Due to overwhelming appreciation of my game film analysis after App State here are my thoughts on the Pitt game from what I saw in the tape.
I first would just like to say if you review my App State post I told you all that Pitt was “in for a butt whooping”. I saw this coming for PSU. App State was a great opponent for this team to have in week 1 and Pitt showed me absolutely nothing against Albany to convince me that they would be in this game at all. Hearing College Game Day say that Pickett was a baller and would have his way against us was probably the worst television call I’ve ever heard in my life. Clearly David Pollack hasn’t watched any Pickett film nor has he studied our defense. He based that call solely on them beating Miami last year. That’s it. Idiot. In Franklins post game interview he was asked why he kept Trace in so late. In response he says we saw what happened last week in the 4th so we wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again and then then he adds a little
Jab to gameday and says something along the lines of “plus the things that were said this morning”. He and staff clearly pay attention to those things and they use them as motivation.
Okay let’s get to the game.
First off hats go off to Miles Sanders and and Gilikin. They were the two most dominant players at their positions during this game. Kevin Givens and Shareef Miller had great games as well. Amani another good game.
I would also like to throw some support to LBer Cam Brown. If you watch the tape Cam played really well. This game showed me how fast he is and whoa. This was the best game of his career. He was disruptive in the back field on blitzes and threw two o-linemen to the field which was really impressive. Also saved the TD on the Jacques-Louis jet sweep. He got grilled in the Den after the App State game. He played much better agaisnt Pitt.
This game started by Pitt messing up the coin toss and the mistakes never ended. Opening drive for Pitt was ugly and if Amani makes the interception which he probably catches 9 out of 10 times then this game probably gets uglier a little faster.
Credit to Holland who had not one but 2 blocks on the Hamler sweep for TD. Miles Sanders also with a great block. The 3WR overload on Traces right really confused Pitt’s safeties.
Pitt answered immediately with a jet sweep of their own that went for 35 yards. Penn State was much more disciplined against the jet sweep after this play.
Penn State likes to go into the 4-2-5 defensive set alot for blitzes. Unfortunately those blitzes come off the edge which leaves large pockets for QB scrambles. I thought Pickett actually did a really good job staying alive in the pocket and finding these open areas of 6-9 yards before the LBers closed the gap. This was something that I pointed out to you all against app State as well. Their qb ate us alive. Pickett was successful and this is a major area of concern for me. Against guys like Haskins at Ohio State this could mean easy yardage to extend drives.
Pitt ran the wildcat one time for 6 yards and. First down. Was surprised they didn’t try that again.
On Pitt’s first TD drive they ran to the right side of the oline almost exclusively on that drive. On the TD play Penn State overloads the right side and the delayed handoff Ollison sees a monster hole on the left. He follows a pulling guard and TE up the left side in what’s called a counter trap. Penn State doesn’t stand a chance. The TE moves through the hole to block Cam and he walks in for the TD. Givens was lined up in that gap but he stunts to the right side of the line allowing the hole to open. This was a tactical move by the Pitt OC to try and bait PSU to hit the right side of the line. They do and Pitt scores. PSU guesses pass on 3rd and 10 and guesses wrong. This is the type of play calling we will see a lot of agaisnt Wisconsin. This is their bread and butter and honestly PSU barely stopped it all night.
One thing this game exposed to me was that a 15 yard personal foul for facemask call isn’t enough. The face mask on K.J. is horrid. Another on Amani’s interception and then late in the 4th Trace gets absolutely mauled for another. The Pitt player doesn’t even attempt to go for KJs body. Just goes straight to the head grabs the facemak and nearly pulls his head off. I spoke to a few of my buddies who played at all different levels. They told me this, as a player you know when you’re pulling the facemask. You make a decision. Either I tackle this guy and take a penalty or this guy scores a TD. I’ll take a penalty. Until they make the facemask penalty as severe as targeting these are going to continue and will get worse. It’s the easiest thing to grab on a player. These three face masks weren’t just an oops and let go they held on twisted the player’s heads all the way around and torqued their bodies. Just horrendously awful. Worst was Amani’s wasn’t even called.
