really describe FIU as a legitimate threat. They are a complete mess from the top of their athletic department down.
You can see the utter lack of concern for this week in the stories. They are almost bye week stories. Talking about individual players. The mindset of the team. A complete dearth of discussion of the actual opponent. And, well, I’m fine with that.
