Figure out the route combinations in Bell's offense so that nobody was open for Eli to throw to? Or it could be just that Cal's secondary and LBs were the best we have seen this year (and hopefully the best we will see all year).
How Will Pitt Finish?
- Thread starter TheWerewolfFromTwilight
- Start date
Looked to me like plenty of guys were open underneath and Eli kept going for the home run.
The pocket was collapsing more often than not. If you generate enough pressure and cover the first read well enough, most quarterbacks aren't going to be very successful. I doubt Holstein does things such as closing his eyes and lobbing a ball into the end zone if he's confident he'll have enough time to read the field.
That makes this one hell of an important game, haha. You can't picture a scenario where they lose to Syracuse but beat Virginia and/or BC?
They just put some level of talent and competency on the field.
These are the defenses Pitt faced according to F+:
KSU 129
Cinn 62
WVU 72
YSU N/A
UNC 73
Cal 32
Cal didn’t do anything except field a defense with a pulse for the first time all season.
Holstein essentially saw MAC or Mountain West level defenses up to that point in the season. That was his “welcome to actual college football” game.
Fortunately Cuse has the 76th ranked defense, so probably a good bounce back game.
Then it’s:
SMU 27
UVA 44
Clemson 17
Lville 34
BC 42
So the defenses get more like Cal than WVU after Cuse.
But the offenses on some of these teams are closer to Cal’s than WVU’s. So Holstein might not have as much success, but also won’t need to have as much success.
It’s really SMU, Clemson, Lville. Those are the 3 games where the defense is only going to be able to do so much. And the offense isn’t going to be able to score 30 just by showing up.
But with Lville’s schedule, I can also see them in full quit mode by the end of the year. They are on the flip side of the soft schedule they had last year.
Win Thursday, and the following week at SMU doesn’t look quite as much like a loss as a lot of people (me included) thought it did earlier in the season. Then that makes Louisville look very winnable. If they take care of business the next two weeks, wow, that Clemson game is gargantuan. Find a way to beat them, and you (virtually) lock yourself into the ACC championship game.
It actually did kind of look like that on the one interception he threw.
Hopefully that becomes nothing more than a learning moment in a game we won.
In fairness, some of the secondaries we faced at the beginning of the season didn't provide much of a teaching lesson against doing exactly that. For instance, it probably wouldn't be impossible to throw for 300+ against WVU without opening your eyes for the entire game.