Back to the tape.
The drive where Pinegar missed the FG was stopped after Roy batted down Traces attempt to Juwan. Juwan probably, maybe, I hope would, catch the slant for a 1st. I believe PSU scores on this drive if that is completed. Pinegar misses the 45 yd FG and Pitt gets its best field position of the night so far. I’ll blame the weather on that one. Kicking into the open end of Heinz field is no fun. He barely missed it too. I like Pinegar.
Let’s jump to the Miles Sanders run from the 1. Miles rips off his monster run of 78yards but it is negated by a dumb penalty by Brandon Polk for a block in the back. Penn State easily scores on this drive if you take that penalty away. Instead they get a 31 yard gain. Drive sputters at the Pitt 40 and PSU pins Pitt deep. Beautiful punt by Gilikin. If that long run stands this game is 14-6 much earlier than the last minute of the 2nd quarter. Miles really did well breaking tackles on that run. He was incredibly impressive in this game.
Pitt had zero passing yards in the 1st quarter. Zero.
Next play with Pitt deep in their own zone at the 4. Ollison does nearly the exact same thing as Sanders and takes it 63 yards. McPhearson saves the TD by showing the wheels. There was nothing special about the run just great blocking by Pitt and the hole opens. The entire defense just got eaten alive on this play. If you watch this play you’ll see olineman just manhandling everyone. Kind of shocking how easily the line got to the second level. Micah Parsons gets two big stops on this drive and Pitt misses the FG. A bobble by the holder.
Shoutout to Pitt’s punter Christodoulou. He was our first half MVP. Botched the hold on the extra point. Botched the hold on the missed FG. Fumbles the punt that Micah Blocks. In the second half he punts for the Thompkins TD return. Averaged 37 yards per punt. Yikes.
After the first Slade fumble Pitt has great field position and Ollison is dominating. Credit to Pitt’s run coordinators they pulled guards, went two TEs, lead with a full back and just started eating us alive. This is where the inexperience at LBer is going to be exposed. They get down to the 4 and go for it on 4th and 3. As we know, PSU stops them. This was the turning point in the game for our defense.
Unfortunately our offense sputtered the next drive with a McSorley sack on 3rd down and a loss of 4 on the screen to Allen. This was a really poor offensive possession. One would think the momentum would have swung to Pitt at this point. Gilikin gets off a bomb and Pitt takes over at their 38. A big field change.
The first play after the punt Luketa and Parsons are both on the field as LBers in arguably the biggest drive of the half. That should tell you something about these two and the coaching staffs confidence in them. Micah disrupts the first play. Holding on Pitt pushed them back to the 29. Parsons again makes the play for no gain. Pitt ends up punting
Next play:
Parsons blocks the punt after the drop and this game is now over. PSU goes 5 wide in the hurry up on K.J.’s TD catch. A great read by Trace and strike into the endzone.
PSU first half 0/4 on 3rd down. Horrid. Finished the game 4/12. This has to improve. All offseason Franklin told reporters that they were really focused on improving 3rd down efficiency. So far I haven’t seen it. As we get deeper into the B1G schedule if we are unable to extend drives and convert on 3rd Downs we are going to be in trouble. Pitt dominated time of possession in the first half. Giving our D rest by sustaining drives will be critical.
PSU gave up 214 rushing yards in first half. Yikes.
2nd half we start with a wheel route to Miles. He takes it to the house but it’s brought back by PI on Juwan. Miles had both his big TDs called back by penalties by our WRs. If those plays stand he goes for over 240 yards in that game. Miles was sharp in hitting his holes. Broke a ton of tackles and was tough to bring down. He did have 3 negative plays when he tried to bounce to the outside and got caught in the backfield. All for significant losses.
DeAndre had zero receptions in this game. Zero. He dropped two TD passes. He really needs to break out of this slump he is in or he is going to see his time only as a Punt returner. Both balls were right on the money by Trace. Happy to see Polk and Hippenhammer getting TDs.
