This is why we shouldn't play Pitt. Beating them gives us nothing.
Punished in polls for a 19 point win.
- Thread starter BisbeeMike
- Start date
Well that's the problem when everybody in the media predicts 55-10 or something, and then it turns out that PIttsburgh is a pretty good football team. But it really matters little.
I was actually thinking just the opposite. Pitt was quality opposition and you need at least one of those in the pre-conference games.
It's ideal to have quality opposition but not a team like, say, Oklahoma that might come into your house and clean your clock before you're ready to play a big time game. What happened to Ohio State quite deflating.
It's really good for PSU that they struggled -- but they did a lot of really good thing too. Plenty to work on in the two weeks before the B1G starts.
Another reason why preseason polls matter. Oklahoma's win means something because OSU was #2....and it will mean something all year regardless of what OSU ends up doing.
A quality opponent that isn't thought of as quality does us no good.
There are 3 priorities for PSU football, and they are the only 3 that matter:
1. Defeat Michigan;
2. Defeat Ohio State;
3. Win the conference.
That's it. We dont control polls or selection committees. We do control 1, 2, and 3. We take care of those priorities every season, I'll be quite content to let the playoff chips fall where they may.
1. Defeat Michigan;
2. Defeat Ohio State;
3. Win the conference.
That's it. We dont control polls or selection committees. We do control 1, 2, and 3. We take care of those priorities every season, I'll be quite content to let the playoff chips fall where they may.
In the playoff era, impressing the poll voters is less important, thank god. PSU does not have a strength of schedule problem if they can win their games. Their problem is they are facing some awfully tough physical teams. For them to get a physical game early was maybe better than a blowout over a more highly regarded paper tiger team (remember Arizona and Trung Canidate).
I think this team is pretty well grounded, but if there as a danger of them becoming ungrounded, Pitt took care of that problem yesterday.
Impressing the committee is the same as impressing poll voters....same system, different name. If you took four teams under the BCS it would be the same results as now.
I expect this from the Facebook comment section, but for people who actively seek out a football forum, wow.
If you don't understand why we are at 5, then there isn't much to say.
We jumped USC last week, they looked bad we looked great. USC crushed a ranked team this week and we were soso against a team that went to OT against Youngstown.
If you don't understand why we are at 5, then there isn't much to say.
We jumped USC last week, they looked bad we looked great. USC crushed a ranked team this week and we were soso against a team that went to OT against Youngstown.
I'm not for playing Pitt every year. You can only afford one home-and-home series in the pre-conf and, if you want PSU to start scheduling Miami or Notre Dame or USC again, then there's no room for Pitt.
But this year, I think this turned out to be a pretty good game in terms of the development of this football team. Exposed some weaknesses and that is a good thing.
Not surprised. I think we are a little overrated. We may develope into a playoff team, but we are not there yet.
They are just giving USC back what they lost after first game and Oklahoma deserves to be where they are after their win...
+1. This is early season. All these teams are a work in progress. That's what makes it such an interesting time. Vegas makes betting lines because that's what they do, but they have no idea at this point in the season what's going to happen. Nobody does.
One of the best examples for me was 1999, PSU v Arizona, Zona came in with tremendous hype based on what they'd done the year before and they had a returning TB (Canidate) who was getting preseason Heisman hype.
They came in ranked preseason #3. But somehow nobody really noticed that they had graduated all these really important role players and they weren't the same team. PSU cleaned their clock, in another few weeks they were out of the top 25, and they finished 6-6.
This.......take care of business on the field. Anything that involves voting, PSU is gonna get hosed.
As been said many times before; playing Pitt does nothing for the program other than money.
It hurts is when we lose to them and it hurts us when we beat them. No win situation other than maybe preparing us for Iowa.
But to me that's a win. Preparing for the physical teams of the B1G, for the kind of battles on the LOS, that's the No. 1 thing for this team right now. I think the LOS is the last piece of the puzzle for this team.
Look back at the Rose Bowl, they lost the LOS battle all game and stayed in it (even built a lead) with superb skill position talent. If they'd been able to grind out a few first downs in 4th quarter, or if the D-line had been able to get ANY penetration and pressure Darnold, they would have won that game.
