in Pitt Football 220 Words

Pitt 65 – UNC 75 Recap

By Dan72

Pitt lost to UNC by 10 (75-65) and UNC was better and the much taller and athletic team. The only way Pitt could have even stayed in this game was by pumping up three’s but they didn’t. Pitt started out down by 5-7 points and stayed about that distance, never getting closer.

Pitt got down by 16 in the second half but every time Pitt made a run, UNC just dumped it inside to one of their big men and he just turned around and put the ball in the basket. Pitt offered no resistance. Couliby tried but to no avail. Brown put in his usual worthless effort. Xman made his share of the usual mistakes but even if he’d of been perfect it didn’t really matter. UNC’s three big men just dominated the game in every fashion.

This game was why Pitt had to win at Wake Forest. You are going to have these mismatches in the ACC and this was a total mismatch. Not much else to say except Pitt plays a mediocre Notre Dame team next. A team that has owned Pitt in the past. Unfortunately Pitt will enter this game with very little confidence.

Disappointed by not surprised….

H2P ….Dan72

P/S: Here are some highlights (& lowlights) from YouTube

75 thoughts on “Pitt 65 – UNC 75 Recap”

  1. Dan, what are your thoughts about Champ going pro next year? I don’t really see it. He has a great game at the college level, but huge jump in size and talent level in the Pros.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. I agree with the analysis. It truly underlines the loss of Hugley. I wondered why either Collier (6’8″) or Amundson (6′ 10″) wouldn’t have been tried even for a few minutes to test their strength underneath. It seems to mean they need much more seasoning.

    It doesn’t bode well for games with teams with strong front courts.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. How the world changes in two weeks. Two weeks ago, pitt was nearly a lock for the big dance. Now they might not even get a nobody’s interested tourney bid. If this year is written off, it’s ‘show me’ time next year. Otherwise, I’d be a proponent of making a coaching change. But heathers career is tied to his success. She won’t be the one. Does pitt basketball have any boosters.

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  4. What a roller coaster ride is being a fan of Pitt BB and FB: they’re getting better; they’re getting better; they’re getting better; no they’re not; no they’re not; no they’re not; they’re getting better; they’re getting … and so it goes, year after year.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. It’s always “wait til’ next year” with Pitt FB and BB.

        Too bad we all have a finite number of “next years”.

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  5. As I said I hope we have not entered the February swoon. We must win against teams we are favored to beat. Vegas felt NC should win. We should be favored against ND and we must win. No one point loss.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Breakout to me is 20 wins and a rpi ranking in the 40’s. At least a nit bid.

    For football it’s ten wins and top 20

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  7. If you always look for an excuse for failure, then you fail. I don’t think Capel makes excuses. But I’m sure he is frustrated. And I’m sure he underestimated the burn from the dumpster fire he inherited. Heather should be approaching him with money bags for better assistants.

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  8. Pitt was totally overmatched. UNC’s future looks a lot brighter than Dukes.

    Hughley’s loss shows even more during a game like this. You need all the big men you can get. I agree, throw Collier (6’8″) or Amundson (6′ 10″) out there if for anything else to put down some hard fouls.

    What is Brown’s deal on offense. At least Couliby has some pivot moves to score. Brown just goes straight up, not even a jump fake. What the hell have they been teaching Brown? Put on a tape of Kevin McHale and make him learn and use at least 3 of his pivot scoring moves. That is basic basketball.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Noah scored 4 points in 27 minutes against L’Ville and has been benched ever since except for 5 scoreless minutes against Cuse. He’s a freshman and Capel does not want his confidence ruined.

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  10. ….and can X stop complaining that he got fouled but the refs didn’t call it every time he drives to the basket out of control and misses the shot. X tries to channel his inner Pearl Washington except the ball doesn’t magically go into the basket like it did for the Pearl.

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  11. If Champ goes pro next year it would be a huge mistake. He would be physically dominated in the pros. He needs another 15 lbs of muscle and another year of college. That’s easy for me to say though….$$$ talks.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Dan
    I just wanted to let you know I really enjoy your basketball articles. I played organized basketball throughout my entire youth through high school. Your style reminds me of my favorite HS Coach. Your earlier article about how to beat a zone defense was like a step back in time 30 years ago listening to my old coach scream at my team about ball movement, spacing and motion. Great stuff! Please keep them coming!

    Liked by 4 people

    1. Can’t thank you enough for your comment. I loved coaching and as you might guess am very “old school” in my views on fundamentals. Street ball has almost eliminated work on fundamentals and sometimes street agents ask coaches who are recruiting not to change their players styles! Thus you have Xman’s ridiculous form on jumpers and Terrell Browns lack of a single post move in 3 years.