Juwan only with 2 receptions and another bad drop plus the PI call. He also needs to get his act together quickly. This is a game he should have dominated. Juwan’s lack of production against an inferior opponent is striking.
Credit to the D line they took over the game.
Pitt had a lot of penalties in this game. However almost every psu TD drive before Clifford’s bomb was extended by a major Pitt penalty. The thing that worries me is those drives would have resulted in punts if it were not for the penalties. We can’t rely on personal foul calls to extend drives. We have to execute.
Sure we scored 51 points. But this was not a good game for the offense. Trace was 14 for 30 for 145 yards. We fumbled 3 times lost two of them. Went 4/12 on 3rd down but 0/4 in the first half. Two huge penalties negating The biggest plays of the game for the offense. And drives were extended by Pitt penalties not because we efficiently moved the ball down the field.
After the App State game I felt that the defense had to make some major adjustments for us to compete this year and they clearly are making those adjustments. After this game the offense has some soul searching to do. They have to execute against Ohio State, Michigan, Mich State, Iowa and Wisconsin or else home field advantage won’t mean a thing. Hopefully Kent State and Illinois are a good way for them to get into a groove before the Ohio State game.
A few notes, we discussed that Rahne probably was using 60/65% of the play book against App State. They showed a few more wrinkles agaisnt Pitt that all went for TDs. The jet sweep to K.J. for the first TD and the wheel route to Miles for a TD (called back). I expect we won’t see much else in the next two games but expect some new wrinkes against Ohio State.
Dalton and Holland played well.
I felt the oline has some really great moments. A couple misses here and there but overall they played well.
Secondary was barely challenged all game so tough to see how much they improved. LBer still the weakest area of defense for me. I’m not talking about Parsons and Luketa signs they are both freahmen but I think the depth at LBer is weak. If we have 1-2 prolonged injuries at LBer that would be very very bad.
Lots of good things to take away from this game. A win like this continues to build confidence. You’ve now won in OT, you’ve now beaten an in state rival and you’ve played in terrible weather. That’s a great way to start the season in my book.
Look for a more dominating and Complete performance this coming Saturday.
I first would just like to say if you review my App State post I told you all that Pitt was “in for a butt whooping”. I saw this coming for PSU. App State was a great opponent for this team to have in week 1 and Pitt showed me absolutely nothing against Albany to convince me that they would be in this game at all. Hearing College Game Day say that Pickett was a baller and would have his way against us was probably the worst television call I’ve ever heard in my life. Clearly David Pollack hasn’t watched any Pickett film nor has he studied our defense. He based that call solely on them beating Miami last year. That’s it. Idiot. In Franklins post game interview he was asked why he kept Trace in so late. In response he says we saw what happened last week in the 4th so we wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again and then then he adds a little
Jab to gameday and says something along the lines of “plus the things that were said this morning”. He and staff clearly pay attention to those things and they use them as motivation.
Okay let’s get to the game.
First off hats go off to Miles Sanders and and Gilikin. They were the two most dominant players at their positions during this game. Kevin Givens and Shareef Miller had great games as well. Amani another good game.
I would also like to throw some support to LBer Cam Brown. If you watch the tape Cam played really well. This game showed me how fast he is and whoa. This was the best game of his career. He was disruptive in the back field on blitzes and threw two o-linemen to the field which was really impressive. Also saved the TD on the Jacques-Louis jet sweep. He got grilled in the Den after the App State game. He played much better agaisnt Pitt.
This game started by Pitt messing up the coin toss and the mistakes never ended. Opening drive for Pitt was ugly and if Amani makes the interception which he probably catches 9 out of 10 times then this game probably gets uglier a little faster.
Credit to Holland who had not one but 2 blocks on the Hamler sweep for TD. Miles Sanders also with a great block. The 3WR overload on Traces right really confused Pitt’s safeties.
Pitt answered immediately with a jet sweep of their own that went for 35 yards. Penn State was much more disciplined against the jet sweep after this play.
