Monday, September 21, 2009

Late Pitt-Navy Thoughts

3-0 feels good. I can get used to the experience of opening the season on a roll. Now the real season starts and the real successes can be had. On to the thoughts:
  • Dan Mason is an absolute beast. I love the way he plays and he was quite impressive filling in for Gunn. Next year when Mason gets to play full time he could be an All Big East player.
  • Bill Stull is on fire right now. Enough can't be said about the playcalling of Cignetti factoring into Stull becoming a productive QB. You watch his footwork and his presence in the pocket and it is like a different player out there. He has put two great performances together and has changed my perception of what he can actually do.
  • Jonathan Baldwin showed what he can do when he gets the ball. The physical tools that he has are legit 1st round pick level. Getting him the ball is one of the keys to success in the Big East.
  • Dion Lewis is human but he is still playing such good football right now. For a freshman to be able to step in and immediately take so many carries is quite impressive. I still wish that Graham could get some more carries as he has a gamebreaker style that is a great compliment to Lewis.
  • The defense completely shut down the Navy running game. I expected that to be the case because of how well our defense plays against the run. This week we will see if the troubles against the past have been fixed.
As has been the storyline all year this is the week where we find out how this season will play out.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

WE are all excited, I agree, Stull looks good.

If they can hold their own this weekend and win the bandwagon will be full but if they lose....

Well, we will see, I hope they can win, the key is going to be how our pass defense holds up.

Reed, for clarification purposes I am Old John!



We should be able to move the ball.

I will check in later this week to see how you are going to pick!

rkohberger said...

... "but if they lose..." what? Why is everyone so concerned what a loss would do at this point?

Let's be honest here, no one thinks PITT is going to go through the 2009 season undefeated, if anyone does they are setting themselves up for disappointment. So I'd rather we lose this game than one of our BE conference games... wouldn't you?

Not that I don't think we'll win on Saturday, I do - and feel that we match up very well with NC State. But should the football Gods not smile on us this Saturday it won't upset me much at all.

Actually, after watching PITT play ball so far this season I think that there isn't a team on our schedule that we don't match up well against - but sometimes that just isn't enough. So I assume we'll have at least two games where we end up on the short side of the scoring.

DPJ said...

I'm extremely worried about their passing attack against our secondary. Especially if they decide to do more shotgun offense or short drops to neutralize our Dline.

rkohberger said...

They have a kid at QB who is probably the worst case scenario for us in terms of how he plays QB - if our showing against Buffalo is any indication. However, I think Phil Bennett is a good coach, and that our LBs & DBs are good players so they'll adjust. Let's don't underestimate just how disruptive our DL can be.

Add to the fact that we have two new guys - Fields and Mason who are just now coming into their own out there and are both players that can make big plays when needed and I believe we'll do what it takes.

If we can get them to have to go to a completely one-sided offense, like shut down their rushing game which we are capable of doing and force them to pass, we'll have a distinct advantage.

At any rate I think NC State will score some points, but that we'll score more.