Time to put the YSU game away and talk about something else for a while… Let’s look to the future.

We have seen some very interesting, and novel for Pitt, personnel moves with our QB units over the last four years. Under Paul Chryst we had Tino Sunseri departing after his statistically impressive 2012 season when he threw for 3288 yards on a 65% completion rate with 21 TDs and only 3 INTs. That was Chryst’s first year at Pitt and he knew that with the personnel he had returning he needed someone other that rsFR Chad Voytik to be the ’13 starter.

Voytik was by no means ready to play at that point – and as we saw later was basically an average D1 QB anyway so HCPC’s move to grab transfer QB Tom Savage made all the sense in the world then.  That started the trend we have seen since with first Savage then Nate Peterman and now Max Browne being enticed to start at QB in their turns.

Savage and Peterman worked out exceedingly well for us.  Big and strong armed Savage led the Panthers to seven wins in 2013 with almost 3000 yards and 21 TDs with 9 INTs. He did what was expected and it paid off. Voytik got his chance in Chryst’s last season but didn’t play well enough for in-coming HC Pat Narduzzi’s plans. That was evident when our-then OC Jim Chaney and Peterman decide to reunite.

The handwriting was on the wall the minute Peterman stepped off the plane – he strongly outplayed Voytik in fall camp and then grabbed the starting role (which he really should have had in the opener)  in the third game of the season and never looked back. That cemented in Narduzzi’s mind that 1) the QB was the key to offensive success and 2) he wasn’t going to wait for the younger QBs to grow into a starting role.

Hence his grabbing Max Browne out of USC when that opportunity arose.  Now – looking back on the success of our two previous transfer QBs it makes all the sense in the world to roll the dice on another and this season with Browne at the helm of the offense we’ll see it our string of luck holds true.

But it does have to end sometime doesn’t it?  or does it?

Continue reading “What’s a Good QB and Do We Have One in Our Future?” →