What was wrong with the offensive line?

[Sean Miller Fan]

By far, the most alarming thing to me was our ballyhooed offensive line was dominated in the trenches by a mid-level CAA team.

All things considered, that was one of the worst offensive performances from Pitt in a long time. Only 3 TDs, 1 with a short field, 279 total yards for the whole game.

Luckily, PSU didn't do much better against a team that is probably worse than Nova but I think its safe to say that if our line is dominated up front next week like they were today, we wont win. These guys better get their head in it. Very disappointing.

 

[Delpanther]

No push; too much substitution. Too much dancing by the running backs; failure to stretch the field horizontally. Totally ugly.

 

[paulbl99]

By far, the most alarming thing to me was our ballyhooed offensive line was dominated in the trenches by a mid-level CAA team.

All things considered, that was one of the worst offensive performances from Pitt in a long time. Only 3 TDs, 1 with a short field, 279 total yards for the whole game.

Luckily, PSU didn't do much better against a team that is probably worse than Nova but I think its safe to say that if our line is dominated up front next week like they were today, we wont win. These guys better get their head in it. Very disappointing.

Spot on
It was terrible.

 

[ratking17]

Pitt had to face a 3-4 defense

 

[revampedpanthers]

I also found the play of the OL the most concerning thing from todays game. Supposed to be the strength of the team and they were not good at all. Agree that if they play that way next week its likely we lose.

 

[ratking17]

The interesting thing was all of this talk about how the left side was the side to run on and then it didn't happen at all

 

[NCanton Panther]

Definitely the most disappointing aspect of today considering how ballyhooed our OL has been. I don't care how vanilla our offense purposely was, the OL should have been better.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

Agree, OL struggled all day.

 

[thebadby2]

No push; too much substitution. Too much dancing by the running backs; failure to stretch the field horizontally. Totally ugly.

Seems to me that our coaches' desire to have interchangeable O-linemen that can play multiple OL spots may be hurting the unit's consistency.

 

[thebadby2]

Pitt had to face a 3-4 defense

Right. A D1-AA 3-4 defense.

 

[paulbl99]

Pitt had to face a 3-4 defense

Villanova's 3 4
Villanova

Let's cut the stuff. The Oline was bad

 

[ratking17]

I said it because if you listened to the coaches that is what they said. I agree that the o line played poorly

 

[kma0043]

Always looking to see where the RBs are initially getting touched and I thought yesterday that Conner and the RBs would get 3-4 yards before encountering a defender, but that definitely wasn't the case. I try to remain hopeful and hope that the OL was just playing at 70% intensity (which is a no-no). Need to take care of the line of scrimmage if they plan on moving the ball at all the rest of the season.

 

[rpost3]

They got blown off the ball by VU, especially when asked to hold their blocks.
Making it worse, little attention seemed to be paid to the backside run blitzer, who cause havoc all day.
#92 DE from Nova manhandled Biz every time I watched for it.

 

[SouthSidePanther]

I think the constant shuffling of th o line during camp was not productive. Only part of the o line equation is physicality. A substantial part is recognition of the defense and proper calls at the line of scrimmage. A lot of the problem yesterday seemed like missed assignments, not getting dominated physically.

 

[bwh05]

We definitely had trouble with their stunts, games & movement up front. That's troubling for an experienced group vs a 1-AA team. We have to play a lot better vs a bigger, stronger & faster front 7 next week.

 

[thebadby2]

I think the constant shuffling of th o line during camp was not productive. Only part of the o line equation is physicality. A substantial part is recognition of the defense and proper calls at the line of scrimmage. A lot of the problem yesterday seemed like missed assignments, not getting dominated physically.

Agree with this, as well as being on their 3rd playbook in as many years. They looked tentative, disjointed and confused, and couldn't get into any kind of flow.