Submitted by MissingWlat… 11/18/17

November 18, 2017

Dear POVerts:

Please allow me to apologize to all of the great Panther Nation for this week’s debacle.  I know you all realize how hard the kids played and that they truly deserved to win. If Matt Canada were still here, I would not have to be making this apology, but what can I say, he LOVES gumbo. That and our AD wouldn’t pony up for him until after LSU offered him 1.6 per. But who is counting?

I know that you all are disappointed with our play calling and time management when we got down to the one yard line on the last possession of the game.  But hey, James Conner graduated last year, which really reduced our options down there.  Plus, I had unnecessarily burned a timeout a few minutes earlier, so we really were a little short on time.

A minute and two seconds and one timeout? Just not enough time. Especially when our guys were a little slow because our equipment manager packed the wrong cleats.  Most teams can run about six plays in that amount of time, but we wanted to take our time and make sure we got the right plays called.  Kudos to Coach Watson there!

Maybe a run-pass option would have been good on second down, but Coach Watson and I were a little reluctant to put Kenny Pickett in that situation, given that he is a freshman and all.  But hey, it looks like we found ourselves a QB!!!  Sorry that we kept him under wraps until there were two games left. I know that Alabama plays freshman, but what do they know???

You know, I really thought we would be able to punch it in there at the end.  I just felt like our O Line would get a push, even though they didn’t open a hole for Darrin Hall the entire game. I just had a hunch there, otherwise we would have run one of the special plays we had drawn up for a two point conversion.  Every coach has one or two of those in his back pocket. Just wait until we unveil one of them in our bowl game!!

Anyway, let me say “I’m sorry” again. I do hope to see about 12,000 of you next week when we again keep things close..this time against Miami.

And if you are out there somewhere UPitt, please make the trip to the Burgh for the game. Heather wants to wear her yellow blouse and give you a distinguished alumni award…a  year’s supply of Grape Fanta.

H2P!

Sincerely,

Head Coach Pat Narduzzi