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GT Loss (Pitt not ready)

4upmc

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Nov 13, 2017
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PN & staff poor job! PN said he expected GT to be ready to play for the interim coach, but clearly our players didn’t get the message and thought they could just go through the motions and win.

OC called a REALLY BAD game! I know Izzy got off to a slow start, but it’s almost like our OC didn’t see the last few GT games where they had the ball run down their throats. Why does he not use Gavin more???

Davis with 2 costly turnovers.

Slovis should have been benched, this is on PN! I know pass protection isn’t good BUT Slovis is super slow in his decision making. Holds on to the ball forever, seems scared. Our WR’s don’t help but he missed several open WR’s. What was he thinking on his INT throw or the horrible intentional grounding throw??? Again slow & poor decision making. Once again PN should have made the decision to bench him.

D has to make some of those dropped INT’s and force turnovers.

Horrible loss!
 
PN & staff poor job! PN said he expected GT to be ready to play for the interim coach, but clearly our players didn’t get the message and thought they could just go through the motions and win.

OC called a REALLY BAD game! I know Izzy got off to a slow start, but it’s almost like our OC didn’t see the last few GT games where they had the ball run down their throats. Why does he not use Gavin more???

Davis with 2 costly turnovers.

Slovis should have been benched, this is on PN! I know pass protection isn’t good BUT Slovis is super slow in his decision making. Holds on to the ball forever, seems scared. Our WR’s don’t help but he missed several open WR’s. What was he thinking on his INT throw or the horrible intentional grounding throw??? Again slow & poor decision making. Once again PN should have made the decision to bench him.

D has to make some of those dropped INT’s and force turnovers.

Horrible loss!
Our WRs are bad. A lot of it is on Slovis but they're never open. Now, I'm not sure what Cignetti has against Bartholomew. Did he bang his wife? I was at the game and tried watching the WRs on their routes and they just werent open.
 
Our WRs are bad. A lot of it is on Slovis but they're never open. Now, I'm not sure what Cignetti has against Bartholomew. Did he bang his wife? I was at the game and tried watching the WRs on their routes and they just werent open.
After the first read Slovis is done. He is beyond slow in his decision making. I’m not going to declare Yarnell the next big thing after one game, but he is way more decisive and IMO would have given us a better chance tonight. Tons of teams with name QB’s have benched their starter this year mid game so why can’t we?

No clue why Gavin is not involved more but that’s on our OC.
 
Thoughts…

s-l500.jpg
 
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Some coaches get by on what they did at a program 20 years ago. Cignetti and Canada are prime examples. At his job at PITT Cignetti has no imagination other than trying to trick GT into thinking PITT would run the ball in the first 2 series but throw the ball instead. Duzz is a terrible game day coach, bad timeouts, no timeouts, guys celebrating a touchdown or tackle in the last minute while down by 12. Finally WTF is he writing down on that tablet, doesn't he "look at the tape" after a game.
 
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Our WRs are bad. A lot of it is on Slovis but they're never open. Now, I'm not sure what Cignetti has against Bartholomew. Did he bang his wife? I was at the game and tried watching the WRs on their routes and they just werent open.

There's almost no such thing as not being open in modern football. I don't care if it's back shoulder, over the shoulder toward the sideline, throwing one up to your 6'4" guy over their 5'11" guy... Someone is open on every play when you run a modern offense and your qb and receivers are on the same page. There is no excuse not to in 2022. Look at Pickett last year against Tennessee... That back shoulder pass he threw to Mack. Was that open? He identified one on one, saw the receiver was running in stride with the db and threw it behind him. Slovis would have tried eating the ball before he did that.

Cignetti seems to have a fascination with creating as much traffic as possible within ten yards of the line of scrimmage. It's odd.
 
PN & staff poor job! PN said he expected GT to be ready to play for the interim coach, but clearly our players didn’t get the message and thought they could just go through the motions and win.

OC called a REALLY BAD game! I know Izzy got off to a slow start, but it’s almost like our OC didn’t see the last few GT games where they had the ball run down their throats. Why does he not use Gavin more???

Davis with 2 costly turnovers.