Penn State likes to go into the 4-2-5 defensive set alot for blitzes. Unfortunately those blitzes come off the edge which leaves large pockets for QB scrambles. I thought Pickett actually did a really good job staying alive in the pocket and finding these open areas of 6-9 yards before the LBers closed the gap. This was something that I pointed out to you all against app State as well. Their qb ate us alive. Pickett was successful and this is a major area of concern for me. Against guys like Haskins at Ohio State this could mean easy yardage to extend drives.
Pitt ran the wildcat one time for 6 yards and. First down. Was surprised they didn’t try that again.
On Pitt’s first TD drive they ran to the right side of the oline almost exclusively on that drive. On the TD play Penn State overloads the right side and the delayed handoff Ollison sees a monster hole on the left. He follows a pulling guard and TE up the left side in what’s called a counter trap. Penn State doesn’t stand a chance. The TE moves through the hole to block Cam and he walks in for the TD. Givens was lined up in that gap but he stunts to the right side of the line allowing the hole to open. This was a tactical move by the Pitt OC to try and bait PSU to hit the right side of the line. They do and Pitt scores. PSU guesses pass on 3rd and 10 and guesses wrong. This is the type of play calling we will see a lot of agaisnt Wisconsin. This is their bread and butter and honestly PSU barely stopped it all night.
One thing this game exposed to me was that a 15 yard personal foul for facemask call isn’t enough. The face mask on K.J. is horrid. Another on Amani’s interception and then late in the 4th Trace gets absolutely mauled for another. The Pitt player doesn’t even attempt to go for KJs body. Just goes straight to the head grabs the facemak and nearly pulls his head off. I spoke to a few of my buddies who played at all different levels. They told me this, as a player you know when you’re pulling the facemask. You make a decision. Either I tackle this guy and take a penalty or this guy scores a TD. I’ll take a penalty. Until they make the facemask penalty as severe as targeting these are going to continue and will get worse. It’s the easiest thing to grab on a player. These three face masks weren’t just an oops and let go they held on twisted the player’s heads all the way around and torqued their bodies. Just horrendously awful. Worst was Amani’s wasn’t even called.
Back to the tape.
The drive where Pinegar missed the FG was stopped after Roy batted down Traces attempt to Juwan. Juwan probably, maybe, I hope would, catch the slant for a 1st. I believe PSU scores on this drive if that is completed. Pinegar misses the 45 yd FG and Pitt gets its best field position of the night so far. I’ll blame the weather on that one. Kicking into the open end of Heinz field is no fun. He barely missed it too. I like Pinegar.
Let’s jump to the Miles Sanders run from the 1. Miles rips off his monster run of 78yards but it is negated by a dumb penalty by Brandon Polk for a block in the back. Penn State easily scores on this drive if you take that penalty away. Instead they get a 31 yard gain. Drive sputters at the Pitt 40 and PSU pins Pitt deep. Beautiful punt by Gilikin. If that long run stands this game is 14-6 much earlier than the last minute of the 2nd quarter. Miles really did well breaking tackles on that run. He was incredibly impressive in this game.
Pitt had zero passing yards in the 1st quarter. Zero.
Next play with Pitt deep in their own zone at the 4. Ollison does nearly the exact same thing as Sanders and takes it 63 yards. McPhearson saves the TD by showing the wheels. There was nothing special about the run just great blocking by Pitt and the hole opens. The entire defense just got eaten alive on this play. If you watch this play you’ll see olineman just manhandling everyone. Kind of shocking how easily the line got to the second level. Micah Parsons gets two big stops on this drive and Pitt misses the FG. A bobble by the holder.
Shoutout to Pitt’s punter Christodoulou. He was our first half MVP. Botched the hold on the extra point. Botched the hold on the missed FG. Fumbles the punt that Micah Blocks. In the second half he punts for the Thompkins TD return. Averaged 37 yards per punt. Yikes.
After the first Slade fumble Pitt has great field position and Ollison is dominating. Credit to Pitt’s run coordinators they pulled guards, went two TEs, lead with a full back and just started eating us alive. This is where the inexperience at LBer is going to be exposed. They get down to the 4 and go for it on 4th and 3. As we know, PSU stops them. This was the turning point in the game for our defense.