      Liked by 1 person

  13. To Mark and Notrocket above, Coach Capel did try Max Amadasun last night. He came in for Brown at about the 12:30 mark of the second half and played for about two minutes. Nothing remarkable. No points, no rebounds. They scored right over top of him just as they had with Brown. What I did notice is that he seemed to lag way behind when heading back on defense. He came in with Pitt down seven. Pitt was down 12 when he went back to the bench. That’s why I posted “so much for the Max Amadasun experiment”.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. I must have blinked. Too bad. What we need is a couple of run away wins to get them game experience. Lots of luck this year with an only ACC schedule.

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  15. I don’t know about the rest of you but to me that camera view from the Pete seemed to be a mile away. Almost impossible to make out the numbers on players jerseys. Basically had to pick up mannerisms and hairstyles to tell who was in there. But maybe it’s just my eyesight.

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  16. Does anyone know how many 4 and 5 star players North Carolina has on their roster this year? Any projected 1 and dones like Cole Anthony last year?

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      1. Those are the five stars from rivals. And that’s probably not the best source for basketball. But pretty much half their class each year is Uber elite. Capel is doing a decent enough job at getting top 150 recruits. Pitt really needs a top 50 point guard though. Capel should have no problem recruiting four stars to Pitt. He can be very successful with four stars. But a five star guard or big, can take you to the promised land. I stand by his biggest problem outside a true PG is his staff. His bro included. Why heather allows nepotism is beyond me. This ain’t a family business.

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  18. The short bench is a big concern. Getting Jeffress back in there to spell people would be welcome.

    Go Pitt.

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  19. I would add one more thing to Dan’s thoughts about Champagnie. I agree that it would be a mistake for him to go pro, unless he can get into the first round. The last projections I saw had him around # 42. That’s mid second round. Not many teams keep both draft picks each year. I don’t think Champagnie can beat the professional athletes off the dribble at this point, so that would be an emphasis area for improvement. He doesn’t create space for himself in my opinion, which is critical for success in the NBA. That said, I haven’t watched the NBA down on the farm for at least 10 years.

    Live by the X, die by the X. He did not have a good game. Would love to see an experiment with X as a shutdown corner. When dialed-in, he plays defense quite well. I like Femi as a floor general. He seems to play under control offensively and more often than not makes the right mental play.

    This game boiled down to their strengths (and understanding their strengths), versus our strengths and their strengths won. I do not think X or Toney had good games.

    Capel can use roster variations as his personal petrie dish ( which I would recommend). He knows what he has in Brown. He does not know what he has in a game environment with several other players. He would be smart to use those players in games like this if for no other reason than to get good tape for them to learn and develop, or conversely, for him to have a conversation about them moving on with their dream elsewhere, thus freeing up a schollie.

    As far as the comment above about Capel getting new assistants. He will not get rid of his brother for starters. He uses compliance and Arizona as his leverage to our not smart AD and says he wants coaches that can be trusted versus the best coaches that may or may not land a program in hot water (i.e. Arizona).

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    1. I know. I wasn’t born on the farm yesterday. But if heather had chops, she’d force the decision. Capel assistants stink like a pig rolling in crap. As head coach, it’s his Job to police his assistants. His bro would easily cheat on him just like mine. Never hire family yet heather allows the nepotism. Does heather have relatives on the BoT? Still scratching my head on how she got the job without saying the truth and being labeled or banned. Yes I know the answer.

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  21. Regarding Pitt FB & BB. I feel that we are in a time period where Pitt is just throwing rather big money at HCs (for middling to below average teams in both BB and FB in our athletic program) then keeping a complete hands-off approach to how those HCs actually conduct their business. I don’t know if Heather is scared of Narduzzi or not – but I do know that fan interest has subsided by rather a lot over the last decade.

    Forget about season ticket sales – a lot of those “sold out” season tickets are either corporate buys or, in the past, PSU fans buying the whole season to see PSU play at Heinz.

    I very much doubt the season tickets are sold out anyway. Back in 2010 Pitt advertised the season was ‘sold out” and I called about a week after and was able to buy two season tickets and was offered to buy as many as I wanted.

    We know that Heinz is half full almost every game and even if we were winning the game fans will rather take off and find cheap beer somewhere than stay to the final whistle.

    Narduzzi has alienated a lot of the local media with his churlishness and snide comments and in turn they are not giving him the benefit of the doubt any longer as when he first got here – and when local coverage is lukewarm then so will the fanbase go.

