Thoughts on Buffalo

If you've been watching a Wannstedt coached Pitt team you knew exactly how this game was going to end up. A win is a win though and it feels better than last week. At 1-1 we can still have a good season and with the way yesterday went down could still win the Big East. Let's get to some quick observations on the game:

1. Baldwin got around 5 plays and Nix got 2 plays due to injury so its obvious they aren't getting a chance to earn more playing. All we heard this week was about how important it was for both to see the field and neither was used in any significant way. The "invisibile man" who apparently controls our personnel needs either stop lying about playing them to the media or actually use them. I expect by week 10 we will get to see the wildcat and Greg Cross. Elijiah Fields did play which was good
   
2. Another huge problem propped up and its our defensive line. I was convinced this line was going to be dominant and the base of our defensive success but I was wrong. The problem yesterday was the big offensive line of Buffalo manhandled the line in the running game. Greg Romeus flat out hasn't shown up this year and has been a major disappointment. Having such a small defensive line appears to have left us vulnerable to the straight up the middle running game. Extremely poor performance in the run game by the line and they are going to need to improve vastly over the course of the season or teams are going to run all over us.
3. The fan turnout yesterday was pretty encouraging. It looked to be about the same size crowd as the Bowling Green game. The new "Sweet Caroline" fourth quarter opener was a big hit. Hopefully, more night games means less excuses for fans not to come.
4. Offensively it looked like we called the game exactly the same way as we did against Bowling Green. The style of football we saw yesterday is the same style of football we will see until we get new offensive coaching. It worked yesterday because Buffalo's defense was worse than Bowling Green's.
5. On defense the missed tackles and blown assignments are still there. Scott McKillop played much better this week which contributed to the better defensive performance. I feel like we are improving and hopefully we get a better performance against Iowa.

Overall the game was a win so there was that. The expectations for Wanny and the program are so comically low that every win seems like a great accomplishment. Buffalo was signficantly worse than us and we only beat them by 11 points so take that into account to.