Former Panther wide receiver Mike Shanahan is the Offensive Coordinator for Indiana. He has the Hoosiers 5-0. Runs an offense similar to the one Pitt is running. Indiana is pretty darn good on offense although I am not crazy about their defense.

If Pitt should lose our head coach or OC down the road I would take a long look at Mike S.

If you have X (twitter) check out Calgorithm. They are the newest ACC members from Cal and their posts are clever and hilarious. They are currently destroying all things FSU.

How in the hell can Lunardi be picking us as the last team in when practice hasn't even started yet. He needs to get a life!

He's very good. Could spell trouble next week unless our line steps up big time.

Nm

A few pre game thoughts....

• Expect GT to come with a lot of energy and intensity following Friday's sweep at the hands of SMU. Not finishing their week at 0 - 2 will be a big motivator.
• GT has played 36 sets.....losing 10 of them....resulting in a 8 -2 record
• In sets lost....GT is losing by 4.4 pts/set.
• Pitt on average outscores GT by about 2 pts/set and gives back approximately 2 pts/set less than GT......which matches almost exactly the GT 4.4 pts/set loss margin.
• Pitt's margin of victory in their 33 set winning streak is an astounding 9 pts/set....25 - 16. On the other hand....GT has never lost a set by more than 6 pts.
• Pitt has been running their opponents out of the gym. GT has never been boat raced in the sets they have lost. Something has to give!

A few keys to victory....

• Holding down GT's attack leaders....Bertolino, Otene, and Mendes. For example....SMU held Bertolino and Otene to 19 kills total and they had 11 attack errors. That's how to beat GT.
• Which VVG will show up? She's had a couple of underwhelming matches of late. If she plays to the potential we know she has then watch out.
• Will Klika and Fairbanks bring their usual outstanding performances? I think so.
• Would be great for our MB's to shine....and give us just a bit more than our average 2.6 blk/set.
• Pitt gives back a little more than 6 pts/set from errors (attack, serve, receive, and blocking). That's impressive. We must maintain that for this match.

This is going to be a tough match because it's on GT's home court.

Former Panther DJ Turner scored what I believe is his first NFL TD for the Raiders today.

(Warning: Turn down the sound as Beth Mowins is announcing the game.)
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PITTSBURGH – Pitt guard Amsal Delalic suffered a right hand injury in practice Wednesday afternoon and is expected to be sidelined for six weeks.

"Amsal's injury is a tough setback, but one we certainly expect him to make a full recovery from," said head coach Jeff Capel. "We are excited about what we have seen from Amsal throughout the offseason and eager to have him back at full strength."

A native of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Delalic is a top-30 European prospect who has been playing professionally in the Bosnia Division I and ABA League Second Division.

Last season with Borac Netkar, Delalic averaged 13.9 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game, while shooting over 40 percent from three-point range and 80 percent from the foul line in 23 Bosnia Division I games. He also delivered 13.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 2.2 assists in 12 ABA League Second Division contests. The 6-7 wing went 82-of-205 (.400) from three-point range and scored 483 points with 25 double-figure scoring efforts in 35 games with Borac Nektar last season.

Delalic began playing with Borac Nektar in 2021-22, while also playing with Igokea from 2020-22. He also has international experience playing with the Bosnia & Herzegovina national team in the 2020 U16 European Championship and in the 2023 European World Cup qualifier.

Pitt opens the season Monday, Nov. 4 against Radford.

France
Spain
Colombia
Uruguay
Japan
South Korea
Egypt
Senegal

The usual 16 CONCACAF teams + the 8 others.

This is actually a great idea as its essentially a defacto Confederations Cup and gives USA, Mexico, and Canada meaningful games an a "do-over" from their poor Copa play.

What has yet to be ironed out is which players will play for these teams and who will get released by their clubs since the Club World Cup is supposed to be taking place at the same time. My guess is that the Gold Cup will start towards the end of the Club World Cup now and CONCACAF will allow teams to add Club World Cup players to Gold Cup rosters in the middle of the tournament. That's how they used to do it when the Gold Cup was played in Confed Cup years. So Real Madrid wins the Club World Cup and then their players join France and Spain for the Gold Cup knockout round. Something like that.

We deserve a good Qb and we got one, let's be happy and enjoy the fruits of our pain! Eli came here to be great and I don't think he would transfer and have to learn a new offense his last potential year before going pro! He is here to stay! H2P!

SMU right down the field. They look fast - but FSU is straight up garbage this year.

Would be nice to see a Bearcat win tonight.

Friday
7:30: ESPN - Virginia Tech @ #7 Miami

Saturday
noon: ACCN - Western Kentucky @ Boston College
noon: CW - Northern Illinois @ NC State
3:30: ESPN2 - North Carolina @ Duke
3:30: ACCN - Louisiana @ Wake Forest
7:00: ESPN - Stanford @ Clemson
8:00: ACCN - Florida State @ SMU

Stream-only games
noon: ACCNX - Holy Cross @ Syracuse
3:30: Peacock - #15 Louisville @ #16 Notre Dame

Light schedule this week.