Slovis should have been benched, this is on PN! I know pass protection isn’t good BUT Slovis is super slow in his decision making. Holds on to the ball forever, seems scared. Our WR’s don’t help but he missed several open WR’s. What was he thinking on his INT throw or the horrible intentional grounding throw??? Again slow & poor decision making. Once again PN should have made the decision to bench him.

D has to make some of those dropped INT’s and force turnovers.

Horrible loss!
While I agree the team looked unprepared I ask is that really out of the ordinary for a Narduzzi coached team? They've played one above avg team this year and lost and were lucky to beat a poor WVU team. Sadly this is not completely unexpected when coached by Narduzzi
 
While I agree the team looked unprepared I ask is that really out of the ordinary for a Narduzzi coached team? They've played one above avg team this year and lost and were lucky to beat a poor WVU team. Sadly this is not completely unexpected when coached by Narduzzi
In college FB with these young players you see it more and more every week, teams not ready for whatever reason. The buck stops with PN & that’s why I’m critical of PN this week being that most of these kids were not ready and expected to get an easy win. But for the most part his teams come ready to play. PN teams fight, have energy, effort etc.

Now as far as our OC and the games he has called that’s a different story…But with our QB super slow to process anything (no matter how poor the game-plan) it’s up to PN to bench him. PN should have made the call to bench Slovis and it’s a POOR decision to not make a change.
 
In college FB with these young players you see it more and more every week, teams not ready for whatever reason. The buck stops with PN & that’s why I’m critical of PN this week being that most of these kids were not ready and expected to get an easy win. But for the most part his teams come ready to play. PN teams fight, have energy, effort etc.

Now as far as our OC and the games he has called that’s a different story…But with our QB super slow to process anything (no matter how poor the game-plan) it’s up to PN to bench him. PN should have made the call to bench Slovis and it’s a POOR decision to not make a change.
Since Narduzzi has been HC ,Pitt routinely is at the top or near in penalties against that is indicative of an undisciplined poorly coached team.
 
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I think Slovis needs more time, I know I'm in the minority here. But I also can't help but wanting to see Yarnell play, I do think he will do well. Either way, as many have alluded to, our offense is archaic, its not fun to watch and as of last night, literally accomplished nothing. It did nothing to maximize whatever talent we do have on the field.
 
Some coaches get by on what they did at a program 20 years ago. Cignetti and Canada are prime examples. At his job at PITT Cignetti has no imagination other than trying to trick GT into thinking PITT would run the ball in the first 2 series but throw the ball instead. Duzz is a terrible game day coach, bad timeouts, no timeouts, guys celebrating a touchdown or tackle in the last minute while down by 12. Finally WTF is he writing down on that tablet, doesn't he "look at the tape" after a game.
Are you actually equating Canada’s performance at Pitt to Cig’s so far?

Maybe you missed 2016. That offense was a Ferrari driven by a Formula 1 driver, this offense is a Gremlin driven by your grandma.
 
PN & staff poor job! PN said he expected GT to be ready to play for the interim coach, but clearly our players didn’t get the message and thought they could just go through the motions and win.

OC called a REALLY BAD game! I know Izzy got off to a slow start, but it’s almost like our OC didn’t see the last few GT games where they had the ball run down their throats. Why does he not use Gavin more???

Davis with 2 costly turnovers.

Slovis should have been benched, this is on PN! I know pass protection isn’t good BUT Slovis is super slow in his decision making. Holds on to the ball forever, seems scared. Our WR’s don’t help but he missed several open WR’s. What was he thinking on his INT throw or the horrible intentional grounding throw??? Again slow & poor decision making. Once again PN should have made the decision to bench him.

D has to make some of those dropped INT’s and force turnovers.

Horrible loss!
To me the worst part was that GT sucked early on and we just let them stay in the game.
 
Are you actually equating Canada’s performance at Pitt to Cig’s so far?

