- Joined
- Nov 5, 2011
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OK so I was at the game yesterday and I wasn't sure that I was able to process all of the bad. So I thought, what the **** I'll watch the game even though I'm sure it will be painful. A couple quick observations (I just got to the point where Evan was brought in):
1. Rosier was worse than I thought. There were some really, really, really poorly thrown balls yesterday. They were playing single high a lot and bringing a lot of heat, and our WR's were more open than I even realized. Richards should have had 200+ yards receiving in this game. He was torching #14 man to man every single snap he was on the field. At least four long TD passes were missed that shouldn't have really been that hard to complete. Two to Jeff Thomas and two to Ahmmon Richards. Awful, just awful misses. And missing on bubble screens is so egregious it shouldn't ever happen. If we're not going to have a run game, we have to at least be able to hit the bubble when they're giving it to us and use that as our run game.
2. Speaking of run game - please, for the love of God stop with the false narrative that Pitt was stacking the box trying to shut down our run game. They played nickel almost the entire game with 6 guys in the box. Sometimes they would send extra guys, but in most instances those were obvious passing downs and it was a true blitz rather than run blitz. Flat out, our OL got whipped, play after play after play. Our horizontal run game did not work against them. They set edge contain well and stretched our run game sideline to sideline. Homer had no holes to run through whatsoever. The jet motion counter that we ran to open the second half didn't work either, but we certainly should have gone to it more to try to get something going. There are multiple options you can run out of that and maybe something would have hit for a big play.
3. Berrios didn't have a great game. Rosier wasn't it making it easy on him but there were at least two, possibly three plays that he usually makes that he flat out didn't yesterday. If Rosier threw dimes I'm sure he would have caught them but it seems "meh" was contagious amongst our guys yesterday.
4. The decision to bring Sherrifs in was one of the worst coaching decisions I have ever seen. Right up there with the onside kick against Georgia Tech. ****, on the onside kick at least it would have been successful if we executed it properly. This had zero ******* chance of being successful. Evan was put in a terrible spot, on the road, completely cold, and Malik didn't even look like he gave a ****. Maybe he will after it sinks in, but my lord at that point in the game we have to put some first downs together. The defense had just gotten two three and out stops and was doing everything they could to keep us in the game.
5. Defensively, those guys played their asses off and did enough to get us out of there with a W. There were some bad instances, giving up long 3rd downs that make you want to smash something, but for the most part they did what they had to do. It was definitely annoying how that QB kept falling forward though. Got positive yards on a few plays that should have gone for losses. Can't explain that one. All that said - our blitzes were poorly timed, and were of Manny's favorite overload chaos variety. We didn't get home...and it gave their QB lanes to scoot around. Stunting and overload blitzing shouldn't have been part of the game plan here, but it is the foundation of what we do, so you have to take the good with the bad I suppose.
Man. I hope we can shake the stink off of this one quickly and come out pumped and ready to play against Clemson. This has been an incredible season, and I would really hate to see it end with such a whimper. A win and we're in the playoff. Never thought I would be saying that earlier this year but here we are.
1. Rosier was worse than I thought. There were some really, really, really poorly thrown balls yesterday. They were playing single high a lot and bringing a lot of heat, and our WR's were more open than I even realized. Richards should have had 200+ yards receiving in this game. He was torching #14 man to man every single snap he was on the field. At least four long TD passes were missed that shouldn't have really been that hard to complete. Two to Jeff Thomas and two to Ahmmon Richards. Awful, just awful misses. And missing on bubble screens is so egregious it shouldn't ever happen. If we're not going to have a run game, we have to at least be able to hit the bubble when they're giving it to us and use that as our run game.
2. Speaking of run game - please, for the love of God stop with the false narrative that Pitt was stacking the box trying to shut down our run game. They played nickel almost the entire game with 6 guys in the box. Sometimes they would send extra guys, but in most instances those were obvious passing downs and it was a true blitz rather than run blitz. Flat out, our OL got whipped, play after play after play. Our horizontal run game did not work against them. They set edge contain well and stretched our run game sideline to sideline. Homer had no holes to run through whatsoever. The jet motion counter that we ran to open the second half didn't work either, but we certainly should have gone to it more to try to get something going. There are multiple options you can run out of that and maybe something would have hit for a big play.
3. Berrios didn't have a great game. Rosier wasn't it making it easy on him but there were at least two, possibly three plays that he usually makes that he flat out didn't yesterday. If Rosier threw dimes I'm sure he would have caught them but it seems "meh" was contagious amongst our guys yesterday.
4. The decision to bring Sherrifs in was one of the worst coaching decisions I have ever seen. Right up there with the onside kick against Georgia Tech. ****, on the onside kick at least it would have been successful if we executed it properly. This had zero ******* chance of being successful. Evan was put in a terrible spot, on the road, completely cold, and Malik didn't even look like he gave a ****. Maybe he will after it sinks in, but my lord at that point in the game we have to put some first downs together. The defense had just gotten two three and out stops and was doing everything they could to keep us in the game.
5. Defensively, those guys played their asses off and did enough to get us out of there with a W. There were some bad instances, giving up long 3rd downs that make you want to smash something, but for the most part they did what they had to do. It was definitely annoying how that QB kept falling forward though. Got positive yards on a few plays that should have gone for losses. Can't explain that one. All that said - our blitzes were poorly timed, and were of Manny's favorite overload chaos variety. We didn't get home...and it gave their QB lanes to scoot around. Stunting and overload blitzing shouldn't have been part of the game plan here, but it is the foundation of what we do, so you have to take the good with the bad I suppose.
Man. I hope we can shake the stink off of this one quickly and come out pumped and ready to play against Clemson. This has been an incredible season, and I would really hate to see it end with such a whimper. A win and we're in the playoff. Never thought I would be saying that earlier this year but here we are.