    I think Pitt fans can accept Capel building a bit of a better team each year he’s been here – BB was a dumpster fire before he was hired. But Narduzzi is just coasting along. Being 26-24 in his 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th years – when most HCs are really hitting their stride with their own recruits playing in their own systems and finding real successes – tells the whole story.

    Narduzzi needs to understand that having one very good game aspect in our run defense (3rd nationally) and three average at best to very poor results – passing yards defense (85th), offensive passing efficiency (98th) with a QB who only throws 16 TDs on the season. and rushing the ball (111th) just isn’t any sort of a way to win a bunch more games than you lose.

    With BB at least we have seemed to have been in every game up to the end so far – really can’t say the same thing about FB this season.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Reed, I agree with everything you said but the last sentence. Not a fair comparison, Football played two of the best four in the country. If basketball played anyone in the top ten the results would be similar to football.

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    1. Yeah – you are correct. But at least with BB I might think we had a shot at beating a Top 20 or so team. Does it feel that way in FB to you? Just asking because you follow it more than I do.

      Since taking the blog back over I’ve tried to watch the 2020 season FB games in recordings – except for ND and Clemson since I watched those live. I was underwhelmed to put it bluntly.

      How hard is it for an AD to sit a HC down, look him in the eye and say if you don’t recruit some star O players and produce many more points on the field then you have been doing your times are numbered at Pitt?

      I truly feel that we could get almost any other HC and see the same results that PN is giving us and maybe more. Forget the “Do we really want to start over again?” theory, Yeah we do, if at this stage in his time at Pitt, again his 3rd through his 6th years, we are playing just about .500 ball and getting humiliated on national TV not once but twice in the same year.

      Has PN convinced anyone on the O side of the ball to commit to Pitt who actually makes fans sit up and take notice since he’s been here? Any true star players?

      I’m not talking about Pitt fans thinking the kids are star players – I’m talking about leaders nationally in the respective positions. I can’t have any come to mind – as we said before with the exception of Nate Peterman who Narduzzi had never heard of before his OC made the call to Tennessee – all the star O players he’s had on his teams have committed to other Pitt HCs.

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      1. At least a new HC could start fresh not having pissed off every media person and 80% of the fans. Also, he would not try to be best buds with his players. Maybe actually lead and manage instead. Plus Narduzzi has proven he is a mediocre HC at best.

        Capel is the real deal. Please believe me on that.

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      2. You simply can’t forget “Do we really want to start over again?” We don’t and as a result both Narduzzi and Capel will have a long run at their coaching jobs at Pitt. You Narduzzi “dislikers” may not be happy with that fact but that’s the case going forward folks. Actually Capel might be in more trouble than Narduzzi if he encounters several more Hugely incidents in the immediate future.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. I do agree that offensive recruiting has been far below the line. It is a problem that if not fixed will be the end of the Narduzzi era.

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  24. Can anyone clarify just what recruits Capel has signed or is about to sign for this coming year? I don’t think he has even sniffed a top PG. I recall something about a big that is supposed to be pretty good, but he needs to bring in at least 3 new players to have a balanced roster.

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  26. A few points:

    Guessing Collier and Jeffress are just lucky to have a team not to start on.No doubt they both are benched.

    How about Hammerin Hank? 704 HR’s played forever and was good playing the field and a gentleman of the field. Caught a few small blurbs about his death and a one paragraph splat on his burial and he’s not even that old. Face it folks, we won’t mean a thing in a hundred years.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1pz7NLu7Bg

    PITT played a good game against UNC, three years ago they get blown out by 29 pts. The good news? No one will remember it in a hundred years.

    Slight advances on a few things with a couple setbacks with others. New fighting weight is now………… 155lbs. Its getting so I can hardly get my enure bottle cap off.

    I understand Richard may have a new article coming out soon? I’ll be sure to rested up for that one. POV now has Mike, Reed, Dan and my main man Richard. Sounds like the Beach Boys original members.

    Liked by 4 people

    2. Ike – A good start to the day with a comment from you. I miss your pearls of wisdom.

      Dan is a great addition to the POV. He adds substance to a sport not previously covered in depth on this football centric blog.

      I wish wbb (Bill) would write more articles. I enjoyed his last one.

      As for me, I got nothing on the front burner. Lots of stuff in the refrigerator. Next Wednesday 2/3/21 is the old national signing day. No excitement this year because the early signing period has taken all the air from the balloon. Personally, I doubt if Pitt gets any new commits or even signs that OL man (Honorable). Transfer portal entry is slowing down. Mainly just players finding new homes.