David Jones had a column last night arguing that maybe smashmouth doesn't matter any more, that speed and scoring are the future of football. PSU got pushed all over the field by Pitt and still won seemingly comfortably.
I thought about it but I don't buy it. If PSU wants to be a contender they have to be beefy and super strong up front. And they may have the players to do it -- but they weren't all that yesterday.
Pitt did not push Penn State all over the field. Pitt runs a gimmicky offense that is as hard to prepare for as Navy, or Army, or Georgia Tech. Navy ran all over Ohio State 3 years ago and nobody said Navy pushed Ohio State all over the field, and Ohio State won the national championship that year. Pitt made 5 first downs by either inches or just one yard, and all on third downs, and they also ran 9 shovel passes and completed 8 of them. Your narrative about how Pitt pushed Penn State all over the field is false.
Allow me to add that I had Andrew Nelson graded higher than Chasz Wright yesterday, by a large margin, after rewatching the entire game.
No problem. Just win win win. One game at a time and it will be fine.
I don't think the nation thinks that. Tell me, who does the Big XII have other than Oklahoma? Maybe Oklahoma State?
It sure would be good for PSU if Pitt beat Oklahoma State next week.
So.. your "narrative" is that PSU just got unlucky a lot that Pitt was able to complete all those first downs and sustain all those drives. That PSU was fooled by smoke and mirrors? For four quarters?
They had 24 first downs to PSU's 14. They had 340 yards and their offense was mostly between the tackles. TOP 32 minutes to 21? That's awful.
Thank god PSU has so much DL depth because old PSU teams would have been worn down to nothing by the 4th quarter.
And really if you consider that Browne is not a very good QB, it makes what Pitt accomplished on the ground even more remarkable. They HAD to the run the ball (or shovel passes) because they couldn't protect Browne, PSU knew they had to run the ball and still couldn't stop them.
This wasn't Navy -- for sure deception is a big part of it but you can't say it was a finesse offense. They were mostly running between the tackles, and to do that you have to move DTs and middle linebackers out of the way, you have to physically block people downfield, and they were doing that.
And you're not addressing the offensive side at all.
The last 54 minutes of this game, PSU scored 19 points. Had 13 first downs.
Longest drive of the day for PSU was 7 plays. (Pitt had two 15-play drives just in the first half.) PSU converted 4 of 12 3rd downs, pretty similar to last year.
Are you going to argue that it was a gimmick defense that was hard to prepare for? Or that McSorley was just "off."
PSU was very fortunate in this game to get the turnovers early and to have the defense play really well in the red zone.
I know people want to believe in this team, but I think this team has a ways to go if they're to reach their goals. Pitt showed us that, and that's not a bad thing to find out now -- rather than a month from now. There is still time.
I don't want to sound negative. It was a good win, there was so much to like about PSU's performance. I just think it raises questions about PSU's line play, questions that will be answered one way or another in about two weeks.
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USC moved up for beating Stanford. Pitt is not really that much worse than Stanford; the difference is that Stanford was ranked. So Pitt held PSU to 19 after the 1st quarter - so what? That's not really stopping a team.
You can write as many paragraphs as you want, Iowa's offensive line is not better than Pitt's.
I kind of don't think the polls mean all that much in week 2 for the teams that do start in the top 10. Just win baby.
That said, it is disrespectful. Just imagine how far we would have fallen if we gave up that last second garbage TD at the end there? Who knows?
I was actually shocked by the Pitt team. I thought their defense really improved and their offense regressed a good bit. If they had any kind of a passing game they would have given us a game. If they get their act together? This win may look better at the end of the season than it does now.
So ignore it all and repeat a nitpicky argument about whether Iowa has more future NFL OL than Pitt?
My point wasn't that Iowa is going to be tougher than Pitt (though at Kinnick, I would bet they will be).
My point is that problems at the LOS are problems at the LOS and can't be rationalized away. Particularly the offense has to play better than they did yesterday, but the D too has to get itself off the field to give the O a chance.. Or this is another 2-loss, 3-loss team and another nice bowl win but not a playoff team.
OSU could have been ranked #10 in the preseason and it still would have been viewed as a impressive road win.
Did you feel this way at end of last season? A team just missing the playoffs has "a ways to go"? It is virtually the same team.
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