- Cristobal is going to blow a few games this year but this wont be one. VT is bad and I thought Pry was a bad hire.

- NC State is also really bad. They get beat by NIU.

- Duke over UNC. UNC comes into our game desperate. Narduzzi isnt good off a bye if I remember correctly.

- Never quite understood why Louisiana-Lafayette got to have the title of "Louisiana" and Louisiana-Monroe had to maintain the branch campus sounding name.

- I think SMU found their QB so they get it done vs FSU

- Stinks that Louisville/ND is on Peacock. I believe ND's NBC deal calls for 1 Peacock game per year.

- I dont understand why ESPN doesnt do 4 game windows on ACCN when possible. This week, they should have done:

11AM - Holy Cross @ Syracuse
2:15 - WKU @ BC (can leave the Syr blowout early)
5:45 - Louisiana @ Wake
9:15 - FSU @ SMU

Ole Miss, KSt, Baylor, UAB, and Tulane all kick at 11AM on Saturday. We need to normalize 11AM ACC kicks. They are fine for 1 home game per year or every 2 or 3 years.

Utah kicks at 10:15 EDT/8:15 MDT which is the same as my 9:15 EDT/8:15 SMU proposal. An 8:15 local time kick on a weekend evening is fine.

Man, unbelievable how the ACC refs were favoring Wake Forest. Sad. 4 Targeting penalties???? A 100% Bogus Roughing the Passer penalty on the last drive.

PS: Get a band with more than 40 members Wake.

Drops to #70 in the National university rankings, sits at #32 public university. 14th of 18 ACC schools.

This is down from #57 national & 18th public in 2020.

Pitt is ranked behind by Ohio State, Maryland, Rutgers, Purdue, Georgia, Texas A&M, FSU, Minnesota, NC State, UMass, Michigan St, Miami, and Penn State.

Part of these changes are due to continual changes in US New's methodology, but it is not a good trend, regardless, and it absolutely impacts Pitt's ability to recruit students.

1. Princeton
4. Standford
6. Duke
17. Cal
18. Notre Dame
21. Carnegie Mellon
24. Virginia
25. North Carolina
33. Georgia Tech
37. Boston College
46. Wake Forest
51. Virginia Tech
54. Florida State
58. NC State
58. Villanova
63. Miami (7 schools tied for #63; Pitt is one spot below this)
63. Penn State
70. Pitt
70. UConn
70. Rensselaer Polytechnic
73. Syracuse
80. Clemson
91. SMU
98. Temple
165. Duquesne
179. Louisville
209. Chatham
214. Robert Morris
220 West Chester
220 WVU

Regional Colleges North:
#13 Pitt-Johnstown
#20 Pitt-Bradford

Liberal Arts Colleges National
#187-204 PItt-Greensburg

About to close week #2 up today. My biggest take...what a complete and diabolical mess Everton are right now. Their current ownership ran that club into the ground.

I think this is the year their bubble burst and they open their brand new stadium up for the 25-26 season in the Championship.

Leicester may be relegated before they know it....they have an Everton/Forest type point deduction on the horizon for their spending in the few years leading up to their relegation year. Ipswich I don't think will have the vigor and fight that Luton did last year and capture the common American fan. I think Palace may get dragged down into the muck to, but not relegated, I don't think they've spent too much and have lost a few and could lose Geuhi. Overall I think the bottom is gonna be similiar to last season with more than just 3 in relegation contention and that the point totals are gonna be low. Meaning 35 points could be the new 40 point standard.

I don't really care about the top, but I'm hoping for Aston Villa to do well because they're not a big 4.

I'm just glad Saturday and Sunday mornings are back

Not impressed at all
SMU goes down and Duke looks terrible vs a lousy Northwestern team

Why is the 19th ranked team an 18 pt dog to the 9th ranked team? Vegas is basically saying psu is really good, or illinois is absolute ass and the voters know nothing. Unless I am missing some big injury or something.

It looked like Georgia didn't even come off the bus at the start and were down big. They came all the way back to take the lead at about 3 minutes left and Bama just scored a touchdown 13 seconds later. Georgia driving and the 2 minute timeout just occured. Unbelievable.

This has turned into a great game. This quarter is bonkers.

To join the WPIAL as a 3A participant.

Marched right down the field 7-0

Pitt was invited to its first bowl game in like forever. The Fiesta Bowl under Majors 1.
The amazing thing was, the players were absolutely THRILLED that they got to go to Arizona and came back with a bag of trinkets, on the house!
Some of them would go on to play pro football, or be coaches or dentists and doctors, or successful business men, etc. but you'd have thought they were given the Crown Jewels of England!

Contrast that with today. How far we've come, or how far we've fallen!