My thoughts on the game without rewatching it yet, or reading much of the boards yet:
Things I was right about:
-UCF QB is a stud. Yeah the pressure rattled him early in the game, but overall he runs that offense really well, and if there’s another QB who throws a more accurate bomb than that kid, I’d like to see him.. He was inches away from having 2 more - ended up barely out of bounds.
-UCF’s WR duo is excellent.. Took them a while to get going, but they are really good.. As stated above - it’s helps when the QB drops dimes in your pocket from 45yds away, but give them credit too - they don’t drop them.
-Pitt was gonna have to finally get some turnovers to win.. Got 2 INT.. Neither ended up in points for Pitt, but they were still big.
Things I was right about, but also wrong:
-Pitt was gonna need a ST play or two to win.. Well they blocked a punt for a TD.. That certainly qualifies.. But they also gave up a punt for a TD, and went 0-2 on very make-able FG’s while UCF went 2-2.. So to simplify - UCF wins ST by 6pts.. So, yeah - I was probably wrong..
Pitt’s kicker and punter have regressed this year - not ideal.. I think the punter’s top 5 punts this year were all vs PSU.. He seems to pin it inside the 10 when it’s a bit of a pooch - he’s good at that - but when you need a high, deep punt to change fields, you’re at best getting one of those, and that’s not good.
Things I was wrong about:
-UCF’s OL wasn’t very good.. They were saying it in the Stanford game and also the lead up to this one, that this was the best OL in UCF’s history.. Frankly, I don’t care if we’re talking about Edinboro - the best OL in any school’s history should be at least solid, right? They didn’t look very good.
Gave up 6 sacks - and I could be wrong, but not all of those were exactly off of exotic blitz’s.. They looked pretty good against Stanford, but I was surprised how Pitt won that battle hands-down.
-UCF’s Defense isn’t that great either.. They are most definitely athletic, and they were covering WRs pretty tight when they played man2man, but as a collective - not overly impressed - they’re maybe a bit above average.
Things I’m mostly willing to happily admit:
-Pitt has some good players on defense, a couple/few at every level.. and they have some depth on D too.. Lots of subbing (when they had the chance).. I think the plan was to use 22+ players on D vs UCF - I believe it. Nauseating that they lost 2 impact starters on the DL to start the year, cuz this defense could be scary - top 10-15ish.
-Paris Ford has been rock solid. He barely played the past 2 years, so when they announced he was a starter so early in camp, I was a little concerned/skeptical.. He’s been the most consistent and effective DB out of a group that’s played pretty well overall.
-Narduzzi (and I get the feeling a huge part of it is Bates, as it should be, he’s the DC after all) finally showed they knew what they were doing vs this kind of offense.. Bates did sound like they were confident and ready for them in the days leading up to the game.. I’ll pay more attention to his interviews as the year goes on.. Granted - as I just said - Pitt has some good players on D, and I’m convinced more than ever, u need really good players to beat that team (still gave up 28pts of offense).. But u have to have the right strategy, and u have to be prepared. Give UCF credit - they made some plays - they’re good.. But only once the whole game did I think Pitt looked lost/confused on defense - the play where the threw to a wide open kid near the goaline cuz the two corners tried to swap who they were covering 53yds across the field right before the snap.
Dumb mistake - but otherwise, these guys were ready.
So did Pitt just create the general blueprint to beating those guys? Well, maybe:
*Be prepared for the tempo.
*Play your base defense mostly and get pressure up the middle, cuz u have better players there.
*Cover well on the back end and hope the pressure gets there before Gabriel starts dropping dimes from the sky.
*Have depth.
To wrap that thought up - only teams with really good defenses/depth are gonna beat them.. I do think they’re very good at what they do - no wonder they’re undefeated in the regular season for 26 straight games.. Those teams don’t have the depth and overall talent. But Power5 teams who are prepared and have good defenses can beat them.. PSU would shut them down, I say - especially after watching how Pitt approached the game.. So when UCF runs the table on the rest of the season, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a top 12 team take them to the woodshed in the bowl.
(Yeah that pretty much happened last year when LSU handled them in the bowl, but that was without their stud QB - there was always gonna be a question mark about that game).
In hindsight, maybe this is what I saw last week:
-Stanford flew across the country and played against a blazing offense that they’d never seen before.. and they were totally unprepared.. If they have a home-home scheduled, I’m curious to see how that game plays out next year. Of course, it looks like Stanford only gave up 21 to Oregon last night.. Do they still play that sort of basketball on grass offense? IDK.. And there’s the very real probability that Stanford just isn’t very good this year. Time will tell.
Last quick thoughts:
#22 - the freshman should see 12-15 touches/game is his body can hold up.
We left 100+yds on the field from bad passes to open players.. Kenny played with a ton of poise yet again, but he’s missing badly sometimes.
UCF gifted us a TD in the 4thQ.
Did they have 45 yds of personal foul penalties, or did it just seem like it on that possession?
