I was at the Georgia Tech game and was so upset with Pitt I vowed to not watch UNC. Took a night off and relaxed with my wife. So I only caught the condensed version this morning. I won't claim that my IQ of that game is at the level it normally is to me.
But watching the condensed game, Howell seemed like he was running for his life. I looked at the stats and he was sacked 5 times and hurried 4 times on 48 dropbacks (43 attempts + 5 sacks). So Howell was sacked or hurried on nearly 20% of his dropbacks. I don't know how accurate the "hurry" stat is. It may not even capture circumstances where Howell remained in the pocket but his feet or motion were disrupted. So it could be that Pitt affected Howell on even more than 20% of his dropbacks.
In any event, in my review of the film, there were UNC receivers open deep because they run a ton of deep concepts. But being open deep doesn't necessarily mean that everything deep should be a completion. Certainly not if you're not blocking it or the QB's play is affected by the line. At least 20% of Howell's attempts were, so those plays should be credited to Pitt and not just chalked up as "UNC didn't execute."