      I do have a thing to complain about – the use of a single stat or set of data to jump to a conclusion. Going from 24.5 scoring defense to 27.0 (a jump of 2.5 pts.) by excluding certain games is due to simple math. Clemson’s scoring defense also goes up by 2.5 pts using that same logic. Is Dabo overrated? Same with players in the pros. In this case it is a function of TIME. All of Chryst players are gone. Narduzzi players are just becoming eligible.

      Take care my friend. Keep building up that strength.

      Liked by 1 person

  27. Champ can’t do the inside work of a 260 lb center. There are still some missing pieces to Capel’s rebuild effort. It appears that the 2021 recruiting class is a zero at this point which will set the program back.

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  28. This is why i said earlier that he needs to let the two big dudes (collier and edmundson) play so that he can see what he has with them, or have the discussion wherein they mutually part ways.

    But why? If I read the tea leaves correctly, I think he only has one schollie to give out for next year.

    He needs to balance out his classes. I am sticking with 5 game suspension for the car key bandits. I have no clue if it is the incident or covid, or team rule breaking (perhaps attending an off site, off mask party). This is ridiculous for such a minor transgression. Everyone of us gets a hand slap for doing that, especially in today’s non-crime punishment environment. No weapons or drugs or violence against women, let them play AD.

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  32. I was thinking that Champ is the best Pitt player since Lamar Patterson, but it took Patterson 3 years while Champ is that good in two. Patterson had Zanna inside and their interior passing was great. Patterson also played point forward for a while when they had ho point guard.

    I wouldn’t give up on Amundson or Collier yet, some guys just are not ready right away. Jamie made a living on guys that got better and rarely played freshmen and even sophomores. Remember Sam Young, a guy most of us thought should have played more as a soph and turned out to be one of Pitt’s greats his junior and senior year. Robinson and Blair are the only two that I remember starting as freshmen.

    Meanwhile, Capel has been playing guys that should have been high school seniors. I’m guessing Jeffress wishes he would have stayed in HS.

    There is only one senior on the team and he wouldn’t be playing much without the off-court problems.

    Let’s hope Capel has something up his sleeve recruiting. Maybe he is waiting to see which HS Juniors are ready.

    I like Ike!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Brad Wanamaker is a good example. Averaged 2.2 points as a freshmen, 12.2 as a senior.
      Jamie’s slow down offenses didn’t score as many points. Wanamaker was the second leading scorer
      his senior year.

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  33. I’ll put my Pitt paranoia on full display here and say that I get really nervous when a coach has no verbal commitments lined up for next season. Makes me wonder if there is a shadow agreement at play whereby that coach plans to move on and breaking commitments to high school recruits is one less unpleasant aspect to deal with. This has to be one of the most frustrating seasons ever for Coach K. At 73, I think, he has to be planning a gracious exit soon. There, I’ve said it out loud.

    The Capel critics will pooh-pooh this thought, saying that a program like Duke can do so much better. And it doesn’t have to be Duke. But I always believe the outside world takes a less biased view of coaches and coaches performance than his/her fans. What Coach Capel has done here in three years is pretty notable, in my opinion.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. 2021 FB schedule out 7 home 5 away. So I guess if we only lose to Clemson at home this year Pitt will end up with an 11 and 1 next season. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  36. typical Pitt POV …. in one week’s time, Capel has gone from GOAT to goat.

    food for thought …. Wake lost to UNC by at 7 at UNC the game before, and Massoud went scoreless. Last night, Massound went 2-8 from three

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    2. Which is why you don’t go to a box and one when he is 2-8 but when he has a hot hand, you need to cool it off…regardless of player. WWB i really like your posts, but don’t think you take into consideration the game time adjustments that should be made. It really isn’t monday morning prognosticating either.

      Dan will tell you that there are only so many schemes you can run on offense and there are at least one scheme defensively for each one. Capel needs a point guard (although i like femi there), but this last game really showed that he needs a big with decent skills. That’s how you take the next step.

      Not sure anyone on here has said that he is the greatest ever, well maybe some koolaiders. Many have said (and i agree), that he has been doing well considering the dumpster fire he inherited. That said, he is missing on teaching fundamentals of coaching in certain areas during games. I might also suggest that he is alloweed to hire a strategy coach (old timer, like Dan, LOL) to consult during live games. An oldtimer doesn’t need to play favorites etc. Just pure strategy on timeouts and defensive scheme to offset what offenses are doing, etc.

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      2. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fc8.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FBPCX46%2Fdennis-hopper-gene-hackman-hoosiers-1986-BPCX46.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alamy.com%2Fstock-photo-dennis-hopper-gene-hackman-hoosiers-1986-31016726.html&tbnid=i02Qvkdx2sSHRM&vet=10CAMQxiAoAGoXChMI6M7EjZW_7gIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEAc..i&docid=BdyM-igDkUQxYM&w=1300&h=952&itg=1&q=dennis%20hopper%20in%20hoosiers&ved=0CAMQxiAoAGoXChMI6M7EjZW_7gIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEAc

        Except without the booze issue.

