Cignetti and First down

[Jsr862]

Did we throw a single pass on 1st down the entire game????

I started watching late 2nd into the 3rd every first down was a run. He does know he can throw on 1st down right?

I understand the concept run on 1st get a few yards...but when O-Line isn't protecting giving time and WR are not getting open, 3rd and 5+ is an automatic punt anyways so why not mix it up on 1st down. By end of the 3rd UNC was pinning ears back and gearing up for the run every 1st down play we had.

I can't say for late in the game on 4th because I left with like 2 mins in the 3rd last night but by that time I'm sure he was just throwing to throw by that point so I don't count them.

 

[TheWerewolfFromTwilight]

I actually thought passing on first down is what killed us against Cincy. It felt like it was incomplete pass, run, 3rd and long the whole first half.

Last night, we definitely ran on first down a lot (in the first half anyway; I stopped paying attention once it was out of hand). And the few passes we did throw on first went for like 0 - 2 yards. Narduzzi has this wet dream of every play happening behind or barely in front of the line of scrimmage, and once UNC adapted to that better it was over. Their defense was playing downhill, while ours was playing on its heels on a frozen pond.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Did we throw a single pass on 1st down the entire game????

If I counted them correctly...

Until Pitt got the ball back with one minute left in the half Pitt had run 16 first down plays. 14 of them were runs, 2 were passes. A couple of those runs were quarterback runs that might have been called passes and ended up being scrambles, I don't remember them all.

Adding in the last series of the first half, it was 19 first down plays, 14 runs, 4 passes and 1 field goal attempt in the first half.

In the second half, up until the Veilleux fumble early in the 4th quarter we only ran 4 first down plays and they were all runs. So when we got the ball back with just under 10 minutes left to go in the game it was 18-4-1.

After that we had 7 more first down plays and not surprisingly all 7 of them were passes.