So now that the Rutgers loss has sunk in and I have had an opportunity to cool off about it a little bit I'm starting to wonder what's next for Pitt. How does this team move on from this loss?

This loss hurt in so many ways. The expectation I put on this team (and I hope they put on themselves) was that they would compete for an outright Big East title this year. My expectations have changed at this point. Now that we've lost a Big East game and been so inconsistent throughout the season I think I just want to see this team make a bowl game and improve. Obviously the team's focus isn't going to/shouldn't change.

The QB position is a glaring problem. Sunseri can't run this offense. I don't know if Anderson can or not but I think it's time to find out. Playing Sunseri at this point isn't doing us any good as a program because while he may have experience he hasn't shown that he can lean on it at all. He continues to make the same mistakes over and over again. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result is called insanity. Playing Tino is insane, I guess. I don't want to make this a Tino bashing thread because there are enough of those out there on other sites. I just want to mention that I think he should be thanked for giving it his all but that we're going to go in a different direction at QB for the rest of the season.

Hopefully we can improve and the younger players can improve and start taking on more playing time as the season goes forward.

This loss was absolutely embarrassing. The number of mental errors by the players and the coaches were unbelievable and shouldn't happen at this level of collegiate level. The former Pitt trio (+ 1 now) at RU have to be laughing their a$$es off.

They absolutely have to get to 7-5 and get to a bowl game. They definitely need the extra practice heading into next year.

(10-09-2011 08:52 AM)Hoquista Wrote:  This loss was absolutely embarrassing. The number of mental errors by the players and the coaches were unbelievable and shouldn't happen at this level of collegiate level. The former Pitt trio (+ 1 now) at RU have to be laughing their a$$es off.

They absolutely have to get to 7-5 and get to a bowl game. They definitely need the extra practice heading into next year.

Realistically, we knew deep down that Pitt was not going to win the BE championship this year. There were too many factors to allow for a quick transition. It will be good if Pitt can get a 7-5 or 8-4 and go to a bowl game. At least it would provide momentum into the next season. Hopefully we see a good to great recruiting year with Graham at the helm. I think Shell will get the ball rolling for a great year of recruits for building the team the way TG needs it for his systems.

I'm not so sure anymore. My expectations may have been too high for this season expecting to compete for a Big East title, however, I'm not so sure that next year we will be much better. I see the most glaring problems at positions I'm not sure can be remedied overnight.

Our OL has been really bad this year pass blocking. Unfortunately this unit can't be turned around immediately because it's a unit. What are the odds we can plug all the holes in this unit in one offseason? Also - I believe we are going to lose Nix and Jacobson (although I don't know for sure). We landed Bisnowaty and have an impressive transfer from Penn State coming in next year but that still leaves two holes we may need to plug.

Second is QB. We're not playing Anderson this year because he's a true freshman (I suspect) and because Tino is experienced as a starter. Therefore Tino will be our most experienced QB again next year because Anderson hasn't gotten many reps. This is a scary proposition because the logic then follows that we probably won't be seeing Voytik until 2013. The prevailing notion on other boards seems to be that Voytik will come right in and run this offense next season. That logic is probably putting all the eggs in the Voytik basket and I'm not too fond of that line of thinking. That's a lot of what got us to where we are today with no real option behind Tino.

I suppose we could look at this in a few different ways, though. On the bright side next year Tino and Anderson will have had a year each in the system. Anderson will have been acclimated to being a college football player for an entire year. Voytik will be arriving (hopefully early) and will be available to compete in camp for the starter's job. Gonzalez will also be theoretically available as well because he can start learning the offense from a QB perspective sometime this season and then get a good jump on it during the offseason. This at the very least gives us options.

I know this post is a little doom and gloom but I think we've got a lot of work to do and this is a reality which really just hit me. I now have no expectations for this team the rest of the season because we literally have no QB and a line who couldn't protect one if we did. That makes us one dimensional and as good as Ray Graham is he can't carry the team in every game.

The season so far 'somewhat' reminds me (or at least posters comments on other boards) of the Stache's first season in that when WLAT was letgo, expectations were high and many fans thought that if you plugged in someone else, that Pitt would immediately reach the promised land. Well, it obviously didn't work out that way and it won't with Graham either.

That doesn't excuse what happened at Rutgers and I still stand behind my comments. I posted elsewhere after the Maine and Buffalo games (IIRC) that I hope Pitt goes 7-5 and makes a bowl game. I still believe that should be the case.

Anyway, let's hope the future is brighter and better and the transition from DW to TG is quicker than WH to DW!

I don't know. I honestly never had high expectations. I understood that Graham didn't have a QB to run his system. I see some hybrid of the power run game and his spread being utilized-mainly in the USF game. I didn't get to see the Rutgers game because I don't have ESPNU and ESPN3 didn't carry it. I think 7-5 will be our probable record. Getting into a Bowl and extra practice time is a great year for Graham and his staff.

Rutgers sold out to stop the run. Every team should have done that to us this year but I can guarantee that it's going to happen every game from now on. This game would have been totally different if we had any kind of passing game. The Rutgers offense was putrid but our offense turned the ball over 4x on interceptions and put them in great field position because we couldn't move the ball on them either.

Any semblance of an offense would have put us right in that game. They dared Sunseri to throw the ball and he just had no answers.

(10-10-2011 05:52 PM)ndlutz Wrote:  Rutgers sold out to stop the run. Every team should have done that to us this year but I can guarantee that it's going to happen every game from now on. This game would have been totally different if we had any kind of passing game. The Rutgers offense was putrid but our offense turned the ball over 4x on interceptions and put them in great field position because we couldn't move the ball on them either.

Any semblance of an offense would have put us right in that game. They dared Sunseri to throw the ball and he just had no answers.

I've said this plenty of times on the Scout board...we are reliving 2007 unless Tino figures out a way to make quicker reads and get rid of the ball to his outlets if defenses are going to sell out to stop the run. Tino and Ray look like a carbon copy of Pat and LeSean.

And the saddest part about that is that Pat was thrown into the fire as a (true?) FR. Here we have a JR QB with a year's worth of starting experience who can't make reads and get rid of the ball. I know the system is different but I don't buy that argument anymore. He made slow reads and took bad sacks last year too. Many people say that the WRs aren't open but I'm not so sure about that. I think it's the finding them thing that's causing problems.

I'm just really down on this team right now. If I really think about it objectively, though, I'm in my fourth year on campus and this is the worst I've felt about a Pitt team yet. That's not bad seeing as some of you had to suffer through the 90s and beginning of the Wannstedt years. I didn't think we'd be worse this year than 2008 but I think it's pretty safe to say we're a lot worse.