Great game - I so badly wish we didn’t play VA til later in the season.
Things I was right about:
-UCF QB is a stud. Yeah the pressure rattled him early in the game, but overall he runs that offense really well, and if there’s another QB who throws a more accurate bomb than that kid, I’d like to see him.. He was inches away from having 2 more - ended up barely out of bounds.
-UCF’s WR duo is excellent.. Took them a while to get going, but they are really good.. As stated above - it’s helps when the QB drops dimes in your pocket from 45yds away, but give them credit too - they don’t drop them.
-Pitt was gonna have to finally get some turnovers to win.. Got 2 INT.. Neither ended up in points for Pitt, but they were still big.
Things I was right about, but also wrong:
-Pitt was gonna need a ST play or two to win.. Well they blocked a punt for a TD.. That certainly qualifies.. But they also gave up a punt for a TD, and went 0-2 on very make-able FG’s while UCF went 2-2.. So to simplify - UCF wins ST by 6pts.. So, yeah - I was probably wrong..
Pitt’s kicker and punter have regressed this year - not ideal.. I think the punter’s top 5 punts this year were all vs PSU.. He seems to pin it inside the 10 when it’s a bit of a pooch - he’s good at that - but when you need a high, deep punt to change fields, you’re at best getting one of those, and that’s not good.
Things I was wrong about:
-UCF’s OL wasn’t very good.. They were saying it in the Stanford game and also the lead up to this one, that this was the best OL in UCF’s history.. Frankly, I don’t care if we’re talking about Edinboro - the best OL in any school’s history should be at least solid, right? They didn’t look very good.
Gave up 6 sacks - and I could be wrong, but not all of those were exactly off of exotic blitz’s.. They looked pretty good against Stanford, but I was surprised how Pitt won that battle hands-down.
-UCF’s Defense isn’t that great either.. They are most definitely athletic, and they were covering WRs pretty tight when they played man2man, but as a collective - not overly impressed - they’re maybe a bit above average.
Things I’m mostly willing to happily admit:
-Pitt has some good players on defense, a couple/few at every level.. and they have some depth on D too.. Lots of subbing (when they had the chance).. I think the plan was to use 22+ players on D vs UCF - I believe it. Nauseating that they lost 2 impact starters on the DL to start the year, cuz this defense could be scary - top 10-15ish.
-Paris Ford has been rock solid. He barely played the past 2 years, so when they announced he was a starter so early in camp, I was a little concerned/skeptical.. He’s been the most consistent and effective DB out of a group that’s played pretty well overall.
-Narduzzi (and I get the feeling a huge part of it is Bates, as it should be, he’s the DC after all) finally showed they knew what they were doing vs this kind of offense.. Bates did sound like they were confident and ready for them in the days leading up to the game.. I’ll pay more attention to his interviews as the year goes on.. Granted - as I just said - Pitt has some good players on D, and I’m convinced more than ever, u need really good players to beat that team (still gave up 28pts of offense).. But u have to have the right strategy, and u have to be prepared. Give UCF credit - they made some plays - they’re good.. But only once the whole game did I think Pitt looked lost/confused on defense - the play where the threw to a wide open kid near the goaline cuz the two corners tried to swap who they were covering 53yds across the field right before the snap.
Dumb mistake - but otherwise, these guys were ready.
So did Pitt just create the general blueprint to beating those guys? Well, maybe:
*Be prepared for the tempo.
*Play your base defense mostly and get pressure up the middle, cuz u have better players there.
*Cover well on the back end and hope the pressure gets there before Gabriel starts dropping dimes from the sky.
*Have depth.
To wrap that thought up - only teams with really good defenses/depth are gonna beat them.. I do think they’re very good at what they do - no wonder they’re undefeated in the regular season for 26 straight games.. Those teams don’t have the depth and overall talent. But Power5 teams who are prepared and have good defenses can beat them.. PSU would shut them down, I say - especially after watching how Pitt approached the game.. So when UCF runs the table on the rest of the season, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a top 12 team take them to the woodshed in the bowl.
(Yeah that pretty much happened last year when LSU handled them in the bowl, but that was without their stud QB - there was always gonna be a question mark about that game).
In hindsight, maybe this is what I saw last week:
-Stanford flew across the country and played against a blazing offense that they’d never seen before.. and they were totally unprepared.. If they have a home-home scheduled, I’m curious to see how that game plays out next year. Of course, it looks like Stanford only gave up 21 to Oregon last night.. Do they still play that sort of basketball on grass offense? IDK.. And there’s the very real probability that Stanford just isn’t very good this year. Time will tell.
Last quick thoughts:
#22 - the freshman should see 12-15 touches/game is his body can hold up.
We left 100+yds on the field from bad passes to open players.. Kenny played with a ton of poise yet again, but he’s missing badly sometimes.
UCF gifted us a TD in the 4thQ.
Did they have 45 yds of personal foul penalties, or did it just seem like it on that possession?
Great game - I so badly wish we didn’t play VA til later in the season.
