Tag: Heinz Field

POV Gameday Thread: Duke

It’s Saturday morning and I’m getting ready for the drive up to Heinz.  We are favored by seven or eight points this afternoon depending on who you are giving your money to. I think we’ll be under that but not by much.  I predicted a 41-35 Pitt win.

I just received an email from our friend Bernie (BigB) who was the guy I quoted back in July when he told me he had some Outer Banks’ bar face time with our OC and who shared with us that Matt Canada was 100% firm in his belief that ‘We’ll score a ton of points this season‘ . Hey, that happened!!

Our body surfing DC was being carried out to the middle of the Atlantic ocean in a riptide as that shore-side conversation was happening because the exact opposite has transpired under Conklin’s watch.

Bernie and I think alike – if we had even an average pass defense as we did last season we may well be 10-0 at this point.

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Know the Enemy & Predictions: VT

VT is one of those teams we fans talk about when we say that Pitt has to start winning ‘big’ games.  But the fact is that all our remaining games are ‘big’ as long as we keep winning them – it is what will keep us in the hunt for the ACC Coastal championship.

So what are the things we need to know about and then see our team do to win this game? Here are my thoughts…

We need to knock the Hokie QB Jerod Evans out of the game. Seriously.

This kid has thrown for 19 TDs against only two INTs in seven games and this is his first season to boot. That scares me and it better scare both HC Pat Narduzzi and DC What’s-his-name.

That was the first thing that popped out of my mind.  Sorry it was negative but when a QB has this stat line:

evans

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POV Game Thread: Georgia Tech

Yesterday I predicted a four point GT win over the Panthers 38-34 because I thought this might be the game our run defense – as great as it has been – shows some weakness against a speedier backfield using the Triple-Option, something that we haven’t seen yet this season.  Here’s a good in-depth explaination by the GT HC Paul Johnson.

That’s how HC Paul Johnson’s offense will look today.  Now, here is a well-seasoned and expert ex-Coast Guard academy Defensive Coordinator John Loose explaining how to defend against it (just a coincidence, really!)

Interesting Huh?  What we need is the defensive approach Dave Wannstedt used to shut down Navy’s great option offense back in the day.  The key there was to keep our MLB Scott McKillop as the ‘spy’ on the Navy Fullback regardless of what was happening on the play.  It worked well and we won some games doing that.  Of course having McKillop at MLB help a bunch there also.

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POV Predictions: Georgia Tech

OK – here it is on Friday morning and that is the time for game result predictions by myself and you smarter guys.  Yesterday I wrote a Know The Enemy article where I showed a bit of what this current version of the GT Yellow Jackets is all about.

One thing sticks out in that the GT rushing attack isn’t as formidable as it has been in the past.  That’s a good thing.  Another is that their passing game is sub par also.  However, each QB we have faced has had great games against us except ‘Nova’s in the opener so I expect GT’s QB Thomas to have a season high game and throw way more than his current 108 ypg.

On the other hand Pitt has leveled out our offense approach a bit by letting Nate Peterman air it out a more than he had been allowed to do in the first four games.  He responded with 280 yards with two TDs and in doing so established Jester Weah (7 for 176 @ 25.1 ypc and 1 TD against Marshall) as the primary receiver for the rest of the season.  Most probably that is – he’s our best deep threat this year.

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