There are many valid opinions on what the issue is with Pitt's offense. Most think Pickett is at least average, some do not - I like KP but see both sides. The feeling on Whipple seems to be slightly con - I am on the fence but see both sides. Almost everybody sees room for improvement on execution - fewer drops and pre-snap penalties - I see this too. What I do not understand, and what seems maddeningly fixable, is the disparity between the performance in the first and second halves of ballgames. You can say Pickett is not good, that Whipple is a fool, that we have serious positional weaknesses (RT, TE, possibly RB) and that we have too many drops/penalties......BUT.....if we would just perform on offense like we do in the first half, in the second half, we would be a much better club - top 15 caliber I would say. Saturday was the perfect example. From memory, at the half on Saturday, we had scored 20 points and I think were around 240 yards of offense. We were on track to exceed the consensus number of points that we would need to win (roughly 35) and if we had come close the game would have been over in the third quarter. Yet, the same QB, same OC, same offensive line....same everything....went out and generally misfired to a total of 3 points in the second half. WHY IS THIS ???? We had the same phenomena last year that caused too many games to be close and possibly in the case of Miami, directly resulted in a loss that seriously impacted our chance to win the Coastal. What's worse is that when we had to come back, we did - witness Duke and UCF. So we CAN score in the second half, we just don't seem to have the will (is that the right word ?) to do so.
The only conclusion that I can draw is that our staff tightens up the offensive game plan to be more risk averse, which results in fewer points but probably not fewer turnovers. I really hope that this is not the case because it would be a misdiagnosis of what winning at the higher level of college football requires - never stop scoring - and we have that potential this year. I hope that our staff and team do not have a top down directive to tighten up up in the second half. That would put a ceiling on this team that definitely should not be there.
The only conclusion that I can draw is that our staff tightens up the offensive game plan to be more risk averse, which results in fewer points but probably not fewer turnovers. I really hope that this is not the case because it would be a misdiagnosis of what winning at the higher level of college football requires - never stop scoring - and we have that potential this year. I hope that our staff and team do not have a top down directive to tighten up up in the second half. That would put a ceiling on this team that definitely should not be there.