Maybe you missed 2016. That offense was a Ferrari driven by a Formula 1 driver, this offense is a Gremlin driven by your grandma.
Canada was 9999999999999999999 times the OC Cig was, on his best day, and we had Cig another time (and he failed) so it wasn’t even in doubt. I won’t say Pitt didn’t try adequately to retain Canada; I believe it when they say they did try. But other than a single fleeting season last year where it took a Heisman and a Billitnikoff candidate to execute adequately, the offenses have uniformly stunk since then (and before then for that matter).

Pitt needed to continue bringing in unorthodox, hungry, exciting, ambitious OC like Canada (2016 edition) because we’re never, ever going to have the pure five star talent to line up and run a Rock em Sock Em Robot offense that Duz so desperately craves.

I don’t blame him for not being able to recruit such talent; cheating and payola are necessary for that, and Pitt refuses to allow its boosters to run wild like we always should have. Note that it’s legal, It’s too late for Pitt, our boosters were driven away. That makes it more imperative than ever to have smarter coaches than the enemy.

This season we really could be 1-4 because the offense of the past three weeks was so bad that we really deserved to lose; we’re honestly quite fortunate to not be far, far worse off. Maybe that would actually been better, it would have made subsequent bad losses still ahead to have stung less.
 
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Are you actually equating Canada’s performance at Pitt to Cig’s so far?

Maybe you missed 2016. That offense was a Ferrari driven by a Formula 1 driver, this offense is a Gremlin driven by your grandma.
Given Ferrari’s penchant for stupid pit wall decisions and cars breaking I think I’d use a different team for my example. I’d suggest a Red Bull or a Mercedes from the hybrid era.

Now, if you mean a Michael Schumacher Ferrari, then heck yes.

;)
 
Are you actually equating Canada’s performance at Pitt to Cig’s so far?

Maybe you missed 2016. That offense was a Ferrari driven by a Formula 1 driver, this offense is a Gremlin driven by your grandma.
I would read his comment as criticizing Canada at the Stillers currently, where their offense is moribund and historically awful.

The 2016 Pitt Canada offense was arguably the best the team has ever had, including last year's. They scored at will on basically most teams they played and did it without a Heisman Candidate and Biletnikoff winner. It just so happens their defense was inversely as awful so they lost several winnable games that year. Canada's play-calling in the Clemson upset in Death Valley to this day is one of the best called games I've ever seen. iirc, LSU offered Canada over 3 million to take over their offense the next year and there was no way we were going to keep him.
 
We have yet to beat a legitimately good team. We took TN to OT and lost, and that was it. Every other team we've played is bad to pathetic.

Now VT comes into town and we'll see if there are any changes in the offense or if this team is better prepared to play the game. I don't have a good feeling about any of that.
 
I would read his comment as criticizing Canada at the Stillers currently, where their offense is moribund and historically awful.

The 2016 Pitt Canada offense was arguably the best the team has ever had, including last year's. They scored at will on basically most teams they played and did it without a Heisman Candidate and Biletnikoff winner. It just so happens their defense was inversely as awful so they lost several winnable games that year. Canada's play-calling in the Clemson upset in Death Valley to this day is one of the best called games I've ever seen. iirc, LSU offered Canada over 3 million to take over their offense the next year and there was no way we were going to keep him.
Yeah everyone knows we tried hard to keep him but LSU just drove the price too high. And then our head coach, who in the same sentence admitted offering him $1 million to stay, bashed him as not being “that good” or worth the $$$.

“And I got him a lot of money. I got him a million at our place. So it’s like, maybe he went for $1.5 [million], and I got him a million, which is just crazy. I don’t even think he was even worth a million. I mean, he wasn’t even that good.”

it’s comical how the two times we’ve had excellent offenses, Dooz has bashed the outgoing OCs, but had lots of nice things to say about guys like Watson and Chaney when they split.
 
Canada is better than Cig, but the guy had 1 really good season in his career. It is funny that some of you act like he’s Don Coryell.
 
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Canada is better than Cig, but the guy had 1 really good season in his career. It is funny that some of you act like he’s Don Coryell.
Canada had a ton of talent on that team. He also maximized that talent. Other than his one year that was good at Pitt, he’s been average it below average.
 
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PN & staff poor job! PN said he expected GT to be ready to play for the interim coach, but clearly our players didn’t get the message and thought they could just go through the motions and win.

