10-19-2025, 12:33 PM
5. The big positive on offense was that the run game took another step forward after a tentative one last week. The previous three games we'd averaged only 49 yards on the ground and yesterday had 132, along with the third best yards per carry of our season. I think that was in part because we only gave up 19 yards of sacks, the lowest since the Boston College game. Notably, unlike last week, the run game was not only a step forward but actually respectable relative to opponent as we did better on the ground than not only Kent State and East Texas A&M but much more impressively also Alabama and Miami. Between the run game progress and the lower vulnerability to sacks than our norm, this feels like a big win for our offensive line. I have been very critical of our pipeline and will remain so, but we are seeing some glimmers. That's more than I'd expected.
6. Despite that progress, the overall offensive performance wasn't anything to write home about and that's because the passing yesterday was pretty ugly. It was our lowest yards per attempt and passer rating since the disastrous first two games of Bad Ben rearing his head against Hawaii and BYU. Only East Texas A&M had fewer passing yards, only Kent State and Alabama had lower yards per attempt, and only Kent State and ETAMU had a worse passer rating. Ugly. Neither QB qualified for the weekly Total QBR leaderboard since they split time, but if they had Gulbranson would have been 63rd of 118 nationally this week and Brown would have been 86th. If those sound better than the passing stats, I think they might be (though don't have granular Total QBR metrics for either since they didn't qualify). Quite notable in this one, as I mentioned, that we largely avoided sacks. I agree with all the comments that Brown looked bad outside of the third quarter touchdown drive, but I also note that he did have that drive, was getting his first action of the year, and mostly avoided sacks and negative plays. All in all, Total QBR thought this was far and away better than he played last year against SMU and Wake Forest and, compared to Gulbranson's 2025, worse than four games and better than three. That's serviceable enough that I am not despairing the Pitt-North Carolina-Cal stretch if Gulbranson's injury proves serious. I hope Gulbranson doesn't have to go out like that but regardless it may be the case that we have physically limited game manager QBs who can play competently at times. I have much more confidence in Gulbranson for deep balls but am not despairing if he can't play.
7. Both sides of the ball had extreme parity in terms of top performances, far from a clear cut case who should go home with game balls. On offense, I thought Roush, Williams, Tabb, and Prongos were all pretty equally deserving of top recognition. For Roush, this is two weeks in a row that he has looked like the player long-promised and oft-mocked by fans bemused by the hype. He's now third among ACC tight ends in receiving and trending upward in that regard while maintaining the level of blocking play that had previously outpaced his receiving. Williams is 9th in the ACC in receiving and shockingly only three yards per game behind where Ayomanor was last year (albeit in a disappointing year). The actual game ball/C-House chant honor went to Tabb for his 100+ yard game. He ran very well. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Tabb (7), Roush (4), Williams (3), High (also drew a pass interference), Ford] Since Tabb got his postgame recognition I will shout out one of our unsung heroes this year, Prongos. If the offensive line took a step forward in pass protection and/or run blocking, it seem fair to recognize our best lineman. For what it's worth, PFF thought Roush was the biggest star but agreed with me about several good performances.
8. My heart is bursting with pride for the defense having such a good performance driven by so many individual performances. This was much more a high quality team performance than it was heroics from any one or two individuals. I counted an incredible 14 players who showed up multiple times in the box score in positive ways, including two with six such plays (Galvan, Tafiti) and two more with four such plays (Green, Rose). The others were Staples, Edwards, Cooper, Nicholson, Davis, Patterson, Johnson, Aybar, Washington, and Eckhardt. Such a great game by the defense, and they did it with Wright out for more than half of it. I loved seeing so many plays by outside linebackers (the plays by the above and even a late play by Dubre), a rarity for us. Tafiti in particular came up brobdingnagian in crunch time in the red zone. As much as I am the charter member of the Wright fan club and also think Patterson, Rose, and Green are good, the more I see of Galvan now that he's returned the more I think he may be a contender for the best player on our team. Small sample and we'll see the rest of the way, but that guy is a baller. In this one he book-ended the game with the 3rd down run stop to force a punt on the opening drive and being in the right place to contribute to the controversial last play goal line stop and also had plays in between. Great to pair him with Rose, who was the proximate/pivotal guy on the two decisive and controversial fourth quarter stops to win the game. Green had a loud game with multiple pass breakups and a few other plays; I particularly like that he made plays in run defense, pass coverage, and tackling on a passing down. Nicholson and Eckhardt didn't have as many plays as these other four but I think are the other legitimate candidates for the game ball, as Nicholson forced not one but two punts with pass breakups (talk about making somebody pay for targeting you) and Eckhardt had a crunch time run stop and the 4th down pass breakup to force a turnover on downs (and was the highest PFF grade on defense!). I don't know how to pick among these guys but will go with Green for a signature game by our defense's indispensable man. There wasn't much negative on defense but I'll just say Leigber did not help us and the targeting would have had us grabbing pitchforks if the shoe were on the other foot.
