Granted I'm looking at these through blue-gold colored glasses, but how does Venables get Assistant Coach of the Year when his defense finished behind two other nominees' defenses (Alabama and Michigan) in most statistical categories. And frankly, Clemson's defense took a step back from the prior year and you have 2 coordinators in Canada and Leavitt's whose units made huge (bigly even) strides with arguably less talent.
What bothers me more is the Pitt offensive line not being named a finalist of the Joe Moore award. Seriously, how can they honestly tap Iowa as a finalist? Reasons given on the press release: (1) steady improvement, overcoming injuries; (2) capped season with a 3 game winning streak with a 40-10 win over Nebraska; (3) led the B10 in red zone scoring at a 92.31% (36 of 39 possessions) and a 72% TD conversion rate; (4) averaged 4.48 yards per carry and more than 2 yards before contact; and (5) Coach Ferentz was an Asst. OL coach under Joe Moore at Pitt in 1980.
In comparison: (1) outside of the vanilla and the Miami game, Pitt's OL was strong all season and is also peaking at the end of the season; (2) Pitt also ended on a 3-game winning streak which included a road win at #2 Clemson where it hung 42 points on the Tigers vaunted defense and put up 70 points in its finale against Syracuse; (3) Pitt's red zone offense finished 10th in the NCAA (one spot ahead of Iowa) with a 92.3% (looks like the Joe Moore award website has a typo since the NCAA identifies Iowa as having a 92.1% red zone scoring percentage) and Pitt converted 43 of 52 red zone attempts into TDs (82.69%); (4) Pitt RB's averaged 5.41 yards per carry - nearly a full yard more than Iowa ball carriers (i have no clue how many yards Pitt ball carriers averaged before contact, but considering that both Henderson and Ffrench both went 70+ yards without getting touched, I'd venture to guess our average is higher); and (5) Joe Moore became a legendary OL coach during his time at Pitt far surpasses the fact that Ferentz coached with Moore at where.....Pitt (you friggin' idiots).
Let's look at some more stats/facts: Pitt's OL gave up 9 sacks (3rd in the country) compared to Iowa's 29 (tied for 90th); Pitt finished 10th in scoring offense averaging 42.3 ppg whereas Iowa tied for 77th at 26.8 ppg; Pitt had a 45.3% 3rd down conversion percentage while Iowa ranked near the bottom at 117th (32.6%); and Pitt was 43rd in total offense (447.5 yards per game) while Iowa was 120/128 at 333.3 yards per game.
The clowns on this committee should be ashamed of themselves.
What bothers me more is the Pitt offensive line not being named a finalist of the Joe Moore award. Seriously, how can they honestly tap Iowa as a finalist? Reasons given on the press release: (1) steady improvement, overcoming injuries; (2) capped season with a 3 game winning streak with a 40-10 win over Nebraska; (3) led the B10 in red zone scoring at a 92.31% (36 of 39 possessions) and a 72% TD conversion rate; (4) averaged 4.48 yards per carry and more than 2 yards before contact; and (5) Coach Ferentz was an Asst. OL coach under Joe Moore at Pitt in 1980.
In comparison: (1) outside of the vanilla and the Miami game, Pitt's OL was strong all season and is also peaking at the end of the season; (2) Pitt also ended on a 3-game winning streak which included a road win at #2 Clemson where it hung 42 points on the Tigers vaunted defense and put up 70 points in its finale against Syracuse; (3) Pitt's red zone offense finished 10th in the NCAA (one spot ahead of Iowa) with a 92.3% (looks like the Joe Moore award website has a typo since the NCAA identifies Iowa as having a 92.1% red zone scoring percentage) and Pitt converted 43 of 52 red zone attempts into TDs (82.69%); (4) Pitt RB's averaged 5.41 yards per carry - nearly a full yard more than Iowa ball carriers (i have no clue how many yards Pitt ball carriers averaged before contact, but considering that both Henderson and Ffrench both went 70+ yards without getting touched, I'd venture to guess our average is higher); and (5) Joe Moore became a legendary OL coach during his time at Pitt far surpasses the fact that Ferentz coached with Moore at where.....Pitt (you friggin' idiots).
Let's look at some more stats/facts: Pitt's OL gave up 9 sacks (3rd in the country) compared to Iowa's 29 (tied for 90th); Pitt finished 10th in scoring offense averaging 42.3 ppg whereas Iowa tied for 77th at 26.8 ppg; Pitt had a 45.3% 3rd down conversion percentage while Iowa ranked near the bottom at 117th (32.6%); and Pitt was 43rd in total offense (447.5 yards per game) while Iowa was 120/128 at 333.3 yards per game.
The clowns on this committee should be ashamed of themselves.