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  37. Tex I think you will finally get your 10 win season for Pitt football in 2021. You will probably be front and center then calling for Heather to extend Narduzzi’s contract.

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    1. Seriously doubt it. Probably 8 top 9. Most teams wet the bed once or twice.
      Then you have Tenn., Miami and UNC, all tough games. And we go to VA Tech,
      seldom win there.

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      2. But I don’t see a four game losing streak in 2021 unless we lose to GT or Duke, which doesn’t with those two teams under Duzz too often.

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  38. October 23 is clemson. I’ll be in for that. Hopefully we’re back to somewhat normal and capacity will be at least 50 percent. I’m pretty sure that masks are here to stay but I’ve got a nice pitt one. Hoping tailgating will be allowed. But not be sound political, our political and health leaders need to come through. Drug companies. And people can’t be anti Vax

    Tex stocking up on bourbon.

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  39. Sept. 4: Massachusetts
    Sept. 11: at Tennessee
    Sept. 18: Western Michigan
    Sept. 25: New Hampshire

    Oct. 2: at Georgia Tech*
    Oct. 16: at Virginia Tech*
    Oct. 23: Clemson*
    Oct. 30: Miami*
    Nov. 6: at Duke*
    Nov. 11 (Thurs.): North Carolina*
    Nov. 20 : Virginia*
    Nov. 27: at Syracuse*

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  40. Looking at the ACC schedule and I wouldn’t be surprised to see BC have a big year. Possibly 10 win season seeing their OOC is against Mizz and Temple. I only see one real loss on their schecdule (CLEM).

    On the Coastal side, it’s gonna be tough for Pitt to win the Division. UNC will probably win this year and hurting more is that we get Clemson and they don’t. Wouldn’t be shot to see double digits wins for them in the regular season. I do see Pitt seeting up for a 9-3 year. Miami could also get to 10-2. The balance of power would definitely be in the Coastal if it weren’t for Clemson.

    VT is gonna have a rough year seeing a better WVU and ND OOC. I just don’t seem them making a bowl with Hooker gone and that will probably put the nail in Fuente’s coffin.

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    1. Wolfpack is going to have a good ball club next year…there best QB (who beat PITT) was lost for the latter half of the season-broke his leg shortly following him leading the Pack to a very late 4th quarter drive against the Panthers…lost a lot of faith in Narduzzi’s ability to coach the D on that day, even more now that at least 3 of them will be drafted this spring…..(poor job on stopping the deep ball as well) PITT will be a middling program this year…..

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      1. BigB, I agree with you. The way Pitt defended that final drive sadly reminded me of the way Pitt defended another final drive about 11 years earlier ending in a more famous 1 point loss

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      2. Bernie,when Mike transferred the blog back to me I was shocked when I was doing catch-up research on the 2020 Panthers and saw the actual numbers.

        Everyone talked about how great the defense was but I didn’t realize it was so lopsided toward the great run defense. The other aspects of the defense – passing yardage and such were good but not that good.

        Even the scoring defense wasn’t that stingy (thanks to the opener it looked better than it actually was in conference play) but in ACC games we gave up 27 ppg and scored 26 ppg. Which points to right around a .500 season.

        Highs and lows all over last years results.

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  41. I don’t see how Pitt wins more than 8 games even with a 5th year QB. And still no RB. And losing many starters on D. What does Vegas say? I say they have the line at 6.5 wins. 99 percent of the time they are right. I’ll be in for Clemson.

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  42. Sure hope Pitt is 5-0 heading into the VTech game and coming off its bye. Losses to Tennessee and GTech and one would have to think it is the end for Narduzzi. Of course, another mediocre coach will be hired next.

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  43. Sloop John B = +5 Iker…….be well and fight. It’s worth it. As an incentive, I promise not to say bad things about our AD for the next 30 minutes.

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  44. Well, if we get 9 regular season wins I’ll dance a jig in the press box. That has happened only twice in the last 38 years; 2008 w/ 9 wins and 2010 w/ 10 wins.

    Walt Harris had 9 total wins back in 2002 but that was 8 wins in-season and a bowl win for #9. That was with Rutherford at QB, Fitz at WR and Miree getting 943 yards at RB.

    DW had those 2009-10 9+ years but also had McCoy and Dion Lewis in the backfield. Don’t see us with that talent on offense with this coming roster.

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