OK on to the Steel City! Pitt had an epic collapse last week vs Iowa at Iowa City something we can all relate to after the UM game. Pitt has a new coach and they are going from a Pro Style offense to a Rich Rod/WVa offense. Todd Grahamn was a DCoord for Steve Kragthorpe at Tulsa before he took the Rice job where he hired Major Applewhite to run the spread, he then moved back to Tulsa when Kragthorpe went to Louisville and continued with the spread, his OCoord was the Lake Travis High School (Austin Tx) coach who developed Garrett Gilbert so more spread. Now he's at Pitt and he brought in the old Mich OCoord Calvin Magee who was also with RR at WVU. Transition from Pro Style to RR Style at Pitt in it's first year is apparently about as smooth as it was during RR's 1st year at UM....that is it's been rough. They are also going from a NFL 4-3 to a blitzing 3-4 defense. Mattison had success confusing Rees with his blitzes and I would imagine that Grahamn will try to duplicate that as well. Irish are something like 7 point favorites. Should be a good game against our future ACC rival!
Pitt's defense is horrible. We should annihilate them. I'll do a little more homework before a final prediction but I'm thinking ND-44 Pitt-17
Irish are way overdue for a clean game. when that happens somebody is going to get punished. May as well be Pitt.
I'm sorry. I know we're not supposed to look past an opponent, but I can't help looking ahead to Purdue after they laid a 59-0 pasting on SE Missouri State. Or was it NE Kansas? Or was it NW Iowa Wesleyan? Hey, Stu! Do you recall who was PU's opponent last week? :lol: Re: Pitt. Sunseri has been a very effective QB against us in the past, and they have a very good RB. Other than that, all I know about them is what Terry wrote above. We had "only" 3 TOs last week. Wouldn't it be nice to play TO-free on Saturday? I agree with George in the sense that we have the potential to punish opponents. Why not Pitt?
ND <r><QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> I'll have plenty to talk about next week when it comes to purdue <E>:roll:</E> <br/> <br/> Without any or just one or two turnovers ND should take pitt. Stop the run and it won't be close otherwise it <B><s></s>will be <e></e></B>a close game.</r>
Terry, We can expand on the Purdue info after the Pitt game, but I will say that I did not know about their rushing stats. I watched about half of their first game and was completely underwhelmed. Back to the future member of the ACC. How 'bout them Panthers! :lol:
Yeah we do have a game with Pitt on Sat don't we! We owe Todd Graham a big time whooping, I hope we administer it!
ND <r>I was thinking the same thing yesterday Terry about Pitt's coach. Definitely would be nice to get a little payback for the Utah game. I liked feeling good this past Monday morning for a change. Hopefully the Irish will give me a good weekend again.<br/> <br/> I watched the replay of the Pitt/Iowa game. looks like the ND D should give the Pitt QB a long afternoon. If they can shut down the run and force them to pass we'll be fine. <E>8)</E></r>
Well I thought that would be easier, Pitt pass defense was supposed to be awfull...but they shut down Rees and Floyd very well. That TD run by Jonas Gray was awesome though, I didn't know he was fast enough to run away from a defense like that! Defense, basically a very stout effort by the defense. Late in the game getting after the Pitt QB was very big, essentially won the game for us. Tommy Rees, sub par performance today except for that last drive. He really locks on to his recievers. But a win is a win. On to Tim's favorite game of the year!! Road Trip to Ross Ade Stadium! _
ND <r>well a win is a win I guess. Lord knows we have come out on the short end of a lot of games like this the last few years. <br/> <br/> <br/> It's on to <B><s></s>PURDUE<e></e></B> now. One of my favorite opponents. <E>:roll:</E></r>
A few points about Rees today. He did struggle although he probably played better than some are giving him credit for. Consider that we had awful field position all day. This was because of 1. a stupid roughing the kicker penalty, 2. a KO out of bounds, 3. a very good pooch punt by the Pitt QB. (also once again we didn't force any turnovers.)Just before the half Rees led a drive from the 2 yd. line to FG range and the snapper choked. Early in the fourth quarter he led another good drive and overcame a 10 yd holding penalty. He completed a pass to Eifert in good FG range but it was nullified by a 15 yd. penalty by Martin. He fumbled on a blindside hit. All QBs do at times. The int. to Eifert was a late throw but I thought that he could have come back to the ball and beaten to D back to it. So my point is that thanks to some bad plays by others we won by 3 and not 9. Rees didn't play well but when he had to he got the job done.
I respectfully disagree. This win, when over and done, encourages me about the character of our team more so than last week's win over MSU. On a bad hair day, we had the stones to take the ball downfield and not only score the go-ahead TD but also the 2 pt. conversion. At the end, the defense refused to be beaten. This team grew up a lot today. Make no mistake. Pitt is a better team than we thought. We stilll are haunted by stupid penalties and mistakes (#70, the roughing-the-kicker which led to Pitt's TD, the bad snap on the FG try, etc.), which don't show up as turnovers but, as Gip said above, are just as damaging. We simply must clean up these tendencies. Gip, I agree with all your points except one. I don't think Eifert or any of our receivers had the time to adjust to that late short pass. The DB knew the ball was coming before Eifert did. IMO, Eifert is the player of the game. Hands down.
One other point about the bad field position. We had no punt return yards. Worse we let the punt hit the ground and roll for another 10-15 yds. more than once. Bad special teams play today.
Pitt's defense was not horrible today. It was very solid. They deserve credit for derailing the prolific offense we displayed in the first 3 games against stellar competition. Gip, I agree with your assessment of the punt return game and the special teams play.
Alabama just beat the snot out of Arkansas. Good teams do that . ND plays to the level of its competition. Tomorrows headlines will be "Tide crushes Razorbacks in meeting of top teams" and "Irish struggle to edge Pitt". Winning gets you to a bowl. Winning big gets you to a BCS bowl.
Stats Man says Ala. 16 first downs for 397 yds. pts 38 ND 23 first down for 398 yds. pts.15 "Stats are for" (winners and losers.)