Amazing start for a team with "Majors 2 Talent"!!
- Thread starter Baddest Cat
- Start date
Pitt is better than UNC. Flip one bad decision by Eli and it’s 41-17. It was a game that was closer due to a few mistakes.
Time will tell with those other two. But we had our way with them when we had to.
I completely misread this thread title. I thought it said major 2 talent meaning we are at the sec/b10 level talent
It seems like the MO for the past few years has neen fir the D to quickly gel at around mid season and be pretty good down the stretch. If that happens, this team could easily find itself in the top 15 and maybe in the ACC championship game. The schedule is perfect for us. They just need to keep plugging away.
Interesting take. Based on this theory would the winning be attributed to luck, coaching, law of averages, a conspiracy tied to the presidential election to keep PA voters happy .. what is the root of this success?
You seem to be making a static analysis of a dynamic situation. IMHO, Pitt is a better now than it was when it played Cincinnati and West Virginia . I believe Pitt is improving faster than those teams because of having more youth playing who are gaining game experience plus a 1st year starting QB who is continuing to improve with the added game experience.
This. Pitt has improved for sure on offense and getting Fitz back and the young D getting experience has helped as well. No team is static
Hard to say how much better Pitt is than Wvu or Cinci. Its irrelevant. Pitt beat them both and that’s all that counts
You may be right but WVU may mess around and make the CFP by winning a historically weak Big 12.
"Majors 2" QB's like Matt Lytle, Sean Fitzgerald, and John Ryan were pretty terrible. Contrast to Eli Holstein and this explains a lot of it.
Also our schedule is easier than our Big East one was then (oddly enough), maybe because we also decided to play Notre Dame (always wise tbf), Texas, and Ohio State for some reason on top of in-conference Miami in their glory years. We have a lot of 50/50 games left probably but no one with the sort of talent of the Ohio State teams that would embarrass us for years back then.
We're better coached too. Like our staff wants to win and aren't mailing it in
Also our schedule is easier than our Big East one was then (oddly enough), maybe because we also decided to play Notre Dame (always wise tbf), Texas, and Ohio State for some reason on top of in-conference Miami in their glory years. We have a lot of 50/50 games left probably but no one with the sort of talent of the Ohio State teams that would embarrass us for years back then.
We're better coached too. Like our staff wants to win and aren't mailing it in
I’m always amazed that Lytle managed to make an NFL roster and even to throw a TD. I know those were bad Pitt teams, but you think even a fringe pro would have had a little more success in college.
Yeah don't know if Pitt is better than Cincy or WVU despite, you know, beating them, and not in flukey ways either
Luck.
We needed all-time miracles to beat Cincy and WVU. We arent better than those teams. Those are 50/50 games at best where we were outplayed and found a way to win. Same with a very pedestrian Cal team. We should are very lucky to be 7-4 and not 4-7. The good news is that we do have better talent than Majors 2.....but not significantly better. This is probably the least talented team SINCE Majors 2. Narduzzi has major major issues as most of his roster isnt P4 material.
Hyperbole as usual.
This team has some good young talent on the defensive side of the ball. They are just really young & thrown to the fire probably a little sooner than they should.
And yes, this team is P4 material. It's not what they need if they want to compete at a very high level, but its not totally void of talent. If it was, they wouldn’t have 7 wins.
Agree TD, thx 4 a rational post. H2P
They have beaten
- A very bad FCS team (4-8)
- arguably the worst FBS team of all-time (0-11)
- UNC was a legit win over an average P4 team
- WVU, Cal, Cincy, and Syr were luck/flukes. We did beat Syracuse by a good margin but 3 1st Half pick 6's was as much luck as anything.
We are EXTREMELY lucky to be 7-4. We scheduled well for one. A really good FCS team could beat us, but probably not. A good G5 team could have beaten us but we got Kent St. Cincy and WVU are down and they required miracles.
You are what your record says you are. Pitt found a way to win those games so that's neither here nor there.
Only you could somehow fit a 41-13 game in a category of luck/flukes.
So close wins don't count, close losses count, and annihilating an 8-3 team is luck.
I was an undergrad during Majors 2. This Isn’t remotely close. Duzz needs a strong associate head coach and for Bell to get better at calling a game and countering to defensive adjustments. But overall the program is much more steady under him. I would prefer Duz and Bell learn and get better than clean house at this point. Mainly because yes we could hit on a young hire and find a diamond in the rough. But we could also miss like we did when we Dixon left and be in the wilderness for half a decade.
To be honest you could easily argue that Virginia and Clemson were lucky to beat Pitt. They sure didn't look like the better team to me in either game, but they managed to squeak out wins here. We could just as easily be 9-2. Truth be told if Holstein doesn't get hurt we may very well be. The sliding scale works both ways so the science says we are where we are, but football is a game of inches. We have the inches to be 7-4. The hypotheticals are endless.
Was it really lucky ?
UVA took the lead in the second quarter and never gave up the lead
Against Clemson we trailed by 10 in the 4th quarter before storming back .
Then the defense collapsed again .
Louisville and smu destroyed us .
Once some tape on our offense was out - it was over
This program is very close to Majors 2 level. I was right all along. It took some all-time miracles against some mid-ass teams early in the season to mask things.
I understand we didn't have Eli or Mumpfield today. Those 2 and Reid and a few LBs are above MAC level. The vast majority of this team is MAC level. And if we're being honest, every MAC team has a few players who are above MAC level and end up transferring up so Pitt is no better than Toledo. The talent levels today were very similar.
We are back to Majors 2.
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You won't get an argument from me. We would compete for the top of that conference, but, not dominate. We do have what appears to be some good young players, but, will they develop with this meat head staff??
