Vidovich article in Trib
- Thread starter CrazyPaco
- Start date
People are going to be in for a big surprise when they watch us play this season.
Vidovich is an example of how recruits, in any sport, don't care about anything but the coach.
Pitt soccer may be the worst, historically, major D1 program. Yet, Vidovich comes in and all of a sudden, he starts getting big-time players.
There's no excuses in recruiting basketball, football, or soccer players. Either kids want to play for you or they dont.
Pitt soccer may be the worst, historically, major D1 program. Yet, Vidovich comes in and all of a sudden, he starts getting big-time players.
There's no excuses in recruiting basketball, football, or soccer players. Either kids want to play for you or they dont.
Was actually 4-1 final. The only goal AU scored was on a PK. All of Pitt's goals were in the first ~10 minutes. AU had lost a lot of people to graduation, but they looked completely overmatched and shell shocked against Pitt's first team.
The grad transfer from Clemson is definitely an on-field leader. Great pickup.
Winning just a few games, tying, and being competitive in a few games against the better ACC would be a huge accomplishment.
Attended the game today in Columbus against JMU.
1-0 loss but it wasn't nearly that close. At halftime i wandered over to the Pitt tent and was surprised by what I overheard. Vid appealed to them playing hard...they had been outhustled the entire 1st half.
His post game comments were clear and harsh. He was right..only four guys came to play...the goalie and 3 others.
1-0 loss but it wasn't nearly that close. At halftime i wandered over to the Pitt tent and was surprised by what I overheard. Vid appealed to them playing hard...they had been outhustled the entire 1st half.
His post game comments were clear and harsh. He was right..only four guys came to play...the goalie and 3 others.
He has a challenge on the level of Kevin Stallings. Pitt Soccer is miles behind and he has been pretty honest in admitting that. The program he took over was closer to D2 level than ACC level. Its going to take 3-4 years for them to even be competitive in the ACC and longer than that to challenge for an NCAA bid.
It may take longer than 3-4 years to be competitive in the ACC. The ACC is just that good.
I'm saying 3-4 years in, he will win a few ACC games per year and be more competitive in losses.
Speaking of soccer, anyone catch the Pitt women against northern Illinois or whoever it was. I caught some of it on espn3. The camera work Is absolutely terrible. Terrible angle, terrible zoom, terrible everything. Someone needs to fix it, it's just awful.
Watched them play Hofstra on espn.3. No commentary and you couldn't even tell which team was which, Hofstra dominated the game, but couldn't score and Pitt scored on the counter. Have watched a number of their games, and they are lucky to have the record they do.
It was like watching a soccer mom recording her daughters game from the top of the bleachers with a flip phone. Ok not that bad, but not far off.
In their game against Cincinnati they were outshot 34-5 and Cincinnati had 7 corners while Pitt did not have one all game and somehow Pitt pulled out a 2-2 tie.
Someone who watched the game told me that Cincinnati had more than 90% of the possession in the second half. And he realized how absurd that sounded, but he said that 90% might actually have been selling Cincinnati's possession time short.
It's in progress. By fall of 2018 all ACC schools have to be ready to produce ESPN quality events for all of their sports in prep for the launch of the ACC network in 2019.
ESPN getting more and more people cutting the cable and satellite tether because they are pis--d at espn hosts mixing politics with sports. Most people want sports discussion devoid of political commentary. Similar to problem NFL is having with game attendance dropping.
This trend has potential to really hurt the launch and ultimate success of the ACC network.
It will be fine. People still want live sports. It just may be delivered differently
They lost to Wake Forest tonight, 2-0. Pitt was outshot 21-3 and Wake had 14 corners to Pitt's 1.
I had the game on but wasn't watching very closely, just on in the background kind of thing. I thought Pitt played much better than the stats show and while Wake had most of the possession, they didnt test the GK much even though they were racking up shots. At one point in the 2nd half when it was 0-0, the announcer commented on what a great game the Pitt GK was having and I thought, he hasnt even made a "good" save yet.
Oddly enough, the Pitt men also lost a game to Wake Forest 2-0 while getting out shot 21-3. What are the odds of that happening?
We played well against UNC, we aren't at Wake's level. There's a reason they're top 5 in the country. Glad we're beating teams like RMU tho, that's progress from the past.
Just to show people how hard it is for Vidovich to turn around the men's program, this weeks soccer coaches top 25 includes:
1) Notre Dame
4) Wake Forest
7) North Carolina
8) Clemson
9) Virginia
10) Louisville
11) Syracuse
So Pitt could be the 12th best team in the country and still only be the 8th best team in the ACC. Additionally, Duke is in the others receiving votes at 28th and North Carolina State is 30th. So for Pitt to come even close to a top half of the ACC program we have to become a top 20 team. That's a hard place to get to from where we started from.
1) Notre Dame
4) Wake Forest
7) North Carolina
8) Clemson
9) Virginia
10) Louisville
11) Syracuse
So Pitt could be the 12th best team in the country and still only be the 8th best team in the ACC. Additionally, Duke is in the others receiving votes at 28th and North Carolina State is 30th. So for Pitt to come even close to a top half of the ACC program we have to become a top 20 team. That's a hard place to get to from where we started from.
That is a stunning result. The Hoopies were 30th in the coaches poll released today. They were picked second in the MAC preseason poll this year, behind only Akron who is usually pretty good. The fact that Pitt beat them probably isn't stunning, but the fact that they won 7-0 is. Pitt scored all seven goals in about a 30 minute span from late in the first half to early in the second half.
On top of that, saw a tweet that Pitt scored 10 goals all season last year. Scored 7 last night.
They are 4-2 OOC this year, but 0-3 in the ACC.
Baby steps. But it was fun to watch. Again, not sure if ESPN had a crew there to do it, or if it was produced by Pitt, but the feed was pretty good, had the announcers, and the graphics, etc just like the Pitt - VT women's game the other day.
If it is the Pitt production, they took HUGE strides from last year. Per ESPN, they need to be at this level by next year for all events for the launch of the network in 2019.
Virginia Tech women are way down this year. Not sure what is going on there, but I watched them several times and talent level across the field looks questionable. They got absolutely blasted by Tennessee, and tying Pitt is a big disappointment for VT, but great for Pitt women. As far as Pitt men, boy is the ACC such a difficult conference from top to bottom. Virginia Tech men beat Notre Dame, and VT men are also down this year. It'll be interesting what happens in another year or two, hopefully Vidovich stays on board and keeps doing what he's doing.
