Hi all. I don't post very often but I wanted to get some of my thoughts on this years roster out. I'm sure that just like me everyone is sick of the offseason BS with re-alignment rumors and Duzz's silly comments and all and you're ready for some actual real life college football. Last year in Charlotte was easily the best moment I've ever had as a Pitt fan and I would give anything to be back there. Of course if you asked most of us if we thought last year's championship was probable or even possible before the season, must of us would've laughed or shrugged it off.
The TLDR of this post is simple: the team goes as the QB goes. I honestly believe that there are about 50 Power 5 teams that are a 1st round QB away from a 10-win season. (Exceptions like Daniel Jones at Duke, for example). If KS plays like KP, we can all book or flights and hotels for the 1st Saturday in December now. If Kedon isn't a 1st round caliber QB, we have to make up the talent deficiencies elsewhere. Let's see where we can make up that ground:
Offense
QB: Basically said it all, KS needs to play like a future NFL QB. I'm hoping that a highly experienced coach like OCFCJ will identify that this team made its money throwing the ball last year and that this remains a pass 1st offense. My worry is that Duzz hired him because he promised to go back to ground and pound football. Most of HCPN's comments this past week were "Duzz being Duzz" but the trashing of Whipple really worried me, same with when he trashed Matt Canada after he left for LSU. Are we going back to a Shawn Watson offense that ran the ball 80% of the time? Probably not, but this remains and unknown and in my opinion, THE most pressing question regarding this years team
RB/OL: I think we're all confident that the run game will improve from the last few years. Everyone back in the backfield and OL. I just don't understand last year's run game struggles. Every defense knew we were going to throw and yet when we ran the ball it was 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Only 3 game last year did we avg >5 ypc: Umass, UNH, Duke. Other than Warren, do any of the OL have a NFL future? Someone who's smart help me out here. The disconnect between our experience and results is confounding.
WR/TE: There is no sugar-coating it: losing Addison is a MASSIVE loss. Some of us have understandably tried to brush it off considering the circumstances but the hole he left will be very difficult to fill. I was watching some USC Slovis highlights the other day and immediately noticed how many of his balls went to either blue chippers (it is USC after all)/ future draft picks. Drake London, Michael Pittman, Amon-Ra St Brown. Is there anyone on this roster who you can confidently say is that caliber of player? Wayne is a known quantity. Behind him you got a guy from Akron, guy from Louisiana Tech, and 3* recruits who at this point, are all projection. This group is the biggest question mark on the roster in my opinion. At TE, Bart is a great asset who I believe will thrive under OCFCJ. Other than him, nothing to be said about the transfers/ young guys. Can confidently say they won't be Krull, but can someone fill the wide-out TE hybrid role while Bart holds his roll as the H-Back/TE? Or maybe Bart goes out wide and we can turn Daniel Carter into Bart from last year. LOTS of questions.
Defense
DL: Not much to say. Studs all over the 2-deep. What a luxury. Hayes is 4th DE? I mean, we all think that guy is going to be a stud and for us he's a rotation player at best. Pay Partridge whatever he wants, he so valuable as a coach.
LB: This group is basically starting over. Dennis is Dennis, he'll compete for an All-ACC designation. Anyone feel good about the young guys? They were decent recruits I guess. Anyone feel good about the transfers? Backup/ injured guy at ND + FCS player. Anyone feel good about the position coach?! Can absolutely see Herndon Hooker & Malik Cunningham slicing these guys up with their legs. Can they cover? Or are we going to have another [game in week 3 last year that never actually happened, not sure what you're talking about].
DB: We know the drill at this point. Even the future pros are going to get burnt every now and then in this defense. Very excited to see Hill & Hallet together again. I don't think it's out of the question that they could be a stronger duo than Hamlin & Ford in 2019/2020. The CBs are on their own as always, good QBs will be able to expose them a few times every game, bad QBs are going to be in Hell.
One though on every team on the Schedule
WV: There is some weird hype happening with this team. You hear how Harrell/ Daniels are figuring it all out about as often as you hear about another guy transferring or Brown being on the hot seat.
TEN: We probably don't want this team early. They'll have some motivation and hype before they get beat back by the SEC schedule. As I mentioned before Hooker could have a field day vs our LBs
WMU: No more Ellerby/ Moore. No excuse. Win by 30. By far, the most embarrassing game of Duzz's tenure.
URI: FCS tuneup
GT: Is there anything about this program that scares you? What a flop the Collins era has been. Will miss playing them every year when divs go away
VT: Are they starting from scratch or is there any juice left over from the last staff? I'm very skeptical that this new staff (or any new staff) can get the Beamer-ball days back. May be a program of a bygone era.
UL: Another team getting some hype. They've been the Pitt of the Wannstedt/ Chryst era when it comes to close games. Is that bad luck or bad coaching?
UNC: On the one hand, Mack brings in more blue chip talent than this program has ever had. On the other hand the man is a dinosaur and probably can't coach anymore.
SU: They made an awesome hire to bring in Robert Anae from UVA to run this offense. Probably not enough to save Baber's job but if it clicks they could put up some points.
UVA: Why in the world did Armstrong come back? They are going to have the worst OL in the conf + all new coaches. He could've been starting for a top-25 team somewhere. I see this program starting from square one.
DUKE: Will be the worst team (non-FCS) we play this year. A roster that was already depleted starting over. A clear year-0 situation.
