Pitt

I still can't believe we actually won that game.  With a minus four turnover margin,  And we somehow let UVA gain 450 yards.  But, as I said, I'll take any win.  I'm ecstatic with a 10 point win on the road given the turnovers.  Good teams are supposed to be able to win playing ugly.  We could not do it against VT, BYU or Miami.  Its nice to finally get the job done, even if UVA is considerably worse than those teams.

On to Pitt.  Pitt has been an incredibly inconsistent team for several years.  The ACC has been an incredibly inconsistent conference for several years.  So of course, as soon as Pitt gets into the ACC, they become strangely consistent.  Go figure.  Their results this year pretty much all make sense.  They probably should have lost to Duke on the road (in hindsight - still hard to get used to Duke being pretty good.  They may finish the year as one of our best wins.  Although I think they are a little overvalued in the computers right now due to the VT upset, and they'll come back down in the next few games).  The road loss to Navy was a mild upset but all teams go through ups and downs.  Most experience higher highs and lower lows than Pitt has so far.

They are the type of team we typically beat under Paul Johnson.  Not unlike Syracuse.  Mediocre, not a pushover, but they are probably less talented than we are across the board, and don't have any particular unit that scares you too badly.  We'll be at home and I'm not usually afraid of being out coached and beaten with lesser talent.  They do have a monster defensive tackle who is excellent.  His name is Aaron Donald and you'll probably hear it called many times tomorrow.  But the rest of their front seven is not at that level, and anyway Donald did not seem to give Navy too much trouble.

There is the irritating factor that they played Navy last week and thus got an extra week to prepare for our offense, and got to see it at full speed.  I don't worry too much about teams having bye weeks (based on my analysis last year, it does not appear to give the opponent any significant advantage).  But the full speed part may help.  Having two weeks instead of one when your own scout team is the only prep you have is different than having a week of practice, playing a game against the real thing, and then having another week of practice.  Navy runs our offense a lot better than Pitt's scout team.

Of course they lost to Navy.  They may be better this week than they were last week, but we have better talent than Navy by a good margin.  I think we should be fine, especially if the defense continues to play well.  One issue I am concerned about is Pitt's offense.  They are not particularly good, but they are much better passing than running.  They are 35th nationally in passing efficiency, and just 90th in yards per rush.  Our defense has played well this year, but its been a lot better against the run, and somewhat vulnerable against the pass.  We are 61 in pass efficiency defense, and 40th in yards per rush allowed.  This is consistent with Roof's normal philosophy, which emphasizes stopping the run.  Pitt is a fairly good passing offense with two excellent WR's.

If we can contain their passing attack this should be a comfortable win.  If we don't turn the ball over we should also win pretty comfortably.  If we do both, we might win by a lot.  But this is definitely a losable game.  I hope the players are not over confident due to Pitt's Navy loss, or because we've won two in a row.  Beating UVA and Syracuse is hardly a reason to think too highly of ourselves.  And this game is crucial for bowl eligibility.  And is homecoming and a night game.  So I assume we will come out and play well, and win without too much trouble.  But Pitt is not a pushover.  I hope we are ready to play.

Go Jackets.