9. Special teams had good and bad but made its contributions. Flintoft, as usual, stayed quite busy, this time with net punts of 49 to the 13 (very good), 41 to the 21 after a 16 yard return pre-penalty and 59 to the 3 once accounting for the penalty (out-kicked coverage but phenomenal result as it turned out), 13 to the 42 (nightmare breakdown in that situation, hard to tell on tv whether we had a breakdown in the unit not being on the same page or getting fooled by a Florida State fake return), 51 to the 25 (brobdingnagian and clutch), 43 to the 39 (good to not mess around with hang time), and 39 to the 20 after a 16 yard return (not disastrous but having such poor hang time to allow Florida State such a shorter field in that situation with 71 seconds left is really bad). Kenney made field goals of 32 and 26 yards, as well as the miss saved by the penalty but I don't hold that against him as the offsides could have messed with the operation. Very happy for Thorpe bouncing back from last week by cleanly fielding his punt and breaking off a big 26 yard return. High had a 17 yard return to the 20, failing to take advantage of the first time this year Florida State has had a kick returned (!), but I have no problem at all with the decision to return that as it was the end of the half and a long return to try to steal points was the only thing we had to play for that half with the clock dwindling. Some solid coverage tackles by I think Nicholson, Warford, and Dubre.
10. Game balls: Niki Prongos, Jay Green, Liam Thorpe, Andy Thompson
11. It's nice to head into the least winnable game of the year (on paper) coming off a high. The Miami game will now feel like playing with house money and even if it's an uncompetitive result there's hopefully enough confidence built up from the three wins to date that we can have some spirit for the stretch run of the season that includes several winnable games. In the meantime, let's have some fun in Miami. As Reich alluded to in his press conference, the next step for us is showing that we can be competent on the road. It is unmistakable at this point that Stanford has had trouble on the road and going east in particular has been ugly. When we've played good teams in BYU, Virginia, and SMU the results have not been good, though at least we were in the SMU game late. It would be nice to show some fight against Miami. It is far more likely that we won't and even if we don't it is still well within our power this year to show progress and make a case we're building a foundation for the future. Whether we are able to make the Miami game part of that case or not, I'll be there ready to party!
6. Despite that progress, the overall offensive performance wasn't anything to write home about and that's because the passing yesterday was pretty ugly. It was our lowest yards per attempt and passer rating since the disastrous first two games of Bad Ben rearing his head against Hawaii and BYU. Only East Texas A&M had fewer passing yards, only Kent State and Alabama had lower yards per attempt, and only Kent State and ETAMU had a worse passer rating. Ugly. Neither QB qualified for the weekly Total QBR leaderboard since they split time, but if they had Gulbranson would have been 63rd of 118 nationally this week and Brown would have been 86th. If those sound better than the passing stats, I think they might be (though don't have granular Total QBR metrics for either since they didn't qualify). Quite notable in this one, as I mentioned, that we largely avoided sacks. I agree with all the comments that Brown looked bad outside of the third quarter touchdown drive, but I also note that he did have that drive, was getting his first action of the year, and mostly avoided sacks and negative plays. All in all, Total QBR thought this was far and away better than he played last year against SMU and Wake Forest and, compared to Gulbranson's 2025, worse than four games and better than three. That's serviceable enough that I am not despairing the Pitt-North Carolina-Cal stretch if Gulbranson's injury proves serious. I hope Gulbranson doesn't have to go out like that but regardless it may be the case that we have physically limited game manager QBs who can play competently at times. I have much more confidence in Gulbranson for deep balls but am not despairing if he can't play.
7. Both sides of the ball had extreme parity in terms of top performances, far from a clear cut case who should go home with game balls. On offense, I thought Roush, Williams, Tabb, and Prongos were all pretty equally deserving of top recognition. For Roush, this is two weeks in a row that he has looked like the player long-promised and oft-mocked by fans bemused by the hype. He's now third among ACC tight ends in receiving and trending upward in that regard while maintaining the level of blocking play that had previously outpaced his receiving. Williams is 9th in the ACC in receiving and shockingly only three yards per game behind where Ayomanor was last year (albeit in a disappointing year). The actual game ball/C-House chant honor went to Tabb for his 100+ yard game. He ran very well. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Tabb (7), Roush (4), Williams (3), High (also drew a pass interference), Ford] Since Tabb got his postgame recognition I will shout out one of our unsung heroes this year, Prongos. If the offensive line took a step forward in pass protection and/or run blocking, it seem fair to recognize our best lineman. For what it's worth, PFF thought Roush was the biggest star but agreed with me about several good performances.
