The Downside - Pittsburgh

[SWC75]

- Another dismal performance in a dismal season. The sad thing is that we’re becoming inured to it because we have learned not to expect too much from this team. It’s less painful because we know they just aren’t very good.

- Even those of us who have defended the gates against those who see firing the coach as the answer, (to every problem), have to admit at least some confusion as to what the heck was going on out there. Shafer reiterated in his post- game press conference that the team is trying to “win one for the seniors”. That should mean playing your best guys. Yet he pulls out AJ Long, who is not the second coming of anybody but at least had talent and confidence, for Mitch Kimble, who is the definition of a fourth string quarterback. Meanwhile Austin Wilson of the NFL arm, sat on the bench watching Kimble go 0 for 6 with an interception. Not one of his passes was anywhere near the receiver. It didn’t look like we were going all out to do anything.

- Pittsburgh didn’t even play that good a game, yet they won 7-30. They were full of penalties up front. Their star running back, James Connor, went out early with an injury. Their comically named kicker, Chris Blewitt, missed a couple of field goals and didn’t look so hot on his other kicks, either. This wasn’t a buzzsaw we ran into. It was more of a Vegematic.

But it was more than enough to beat us.


- We still haven’t had a running back score a touchdown since August but we had a defensive end score one today, to go with the touchdown pass our punter threw, (also back in August). This is an offense?

- Our defense didn’t play particularly well either. Pitt gained 445 yards, 28 first downs and 30 points with their star player out most of the game. It seemed we might make a game of it when we scored at the beginning of the second half but Pitt closed us out with a touchdown, (where the guy went 49 yards untouched) and got two field goals to prevent any drama.

- Why punt on 4th and 1 from our 47 with 7:01 left in a 7-30 game? Are we trying to make sure it doesn’t end up 7-37? For that matter, why punt on 4th and 3 from our 39 with 1:42 left against Duke?

- The team didn’t quit in the sense of not trying but you had the sense that they’d stopped believing that anything good is going to come of this, which has the same impact.

- That was the strangest basketball game I’ve ever seen.

 

[orangenauburn]

this game was U G L Y ... affirmed many negative feelings on the board though

 

[CuyahogaCuse]

- Another dismal performance in a dismal season. The sad thing is that we’re becoming inured to it because we have learned not to expect too much from this team. It’s less painful because we know they just aren’t very good.

Not less painful here. Despair is an awful kind of pain. Pitt was 4-6. Let's not mince words. They are a mediocre ACC team. In fact, there's not one world beater on our schedule this year. Including Florida State, who will get exposed should they make the playoff.

A touch above mediocre gets 6 wins. Average should get 8+.

Grobbian gets you a gift vs Villanova, a road MAC win and a win against a team that would have suffered the ignominy of a 0-0 tie today, were it not for modern day overtime rules.

Pain and despair. They go together.

 

[Madbiker]

Not only is the team bad, worse is that the coaching staff seems clueless and a lot of their decisions are mind boggling and don't make sense.

 

[Dcuse]

- Another dismal performance in a dismal season. The sad thing is that we’re becoming inured to it because we have learned not to expect too much from this team. It’s less painful because we know they just aren’t very good.

- Even those of us who have defended the gates against those who see firing the coach as the answer, (to every problem), have to admit at least some confusion as to what the heck was going on out there. Shafer reiterated in his post- game press conference that the team is trying to “win one for the seniors”. That should mean playing your best guys. Yet he pulls out AJ Long, who is not the second coming of anybody but at least had talent and confidence, for Mitch Kimble, who is the definition of a fourth string quarterback. Meanwhile Austin Wilson of the NFL arm, sat on the bench watching Kimble go 0 for 6 with an interception. Not one of his passes was anywhere near the receiver. It didn’t look like we were going all out to do anything.

- Pittsburgh didn’t even play that good a game, yet they won 7-30. They were full of penalties up front. Their star running back, James Connor, went out early with an injury. Their comically named kicker, Chris Blewitt, missed a couple of field goals and didn’t look so hot on his other kicks, either. This wasn’t a buzzsaw we ran into. It was more of a Vegematic.

But it was more than enough to beat us.


- We still haven’t had a running back score a touchdown since August but we had a defensive end score one today, to go with the touchdown pass our punter threw, (also back in August). This is an offense?

- Our defense didn’t play particularly well either. Pitt gained 445 yards, 28 first downs and 30 points with their star player out most of the game. It seemed we might make a game of it when we scored at the beginning of the second half but Pitt closed us out with a touchdown, (where the guy went 49 yards untouched) and got two field goals to prevent any drama.

- Why punt on 4th and 1 from our 47 with 7:01 left in a 7-30 game? Are we trying to make sure it doesn’t end up 7-37? For that matter, why punt on 4th and 3 from our 39 with 1:42 left against Duke?

- The team didn’t quit in the sense of not trying but you had the sense that they’d stopped believing that anything good is going to come of this, which has the same impact.

- That was the strangest basketball game I’ve ever seen.

SWC, you're a good poster but your infatuation with Austin Wilson rivals Igor's with Ethan Cole. No more NFL references to him,please. He's not good.

 

[SWC75]

SWC, you're a good poster but your infatuation with Austin Wilson rivals Igor's with Ethan Cole. No more NFL references to him,please. He's not good.

He's third string. Kimble is 4th string.

 

[Chip]

He's third string. Kimble is 4th string.

As of when? My guess is that after the Duke game, they moved Kimble to 3rd (or 2B), just because he actually moved the ball for a TD drive (those rare moments are big around these parts lately).

Bringing him in when they did made little sense yesterday, but worrying about our staff doing things that make sense will age a man too quickly. Not worth it.

 

[OttoMets]

Eskridge took himself out of the play on the Boyd touchdown in the second half. He was in position to make the tackle and moved away from the hole.

The players have done an admirable job of playing hard for a bad coaching staff this season, but that was disappointing.