No, this is still one of the dumbest talking points I've ever read on this board. You get a pass only if you are under 35 and don't actually remember "Majors 2".
Majors II was a complete clown show. Went 12–32 in 4 seasons. I was so excited after that Southern Miss win. We waz back, I thought. They promptly lost 6 in a row. They also found wins against Rutgers and Temple.
I was a high school frosh then. Sat through almost every Pitt home game with my family.
In 94, they beat Ohio, Temple and Rutgers. They had Reuben Brown, Curtis Martin, Dietrich Jells and Tom Tumulty on that team.
In 95, they beat Washington St and Eastern Michigan to start 2-0, then lost 9 in a row. They almost beat Miami, losing 17-16.
In 96, they beat Kent St, Temple, BC and Rutgers.
We have better talent than Majors 2....but not by much. The schedule was tougher back then. Only 11 games. No FCS rent-a-wins to make things look better. Those teams produced NFL players Curtis Martin, Dietrich Jells, Tom Tumulty, Matt Lytle, and others. We were bad but there was SOME talent. Narduzzi has tanked the program enough that we are close to that level. Only wins over FCS and the worst FBS team of all time (Kent St) plus 2 miracles, a Cal missed chippie, and a lucky nightmare game for Kyle McCord got this team to a better record than 3-9. The schedule was very very easy. Lets say we play a good MAC team and sub out Miami for Cal and ND for Cincy and some others and we could have been 2-10. We have some good players just like Majors 2 but overall, the talent levels are similar. Need more proof:
The defense with no significant injuries or opt-outs, needed a stop on 2nd and 19 and then 4th and 6 to win the game vs a team who went 4-4 in the MAC. Couldn't get it. Then needed to make a play to prevent enough yardage for a FG. Couldn't do it. Then proceeded to go an uncanny 0-5 on 2 point conversions. That's an ACC defense against a mid-level MAC team. 0-5. Majors 2 defenses couldn’t have done any worse than that.
Seems the mac level talent is on offense and defense
Actually SMFs assessment scares the crap out of me, because it's spot on. This program looks to be trending in the wrong direction now.
Yesterday wasn't an accident.
They got penetration against our starting o-line every passing play. Yeah, we're missing ONE GUY. So what. Is he even in the top 30 tackle list on the draft sites? Wasn't in the one I looked at the other day.
And #2 abused our secondary. Again, all starters. No opt-outs. No injuries.
Do we win with Holstein? I mean, I assume so (he's way less of a sure thing than some of you want to believe). But should we need him to bully a 7-5 MAC team around?
Holstein, Taylor, Mumpfield. That was about all we were missing when it comes to who would have been starting. And Toledo wasn't at full strength, either, plus their best defender got tossed. What are the excuses?
They got penetration against our starting o-line every passing play. Yeah, we're missing ONE GUY. So what. Is he even in the top 30 tackle list on the draft sites? Wasn't in the one I looked at the other day.
And #2 abused our secondary. Again, all starters. No opt-outs. No injuries.
Do we win with Holstein? I mean, I assume so (he's way less of a sure thing than some of you want to believe). But should we need him to bully a 7-5 MAC team around?
Holstein, Taylor, Mumpfield. That was about all we were missing when it comes to who would have been starting. And Toledo wasn't at full strength, either, plus their best defender got tossed. What are the excuses?
I am certainly not happy with how this season turned out. But as someone who personally experienced Majors2 as an undergrad, and who went to almost all of those games…I find the comparison totally out of line. Narduzzi might be astonishingly clueless as a head coach. But his team’s fight their butts off as long as there is a chance to win.
Yes those 90s teams had some talent, but almost every game was a blowout. Even the rare close games to teams generally way worse than us were soul sucking losses and it never ever felt like the program had any promise for the future. No one was engaged. The fans, the players, and sadly the coaches were just out to lunch with the no engagement whatsoever. It was just a dead man walking feel with no hope for the future.
I’m not saying Pat shouldn’t be criticized or even replaced. But the program is not in dire straits like it was back then. Not even close.
Yes those 90s teams had some talent, but almost every game was a blowout. Even the rare close games to teams generally way worse than us were soul sucking losses and it never ever felt like the program had any promise for the future. No one was engaged. The fans, the players, and sadly the coaches were just out to lunch with the no engagement whatsoever. It was just a dead man walking feel with no hope for the future.
I’m not saying Pat shouldn’t be criticized or even replaced. But the program is not in dire straits like it was back then. Not even close.
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While I'd agree that Duzz's teams aren't nearly as bad, Majors II teams were also playing nearly half their games against teams that finished ranked in the top 25. Duzz played 2 this year and was humiliated by one of them.
1993 Opponent final rankings - 2nd, 7th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 22nd, 24th
1994 - 6th, 14th, 23rd, 25th
1995 - 6th, 10th, 14th, 19th, 20th
1996 - 2nd, 13th, 14th, 19th, 21st
That's 21 ranked opponents out of 44 games.
I assume Syracuse, Clemson, and SMU will all finish ranked. But it's also a time when Big Ten and SEC teams are cannibalizing each other like no conferences ever have before.
Ok, let's say Syracuse wins and gets ranked. That gives Duzz 6 ranked opponents in 25 games over the past two seasons and 10 total wins.
Go back another year and you have 8 ranked opponents in 38 games. Go back a 4th year to the magical season and you get 11 ranked opponents in 51 games. That's a far cry from the 48% that Majors II faced.
As far as cannibalizing each other, it could be argued that's a sign of increased parity thanks to the transfer changes. Which means there should be less of a gap between ranked teams and the unranked. So it should be even easier for a middle-class team like Pitt to compete.