8. My heart is bursting with pride for the defense having such a good performance driven by so many individual performances. This was much more a high quality team performance than it was heroics from any one or two individuals. I counted an incredible 14 players who showed up multiple times in the box score in positive ways, including two with six such plays (Galvan, Tafiti) and two more with four such plays (Green, Rose). The others were Staples, Edwards, Cooper, Nicholson, Davis, Patterson, Johnson, Aybar, Washington, and Eckhardt. Such a great game by the defense, and they did it with Wright out for more than half of it. I loved seeing so many plays by outside linebackers (the plays by the above and even a late play by Dubre), a rarity for us. Tafiti in particular came up brobdingnagian in crunch time in the red zone. As much as I am the charter member of the Wright fan club and also think Patterson, Rose, and Green are good, the more I see of Galvan now that he's returned the more I think he may be a contender for the best player on our team. Small sample and we'll see the rest of the way, but that guy is a baller. In this one he book-ended the game with the 3rd down run stop to force a punt on the opening drive and being in the right place to contribute to the controversial last play goal line stop and also had plays in between. Great to pair him with Rose, who was the proximate/pivotal guy on the two decisive and controversial fourth quarter stops to win the game. Green had a loud game with multiple pass breakups and a few other plays; I particularly like that he made plays in run defense, pass coverage, and tackling on a passing down. Nicholson and Eckhardt didn't have as many plays as these other four but I think are the other legitimate candidates for the game ball, as Nicholson forced not one but two punts with pass breakups (talk about making somebody pay for targeting you) and Eckhardt had a crunch time run stop and the 4th down pass breakup to force a turnover on downs (and was the highest PFF grade on defense!). I don't know how to pick among these guys but will go with Green for a signature game by our defense's indispensable man. There wasn't much negative on defense but I'll just say Leigber did not help us and the targeting would have had us grabbing pitchforks if the shoe were on the other foot.
9. Special teams had good and bad but made its contributions. Flintoft, as usual, stayed quite busy, this time with net punts of 49 to the 13 (very good), 41 to the 21 after a 16 yard return pre-penalty and 59 to the 3 once accounting for the penalty (out-kicked coverage but phenomenal result as it turned out), 13 to the 42 (nightmare breakdown in that situation, hard to tell on tv whether we had a breakdown in the unit not being on the same page or getting fooled by a Florida State fake return), 51 to the 25 (brobdingnagian and clutch), 43 to the 39 (good to not mess around with hang time), and 39 to the 20 after a 16 yard return (not disastrous but having such poor hang time to allow Florida State such a shorter field in that situation with 71 seconds left is really bad). Kenney made field goals of 32 and 26 yards, as well as the miss saved by the penalty but I don't hold that against him as the offsides could have messed with the operation. Very happy for Thorpe bouncing back from last week by cleanly fielding his punt and breaking off a big 26 yard return. High had a 17 yard return to the 20, failing to take advantage of the first time this year Florida State has had a kick returned (!), but I have no problem at all with the decision to return that as it was the end of the half and a long return to try to steal points was the only thing we had to play for that half with the clock dwindling. Some solid coverage tackles by I think Nicholson, Warford, and Dubre.
10. Game balls: Niki Prongos, Jay Green, Liam Thorpe, Andy Thompson
11. It's nice to head into the least winnable game of the year (on paper) coming off a high. The Miami game will now feel like playing with house money and even if it's an uncompetitive result there's hopefully enough confidence built up from the three wins to date that we can have some spirit for the stretch run of the season that includes several winnable games. In the meantime, let's have some fun in Miami. As Reich alluded to in his press conference, the next step for us is showing that we can be competent on the road. It is unmistakable at this point that Stanford has had trouble on the road and going east in particular has been ugly. When we've played good teams in BYU, Virginia, and SMU the results have not been good, though at least we were in the SMU game late. It would be nice to show some fight against Miami. It is far more likely that we won't and even if we don't it is still well within our power this year to show progress and make a case we're building a foundation for the future. Whether we are able to make the Miami game part of that case or not, I'll be there ready to party!