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PrintSALT LAKE CITY -- Pitt showed resiliency in its season-opening overtime loss Thursday night to Utah, but the Panthers have much to learn in order to meet their the lofty preseason expectations.
Mistakes, mishaps and blown coverages were crucial factors in Utah's 27-24 triumph, proving -- if nothing else-- there is no exhibition season in college football.
Two Utah touchdowns were the result of blown pass coverages resulting from miscommunications in the Panthers' inexperienced secondary.
- Game: Pitt vs. New Hampshire at Heinz Field.
- When: 1p.m. Sept. 11.
- TV: ESPN3.com.
The Panthers committed 12 penalties. Seven were whistled against the offense and five were called against players who were not dealing well with their first experience with a hostile crowd. Those included two delay-of-game penalties on sophomore quarterback Tino Sunseri, two false starts/illegal procedures by redshirt freshman tight end Brock DeCicco and a movement call on redshirt junior guard Greg Gaskins, who made his first start.
Those things should subside as these players gain experience. Also in need of improvement is sophomore middle linebacker Dan Mason, who got caught up in the emotions of the game and took a personal-foul penalty.
Pitt made some progress in the course of the game, particularly Sunseri and the offensive line.
Sunseri was a different player in the second half. Part of that was because the Panthers' game plan was extremely conservative. It was clear coaches wanted to try and establish the run and take the pressure off him in the first half, but, in the second, when the Panthers fell behind, the coaches threw caution to the wind and let him take some shots.
He settled in and found his comfort zone as his passes were more accurate and delivered more on time, although he showed his inexperience in overtime when he threw an interception because he held the ball too long and threw it behind his receiver.
Some of Sunseri's success in the second half was because of improvement by an offensive line that struggled most of the game. Some was because Utah used a lot of different looks to try to confuse them. Considering the unit had three new starters, such confusion is not shocking. Late in the game, however, the line picked up a couple of blitzes and enabled Sunseri to step into the pocket and make a few big throws.
Things like offensive-line play and penalties seem correctable, but the play of the linebackers in pass coverage and the unwillingness or inability to use tall receiver Jon Baldwin in the red zone might be issues all season.
The linebackers had a mostly forgettable night The same kind of pass-coverage problems surfaced at times last season (the North Carolina State and Cincinnati games were obvious ones), and coverage problems popped up Thursday night as the Utes used a variety of short crossing routes and other underneath patterns to force the Panthers' linebackers to cover, and they could not do it.
The Panthers' linebackers are very good when they face traditional pro-style offenses but have been exposed by some spread offenses -- such as Utah's -- and there are plenty of such offenses left on the schedule.
As for Baldwin, he was not able to make a game-changing play when Pitt lined up near the end zone because he was not given a chance. The Panthers ran 17 plays from inside the 20 and made no throws to Baldwin.
While that might be puzzling, it was not unexpected because he was not a big factor in the red-zone offense last year, either.
How well Pitt addresses and solves these problems in the next few weeks will go a long way toward determining the kind of team the Panthers will be.
Check out Ray Fittipaldo's Pitt B-Ball blog and Paul Zeise's Pitt Stop videos about football exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