OC called a REALLY BAD game! I know Izzy got off to a slow start, but it’s almost like our OC didn’t see the last few GT games where they had the ball run down their throats. Why does he not use Gavin more???

Davis with 2 costly turnovers.

Slovis should have been benched, this is on PN! I know pass protection isn’t good BUT Slovis is super slow in his decision making. Holds on to the ball forever, seems scared. Our WR’s don’t help but he missed several open WR’s. What was he thinking on his INT throw or the horrible intentional grounding throw??? Again slow & poor decision making. Once again PN should have made the decision to bench him.

D has to make some of those dropped INT’s and force turnovers.

Horrible loss!

Disappointing in so many ways. Table was set for another run to Charlotte, plus we had a top 25 ranking. I guess we could see another 7-5 Coastal champion like 2018, but not sure how much that means. Rankings generate buzz in college football and could have moved to potentially top 15 over the next several games. Now it is gone.

This really needed to be another year with a Top 25 finish as next is looking somewhat challenging with the graduations and typical Pitt OOC schedule. I said Narduzzi needed a top 25 finish last year to save his job and he delivered, but it will be extremely disappointing not to finish there again given the way the schedule is playing out. His job is safe, but looking more like back to the 7-5 seasons and trips to the schmuck bowl in schmuckville Alabama.
 
PN & staff poor job! PN said he expected GT to be ready to play for the interim coach, but clearly our players didn’t get the message and thought they could just go through the motions and win.

OC called a REALLY BAD game! I know Izzy got off to a slow start, but it’s almost like our OC didn’t see the last few GT games where they had the ball run down their throats. Why does he not use Gavin more???

Davis with 2 costly turnovers.

Slovis should have been benched, this is on PN! I know pass protection isn’t good BUT Slovis is super slow in his decision making. Holds on to the ball forever, seems scared. Our WR’s don’t help but he missed several open WR’s. What was he thinking on his INT throw or the horrible intentional grounding throw??? Again slow & poor decision making. Once again PN should have made the decision to bench him.

D has to make some of those dropped INT’s and force turnovers.

Horrible loss!
Not only was Pitt not ready for G Tech but they are not even close to being ready to take that next step to the next level
 
I don't know what happened between HCPN and Whipple but we had our best offense in a decade and we somehow lose the OC. I'm not saying Whipple was the end all (we were all unsure before last year) but people were open. Kenny was fantastic and Addison opened up lanes for other players, but the change at OC seemed uncalled for. The players have to get tired of it.

Is HCPN that hard to work with on the offensive side of the ball?
 
I don't know what happened between HCPN and Whipple but we had our best offense in a decade and we somehow lose the OC. I'm not saying Whipple was the end all (we were all unsure before last year) but people were open. Kenny was fantastic and Addison opened up lanes for other players, but the change at OC seemed uncalled for. The players have to get tired of it.

Is HCPN that hard to work with on the offensive side of the ball?
Duz send to fluctuate between realizing it’s 2022 and a modern offense is needed to actually win, but after getting one, then hunkering down and going back to 1950s mode. Because he’s a defensive guy and (as he put it after the 77-61 game) “all this offense sickens me”.

After a few years of pass-happy Whip, we’re in Ground Duz mode again, which of course will fail, but that burden will likely have to born for another year or two of 6-6 slog fests and empty stadiums and noon starts. Then he’ll look to bring in someone more dynamic again, which of course he’ll then be sickened by soon thereafter even if it succeeds.
 
Canada had a ton of talent on that team. He also maximized that talent. Other than his one year that was good at Pitt, he’s been average it below average.
Look at Tony Elliott's offense last year at Clemson vs his offense with DeShaun, Trevor, etc.

It's almost like these OCs succeed when they have superior talent and fail when they don't.
 
Look at Tony Elliott's offense last year at Clemson vs his offense with DeShaun, Trevor, etc.

It's almost like these OCs succeed when they have superior talent and fail when they don't.

whatever happened to Joe Brady? He was the next superstar OC after the record setting year at LSU. A prime example of superior talent making coaching look better than it is.
 
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