UM: It's the same old story. Elite, elite talent level and a complete disaster on the admin side. They seem to think they've figured it out this time but we've all seen this before. However, the talent alone has often been enough to beat Pitt.
Thanks for reading H2P.
The TLDR of this post is simple: the team goes as the QB goes. I honestly believe that there are about 50 Power 5 teams that are a 1st round QB away from a 10-win season. (Exceptions like Daniel Jones at Duke, for example). If KS plays like KP, we can all book or flights and hotels for the 1st Saturday in December now. If Kedon isn't a 1st round caliber QB, we have to make up the talent deficiencies elsewhere. Let's see where we can make up that ground:
Offense
QB: Basically said it all, KS needs to play like a future NFL QB. I'm hoping that a highly experienced coach like OCFCJ will identify that this team made its money throwing the ball last year and that this remains a pass 1st offense. My worry is that Duzz hired him because he promised to go back to ground and pound football. Most of HCPN's comments this past week were "Duzz being Duzz" but the trashing of Whipple really worried me, same with when he trashed Matt Canada after he left for LSU. Are we going back to a Shawn Watson offense that ran the ball 80% of the time? Probably not, but this remains and unknown and in my opinion, THE most pressing question regarding this years team
RB/OL: I think we're all confident that the run game will improve from the last few years. Everyone back in the backfield and OL. I just don't understand last year's run game struggles. Every defense knew we were going to throw and yet when we ran the ball it was 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Only 3 game last year did we avg >5 ypc: Umass, UNH, Duke. Other than Warren, do any of the OL have a NFL future? Someone who's smart help me out here. The disconnect between our experience and results is confounding.
WR/TE: There is no sugar-coating it: losing Addison is a MASSIVE loss. Some of us have understandably tried to brush it off considering the circumstances but the hole he left will be very difficult to fill. I was watching some USC Slovis highlights the other day and immediately noticed how many of his balls went to either blue chippers (it is USC after all)/ future draft picks. Drake London, Michael Pittman, Amon-Ra St Brown. Is there anyone on this roster who you can confidently say is that caliber of player? Wayne is a known quantity. Behind him you got a guy from Akron, guy from Louisiana Tech, and 3* recruits who at this point, are all projection. This group is the biggest question mark on the roster in my opinion. At TE, Bart is a great asset who I believe will thrive under OCFCJ. Other than him, nothing to be said about the transfers/ young guys. Can confidently say they won't be Krull, but can someone fill the wide-out TE hybrid role while Bart holds his roll as the H-Back/TE? Or maybe Bart goes out wide and we can turn Daniel Carter into Bart from last year. LOTS of questions.
Defense
DL: Not much to say. Studs all over the 2-deep. What a luxury. Hayes is 4th DE? I mean, we all think that guy is going to be a stud and for us he's a rotation player at best. Pay Partridge whatever he wants, he so valuable as a coach.
LB: This group is basically starting over. Dennis is Dennis, he'll compete for an All-ACC designation. Anyone feel good about the young guys? They were decent recruits I guess. Anyone feel good about the transfers? Backup/ injured guy at ND + FCS player. Anyone feel good about the position coach?! Can absolutely see Herndon Hooker & Malik Cunningham slicing these guys up with their legs. Can they cover? Or are we going to have another [game in week 3 last year that never actually happened, not sure what you're talking about].
DB: We know the drill at this point. Even the future pros are going to get burnt every now and then in this defense. Very excited to see Hill & Hallet together again. I don't think it's out of the question that they could be a stronger duo than Hamlin & Ford in 2019/2020. The CBs are on their own as always, good QBs will be able to expose them a few times every game, bad QBs are going to be in Hell.
One though on every team on the Schedule
WV: There is some weird hype happening with this team. You hear how Harrell/ Daniels are figuring it all out about as often as you hear about another guy transferring or Brown being on the hot seat.
TEN: We probably don't want this team early. They'll have some motivation and hype before they get beat back by the SEC schedule. As I mentioned before Hooker could have a field day vs our LBs
WMU: No more Ellerby/ Moore. No excuse. Win by 30. By far, the most embarrassing game of Duzz's tenure.
URI: FCS tuneup
GT: Is there anything about this program that scares you? What a flop the Collins era has been. Will miss playing them every year when divs go away
VT: Are they starting from scratch or is there any juice left over from the last staff? I'm very skeptical that this new staff (or any new staff) can get the Beamer-ball days back. May be a program of a bygone era.
UL: Another team getting some hype. They've been the Pitt of the Wannstedt/ Chryst era when it comes to close games. Is that bad luck or bad coaching?
UNC: On the one hand, Mack brings in more blue chip talent than this program has ever had. On the other hand the man is a dinosaur and probably can't coach anymore.
SU: They made an awesome hire to bring in Robert Anae from UVA to run this offense. Probably not enough to save Baber's job but if it clicks they could put up some points.
UVA: Why in the world did Armstrong come back? They are going to have the worst OL in the conf + all new coaches. He could've been starting for a top-25 team somewhere. I see this program starting from square one.
DUKE: Will be the worst team (non-FCS) we play this year. A roster that was already depleted starting over. A clear year-0 situation.
UM: It's the same old story. Elite, elite talent level and a complete disaster on the admin side. They seem to think they've figured it out this time but we've all seen this before. However, the talent alone has often been enough to beat Pitt.
Thanks for reading H2P.
