(12-02-2018, 06:57 PM)needle Wrote: Everyone is way too overconfident about this game. Narduzzi, Pitt HC, was the DC for the Michigan State team that pretty much handled a Stanford offense in the Rose Bowl a few years back. Wait and see if Love, JJAW and/or Costello actually play.
And UW definitely has a chance against an Ohio State team that's not going to be especially motivated.
After watching several of Pitt's games (my mom's family is from/lives in Pittsburgh, so I watch a lot of games of all the local sports teams) I feel confident in saying Narduzzi doesn't have MSU defensive personnel at Pitt. If Pitt wins, it is because Pickett (their QB) plays one of those games like he did against Duke or Syracuse. Problem is 1) both of those games were at home, 2) our offense is significantly better than most offenses Pitt has seen this season (though ND turned in a rather mistake-filled performance against them, that was atypical of their form for most of the season). One may argue that Pitt's D was the reason for that, but if you look at their whole body of work, it is pretty clear to me (and also from parts of game I watched) that ND just played bad, as opposed to Pitt being a defensive juggarnaut.
I am not sure why Costello wouldn't play, but if Costello and/or JJ didn't play, then maybe I could see a more realistic chance for an upset (hence my reference to the previous Sun Bowl with Chryst). Short of that, this Pitt team is even worse than that UNC team (that had the #2 overall pick at QB), and we still beat them with Ryan Burns, who sorry to say, was about as limited as you could possibly be in that game.
Barring some significant absences, this would be by far the worst loss of the year if we lose this game.
(12-02-2018, 06:27 PM)newguy Wrote:(12-02-2018, 06:11 PM)TreesAndBirds Wrote: From twitter re Pitt.....
[/url]
Mike Drakulich
@PghSportsNation
11 out of the 13 teams Pitt played this year will be in a Bowl.
2 are in the College Football Playoff.
3 are still undefeated.
9 out of the 13 were ranked at some point this season.
Don’t let the 7-6 record fool you.
This is the start of something special for
@Pitt_FB
[url=https://mobile.twitter.com/Pitt_FB]
for these reasons, i think we should take the Panthers seriously.
they beat a team that is currently ranked in the top 20, and they very nearly beat Notre Dame in South Bend.
Responding to this tweet specifically, the Coastal Division of the ACC was the most mediocre division in college football (which this guy would have to know if he is being intellectually honest). Pitt lost to 2-9 UNC, whose only other win was against an FCS school Western Carolina (and UNC's season was so bad again that Fedora got fired). If we proverbially give away the game (with turnovers, penalties and other mental mistakes a la the Utah game), yes we can lose. Otherwise, Pitt got destroyed by UCF, a mediocre 7-5 Miami team (with no QB), Clemson, Penn State, and other than a win at home against Syracuse (advanced stats pretty much say Syracuse is probably not a top 25 team; more reflective of lack of quality teams outside the upper echelon, so somebody had to fill the 25 spots), they beat a bunch of 6 and 7 win teams.
Granted, maybe our wins are nothing to write home about either, but the stats and Vegas both say we are markedly better on paper. Let's see what happens.