Yesterday ripped my heart out again. I screamed at the tv and yelled awful things about Pitt QB Tino Sunseri (more on that later). Yet, I will be right back in front of my screen, giddy again, on Thursday evening when Pitt plays South Florida. Once again, if it is a tight game, I will stand directly in front of the television and squat down with my hands together saying, “come on Pitt, one time, just give me one time.” Why will I do this? Because on those rare occasions when it does happen (just refer to the name of this blog), it feels so damn good. Every fan knows it and that is what keeps you coming back. …well, except for Pitt fans, who had yet another AWFUL showing in the stands….except for…YOU GUESSED IT…the student section! I really have to interview a member of the Zoo at some point just to find out their thoughts on when they are as rowdy and dedicated as they are; and they look from their section and just see yellow empty seats and people who sit on their hands during Pitt games. It has to be disheartening.
Let’s get to the game at hand and we’ll start where we always seem to….with QB Tino Sunseri. Look, I screamed awful things at the television at the end of the game about Tino…to the point where my fiancée told me to settle down and afterwards, asked me not to use certain phrases while watching Pitt anymore. Now, when I sit down and REALLY think about it…he does keep getting better and better every week. Yesterday, he did some bad things, but he’s starting to run the offense better. He is mixing in several fakes per game that are usually ending up with some VERY nice runs. He missed a big early throw to Drew Carswell and of course, there was the last drive….OH GOD THAT LAST DRIVE! He made a few good plays early and then did the unthinkable. On a play where he absolutely must get rid of the ball, he not only did not, but took a 10 yard sack. Then, two plays later, he took another to make it 4th and 26. While I screamed at the screen in my living room, there was a little voice in the back of my head that said, “maybe the receivers weren’t open and he’s just trying his absolute best to make a play,” and then the voice told me to shut up. Paul Zeise said he would write about this issue in his blog later on, as he seemed to think that receivers are NOT getting open like they should. So my overall thoughts on Tino are: That he absolutely MUST make better decisions, BUT, he is getting better every week. I want Tino to succeed and I think he will…for my television’s sake, I hope he does. He will never be Tim Tebow, but I don’t think he has too…he can just be Tino.
Let’s not forget that Notre Dame is (and it kills me to say this) a much better team man for man then Pitt. Pitt maybe did not beat up Notre Dame straight up, and maybe the Irish tried to give Pitt the game on a silver platter with penalties and turnovers, but Pitt sure did NOT get run off the field like South Florida did yardage wise (I believe ND outgained USF 510-280 or something obscene like that). Pitt played well, particularly the defense. They held Michael Floyd, who is the real deal, to 4 catches for 27 yards. If you watched College Gameday, you would have thought Floyd would have broken every single game day receiving record for Notre Dame and possibly college football. That did open up some other plays as tight end, Tyler Eifert, KILLED Pitt in the second half and finished with 8 catches for 75 yards and a 2 point conversion. Make no mistake, he was open, but some of his catches were very nice snags and he held on, despite Pitt’s secondary teeing off on him several times.
The offensive line lost a VERY important lineman against Iowa for the season, in Chris Jacobson. His replacement made some early mistakes, but Cory King, ended up playing a very strong game. The offensive line, as a whole, played pretty well. On the flip side, mental mistakes killed this unit and had just as much to do with the loss as Tino’s mental errors on the last drive. King had a killer holding penalty on a nice Sunseri run that was completely unnecessary. Lucas Nix….LUCAS NIX….had 3 false start penalties…though I do believe Ryan Turnley had a hand in one of them, as they called Nix for the penalty, but it was the entire offense, except for Turnley (I assume he didn’t snap the ball since everyone else moved). Despite all of that, make no mistake that the Fighting Irish has a very strong front 7 and overall, Pitt’s offensive line looked good.
In the end, this was a pretty sloppy game on both sides of the ball, and Pitt ended up on the losing end due to some mental errors late and the inability to close out another opponent in the 4th quarter. Saying that, if I hear one more person say this was a “fourth quarter collapse,” I swear I’m gonna go all Urijah Faber on them (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOQLg7Kc8So ). They were not up by 35 points! They were up by 5 points and couldn’t keep Notre Dame out of the end zone on the Irish’s second to last series…THAT IS NOT A COLLAPSE! It was a big weekend and a very important one that Pitt stay in this game and they did that. When you have big recruits at the game (and man, there were some big recruits), you CANNOT get blown out in front of them. They showed these recruits and the country, that they can play with some of the good teams in the country. I really feel like Notre Dame is a good team this year. They are not overrated this season, in my humble opinion.
Yesterday my heart was ripped out again, this morning was a little tough getting out of bed knowing how close Pitt was, yet again. I did it, I’m writing about it…..Thursday is just around the corner…and I’ll be right in front of my television screaming again…and I promise Tino, I won’t say what my fiancée told me not to say this week.
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