Unfortunately our offense sputtered the next drive with a McSorley sack on 3rd down and a loss of 4 on the screen to Allen. This was a really poor offensive possession. One would think the momentum would have swung to Pitt at this point. Gilikin gets off a bomb and Pitt takes over at their 38. A big field change.
The first play after the punt Luketa and Parsons are both on the field as LBers in arguably the biggest drive of the half. That should tell you something about these two and the coaching staffs confidence in them. Micah disrupts the first play. Holding on Pitt pushed them back to the 29. Parsons again makes the play for no gain. Pitt ends up punting
Next play:
Parsons blocks the punt after the drop and this game is now over. PSU goes 5 wide in the hurry up on K.J.’s TD catch. A great read by Trace and strike into the endzone.
PSU first half 0/4 on 3rd down. Horrid. Finished the game 4/12. This has to improve. All offseason Franklin told reporters that they were really focused on improving 3rd down efficiency. So far I haven’t seen it. As we get deeper into the B1G schedule if we are unable to extend drives and convert on 3rd Downs we are going to be in trouble. Pitt dominated time of possession in the first half. Giving our D rest by sustaining drives will be critical.
PSU gave up 214 rushing yards in first half. Yikes.
2nd half we start with a wheel route to Miles. He takes it to the house but it’s brought back by PI on Juwan. Miles had both his big TDs called back by penalties by our WRs. If those plays stand he goes for over 240 yards in that game. Miles was sharp in hitting his holes. Broke a ton of tackles and was tough to bring down. He did have 3 negative plays when he tried to bounce to the outside and got caught in the backfield. All for significant losses.
DeAndre had zero receptions in this game. Zero. He dropped two TD passes. He really needs to break out of this slump he is in or he is going to see his time only as a Punt returner. Both balls were right on the money by Trace. Happy to see Polk and Hippenhammer getting TDs.
Juwan only with 2 receptions and another bad drop plus the PI call. He also needs to get his act together quickly. This is a game he should have dominated. Juwan’s lack of production against an inferior opponent is striking.
Credit to the D line they took over the game.
Pitt had a lot of penalties in this game. However almost every psu TD drive before Clifford’s bomb was extended by a major Pitt penalty. The thing that worries me is those drives would have resulted in punts if it were not for the penalties. We can’t rely on personal foul calls to extend drives. We have to execute.
Sure we scored 51 points. But this was not a good game for the offense. Trace was 14 for 30 for 145 yards. We fumbled 3 times lost two of them. Went 4/12 on 3rd down but 0/4 in the first half. Two huge penalties negating The biggest plays of the game for the offense. And drives were extended by Pitt penalties not because we efficiently moved the ball down the field.
After the App State game I felt that the defense had to make some major adjustments for us to compete this year and they clearly are making those adjustments. After this game the offense has some soul searching to do. They have to execute against Ohio State, Michigan, Mich State, Iowa and Wisconsin or else home field advantage won’t mean a thing. Hopefully Kent State and Illinois are a good way for them to get into a groove before the Ohio State game.
A few notes, we discussed that Rahne probably was using 60/65% of the play book against App State. They showed a few more wrinkles agaisnt Pitt that all went for TDs. The jet sweep to K.J. for the first TD and the wheel route to Miles for a TD (called back). I expect we won’t see much else in the next two games but expect some new wrinkes against Ohio State.
Dalton and Holland played well.
I felt the oline has some really great moments. A couple misses here and there but overall they played well.
Secondary was barely challenged all game so tough to see how much they improved. LBer still the weakest area of defense for me. I’m not talking about Parsons and Luketa signs they are both freahmen but I think the depth at LBer is weak. If we have 1-2 prolonged injuries at LBer that would be very very bad.
Lots of good things to take away from this game. A win like this continues to build confidence. You’ve now won in OT, you’ve now beaten an in state rival and you’ve played in terrible weather. That’s a great way to start the season in my book.
Look for a more dominating and Complete performance this coming Saturday.
