a little late, but here are some my game/atmosphere thoughts from Akron:
- The worst rain I've ever been in for an event, any event. I laughed when I read that Akron announced their 2nd largest crowd ever. While they may have sold their 2nd most tickets ever, I'd estimate attendance to be around 6,000. Tons and tons of no shows. Hardly anybody was sitting in the stands. Most people were huddled underneath the upper deck to get out of the rain. That's where we were for most of the game. The problem with that was that there were so many people, you couldnt see over people and through people.....but it beats sitting in the tropical depression or whatever that was.
- The funny thing was for the plays you missed because someone's head got in the way, I had to go off crowd reaction which was tricky. Where we were, it was mostly Pitt fans, so if I heard a big cheer, I knew we did something good. I'd estimate there were maybe 2,000 Pitt fans and 4,000 Akron fans. Thats being very generous to Akron because it did seem like there were more Pitt fans there but I believe that visiting crowds are always overstated. Akron probably had more fans there than we did.
- As for the stadium, it was OK, no frills. I never would have guessed it was new if you didnt tell me. It wasnt bad but there was just nothing to it. If Pitt ever built a new stadium, it would have to be done first-class, state of the art, or I dont want one. To give you an idea of how bad the crowd was, I parrallel parked on the main street there, 3 blocks from the stadium at 5:15.
- As for the actual game, I had a bad feeling about it and when Hundley broke free for that TD run, I was sure we were going to lose. It just had all the makings of it. I know I'm accused of being pessimistic but after watching Pitt my whole life, I dont know how you can't be. I kept telling myself that the only way we were going to win that game was if Narduzzi outcoached Bowden because with the conditions the 2 teams looked pretty evenly matched sorry to say. I dont know if it was Narduzzi's coaching that won that game but the D played absolutely outstanding against an offense that ran the ball down our throats last year like they were Nebraska in 1985. Our run D is pretty good.
- To be honest, I was really really surprised we won that game. SAME OLE PITT was written all over it. Chris Peak came up with a truly unbelievable stat on his podcast. He said that Pitt has only gone unbeaten against non-P5 schools, something like twice in 12 years. This would now be 3 times. I mean that sums it up. Every year, there's a "same ole Pitt" game and maybe we've avoided that this year. Akron is not a terrible team. They were picked 3rd in the MAC East. For comparison's sake, the Buffalo team that PSU struggled with was picked 5th. It wasn't pretty but it was a good win.
- After the YSU game, I posted something like our D played pretty well except for 2 big plays and our offense didnt play well except for a few big plays. I'm now under the impression that our D is going to be pretty good. Not great, but much improved from last year. However, our offense has a lot of problems. Our run blocking hasn't been as good as it needs to be and we were discounting Conner too much. Ollison/James/Hall are going to struggle at times. And we have a major problem developing at the other WR spot. Those guys can't get open. Nobody is talking about the lack of talent we have at WR outside of Boyd. I really want to beat PSU next year but we're going to have to throw the ball against their roided up defensive machine and our WRs simply do not look very good. If I"m Iowa, I have Safety help on Boyd all day and let the other WRs and RBs beat us. I was really discouraged with our offensive performance.
- As for Peterman vs Voytik. Peterman had the biggest drive of the season late in that 2nd quarter but I'm not convinced he's better than Voytik. I feel bad for Chad.
- The worst rain I've ever been in for an event, any event. I laughed when I read that Akron announced their 2nd largest crowd ever. While they may have sold their 2nd most tickets ever, I'd estimate attendance to be around 6,000. Tons and tons of no shows. Hardly anybody was sitting in the stands. Most people were huddled underneath the upper deck to get out of the rain. That's where we were for most of the game. The problem with that was that there were so many people, you couldnt see over people and through people.....but it beats sitting in the tropical depression or whatever that was.
- The funny thing was for the plays you missed because someone's head got in the way, I had to go off crowd reaction which was tricky. Where we were, it was mostly Pitt fans, so if I heard a big cheer, I knew we did something good. I'd estimate there were maybe 2,000 Pitt fans and 4,000 Akron fans. Thats being very generous to Akron because it did seem like there were more Pitt fans there but I believe that visiting crowds are always overstated. Akron probably had more fans there than we did.
- As for the stadium, it was OK, no frills. I never would have guessed it was new if you didnt tell me. It wasnt bad but there was just nothing to it. If Pitt ever built a new stadium, it would have to be done first-class, state of the art, or I dont want one. To give you an idea of how bad the crowd was, I parrallel parked on the main street there, 3 blocks from the stadium at 5:15.
- As for the actual game, I had a bad feeling about it and when Hundley broke free for that TD run, I was sure we were going to lose. It just had all the makings of it. I know I'm accused of being pessimistic but after watching Pitt my whole life, I dont know how you can't be. I kept telling myself that the only way we were going to win that game was if Narduzzi outcoached Bowden because with the conditions the 2 teams looked pretty evenly matched sorry to say. I dont know if it was Narduzzi's coaching that won that game but the D played absolutely outstanding against an offense that ran the ball down our throats last year like they were Nebraska in 1985. Our run D is pretty good.
- To be honest, I was really really surprised we won that game. SAME OLE PITT was written all over it. Chris Peak came up with a truly unbelievable stat on his podcast. He said that Pitt has only gone unbeaten against non-P5 schools, something like twice in 12 years. This would now be 3 times. I mean that sums it up. Every year, there's a "same ole Pitt" game and maybe we've avoided that this year. Akron is not a terrible team. They were picked 3rd in the MAC East. For comparison's sake, the Buffalo team that PSU struggled with was picked 5th. It wasn't pretty but it was a good win.
- After the YSU game, I posted something like our D played pretty well except for 2 big plays and our offense didnt play well except for a few big plays. I'm now under the impression that our D is going to be pretty good. Not great, but much improved from last year. However, our offense has a lot of problems. Our run blocking hasn't been as good as it needs to be and we were discounting Conner too much. Ollison/James/Hall are going to struggle at times. And we have a major problem developing at the other WR spot. Those guys can't get open. Nobody is talking about the lack of talent we have at WR outside of Boyd. I really want to beat PSU next year but we're going to have to throw the ball against their roided up defensive machine and our WRs simply do not look very good. If I"m Iowa, I have Safety help on Boyd all day and let the other WRs and RBs beat us. I was really discouraged with our offensive performance.
- As for Peterman vs Voytik. Peterman had the biggest drive of the season late in that 2nd quarter but I'm not convinced he's better than Voytik. I feel bad for Chad.
