Yesterday's Game v. Last Year Against Villanova

[VAPanther91]

I think there were a great deal of similarities in the game and fan response. And last year's season, most fans would consider a success. Yes 3-4 plays made the game closer than it should have yesterday.

We really didn't take the handcuffs off Peterman until after the UNC game (and those crazy 3 yard out patterns) when we finally concluded that if we don't start a vertical game, our running game is of limited value. And then Nate was amazing. Hopefully, Max will develop similarly.

We need to fix the kicking game and we need to throw down field. I'm confident we will do the latter early and often next week.

Bring Whitehead and Wirginis back now.

We really won't know definitively about the team as a whole and Max's development until after the 5th game.

H2P

 

[TD_istheman]

Browne strikes me as a pretty smart guy, I am guessing he learned a lot from live play yesterday, I'm praying he did.

 

[Saboteur]

I think there were a great deal of similarities in the game and fan response. And last year's season, most fans would consider a success. Yes 3-4 plays made the game closer than it should have yesterday.

We really didn't take the handcuffs off Peterman until after the UNC game (and those crazy 3 yard out patterns) when we finally concluded that if we don't start a vertical game, our running game is of limited value. And then Nate was amazing. Hopefully, Max will develop similarly.

We need to fix the kicking game and we need to throw down field. I'm confident we will do the latter early and often next week.

Bring Whitehead and Wirginis back now.

We really won't know definitively about the team as a whole and Max's development until after the 5th game.

H2P

Whitehead isn't coming back now. The scoring kicking game was sub par, but the punt and kickoff were fine.
I am very intrigued by this game in Creepy Valley.

 

[KennyTheKangaroo]

We gave up 311 yards passing against YSU. That is right in line with the 340 per game last year.

 

[rpost3]

Uh Pitt defense held Villanova to about 180 yards total offense, and 1/3 of that was on their first drive.

 

[King Of All Message Boards]

I can obviously only speak for myself but I wasn't all that bothered after the Nova game last year. I felt a whole lot different yesterday. Hope that feeling is wrong.

 

[Gunga_Galunga]

They beat Nova 28-7. It was a boring cakewalk. YSU took them to overtime because the Pitt team and staff fell asleep after halftime.

 

[Pitt-Chains]

I think there were a great deal of similarities in the game and fan response. And last year's season, most fans would consider a success. Yes 3-4 plays made the game closer than it should have yesterday.

We really didn't take the handcuffs off Peterman until after the UNC game (and those crazy 3 yard out patterns) when we finally concluded that if we don't start a vertical game, our running game is of limited value. And then Nate was amazing. Hopefully, Max will develop similarly.

We need to fix the kicking game and we need to throw down field. I'm confident we will do the latter early and often next week.

Bring Whitehead and Wirginis back now.

We really won't know definitively about the team as a whole and Max's development until after the 5th game.

H2P

A little birdie thinks Whitehead may play next week...

 

[Delpanther]

We were never in danger of losing to Nova. Yesterday was an abomination caused by a moronic game plan which reached its zenith with the brain dead playcalling after the blocked punt.

 

[ebonylover40]

We have a winner.

 

[KennyTheKangaroo]

Uh Pitt defense held Villanova to about 180 yards total offense, and 1/3 of that was on their first drive.

I was referring to the 340 yards per game pitt surrendered as a whole last year.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

They beat Nova 28-7. It was a boring cakewalk. YSU took them to overtime because the Pitt team and staff fell asleep after halftime.

We also don't know how last year's Nova team and this year's YSU teams compare. Maybe this YSU team is a lot better than that Nova team (less of a worry for us)? Or, maybe the complete opposite may be true (we really should worry a lot)? We don't have any way to judge either way. Without knowing the answer we really can't compare relative first game performance. Also, intentionally staying plain vanilla on both occasions "muddies the waters" as to drawing any valid conclusions even if we did know.

I do think we can validly claim we have a lack of live game experience issues with both the offense and the defense although I don't think the overall talent level is really worse (although clearly Ollison is not as talented as James Connor). I believe pretty much most of our current deficiencies are correctable as players gain experience and units like OL and Dl get more used to working together and executing more sophisticated schemes. This probably can't get far enough along by the PSU game, however, and our chances for a win are probably no better than 1 in 10.