The title for this post should have something to do with the Pitt Panthers, but I’ll temporarily digress from football felines to share some local ursine lunacy. The recent furor over an anthropomorphized, human habituated black bear and her two nine-month-old cubs (affectionately referred to as “the twins” by my illustrious neighbors) that roam around my ‘hood foraging for delectable garbage morsels convinces me that the humans are the ones who need to be relocated to the Ocala National Forest.
After an incident between Momma Bear and a woman trying to protect her yapping little mutt, many of my neighbors are protesting the Florida Wildlife Commission’s policy of trap
To them, the bears are just giant, cuddly, mischievous raccoons who are sweet, people-loving critters who care as much about us as we care about them. They just
I’m bearly getting started here!
I’ll get to the Pitt game forthwith, but writing is therapeutic for me and I need to get this off my chest! So I’ll lay on a little more, already.
I have a solution: I’ll stay here with the bears and they can take their entitled, gentrified, knee-jerk asses somewhere where you can’t do any damage to yourself and the bears. “But they’re
You just wait until one of their kids or their precious little doggie gets mauled. (According to these idiots, “our” bears are docile and would never harm anyone or anything). Yeah, right — now is foraging season for bears. Bears are omnivores. They’ll eat your bird of paradise plant, they’ll eat your garbage, and if they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat your little Yorkie. Or maybe YOU. With the old fable about the frog and the scorpion in mind, what we know is bears will be bears. Keep them in close proximity with humans — especially morons who feed them wittingly or unwittingly — and someone will get hurt.
End of Rant. Back to Pitt.
Oh, yeah. The #13 Nittany Lions (2-0, 0-0) host the Pitt Panthers (1-1, 0-1) in a nooner clash at the Big Beave (formerly known as St. Joe Memorial Stadium at Beaver, hosted by Accuweather.com). The Panthers are coming off a 20-10 victory over Mid-America Conference Ohio Bobcats. Meanwhile, you know that the Lions beat up on Buffalo 45-13 after a sluggish start.
Speaking of sluggish starts, this is a noon game, and historically, nooner performance has been slow as a black bear waking from hibernation. Fortunately, this is not a road game, or that would have been a double-whammy.
Just two ranked teams in the ACC
Were you aware that there are only two ACC teams in the Top 25? Bookends Clemson (#1) and Virginia (#25) are ranked. That’s it. And Pitt has already lost to one of them (Virginia). Fortunately for the Panthers, Clemson isn’t scheduled this year.
(In comparison, seven Big Ten teams are ranked in the Top 25).
But funny things happen in the ACC, so ya nevah know who’s going to emerge as an unexpected victor from one week to the next. Recall that in 2016, Clemson’s only loss was a 43-42 squeaker in Pittsburgh. And in 2017, Pitt stunned Miami. So, never count these guys out as gamers.
Is this a rivalry?
No. Not now. Not ever again. The Pitt rivalry days of our St. Joe past are remembered by us grey-hairs, but no one on the team now was alive back then. For them and for the coaching staff, it’s just another game. After this year, the argument will be moot for who the hell knows how many years until (if ever) the two teams play each other again.
Now, granted, some asshole fans use the pseudo-rivalry as an excuse to raise hell and berate the other side, but most of the time, these assholes don’t need an excuse. (Recalling the story of the frog and the scorpion, assholes will be assholes).
The Big Ten has cleverly arranged more pseudo-rivalries, thinking first that we should have a rivalry with Moo U., and then later changing their mind thinking we should have a combinatorially explosive rotating non-rivalry rivalry with Rutgers, Maryland, and the aforementioned Moo U. You’ve seen me rant about that bullshit before, so I’ll spare you.
That said, Shitt on Pitt!
See? I can be a Pitt-hating asshole, too. But I digress. Let’s look at The Pitt Experience of 2019.
What the Ff*ck?
Maurice Ffrench, that’s what. He be da guy to watch on the Pitt offense. The 5’11, 200 lb senior receiver has caught 16 passes for 192 yards and a touchdown this season, with a long one of 75 yards. He’s also a bang-up punt and kickoff returner. He doesn’t
His wide receiver partner, junior Taysir Mack, is averaging 10 years per reception.
Wash Quarterback, Pat Dry, and Season
Kenny Pickett has been around for a few years now — his first start was that upset over Miami in 2017. The 6’2″, 225 lb junior is now a seasoned college quarterback who can hurt you with his arm (but not so much with his legs). This year, with two games under his belt (Virginia and Ohio), he has thrown for 506 yards, one touchdown and one interception with a completion rate of 60.3%.
Pickett has been sacked five times. Last year, he was sacked 33 times. I’m here to tell you that the O-Line
The Panthers lost their big runner from last year, Qadry Ollison, and they haven’t regained their ground game since then.
Defense
One stat tells a big story. The leading Pitt tacklers are defensive backs. Pitt lost two major contributors on the D-line to season-ending injuries(check Hale Law, P.A. for the best injury attorneys) , so I’m thinking this should be a field day for Sean Clifford. However, while this would seem to be an opportunity for the running back committee, they better pick it up after the crappy performance against pseudo-cupcake Buffalo last week. Despite their D-line injuries, Pitt ranks 23rd in rushing defense.
The question is whether James Franklin and the offensive brain trust will figure out this defense enough to exploit it without suffering Buffaloesque embarrassment in the first half. And the second half, too, for that matter!
Encouragingly, o
Da Wedda
Showers with a high of 74 is what AccuWeather tells me. Shouldn’t be much of an issue, should it?
Da Bottom Line
Well, you know, I have to tell you the bear (sic) truth. In my mind, until we see this game and Maryland after the bye week, we haven’t seen enough to pass intelligent
The spread has remained flat at 17 – 17.5 all week but the o/u has risen five to 53.5. This gets us to a break-even at about 36-18 in favor of Penn State. Turkey
I’ll be back after the game with some bear (sic) facts about the game if as yet unnamed Tropical Cyclone Nine doesn’t inundate my ass.
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Jackstand says
NT, you painted a clear picture for this game. I think that PSU’s slow start last week will be repeated this week due to the early start time for the game, and that will limit scoring in the first half. I expect a 32 to 17 victory for the Lions.
The Nittany Turkey says
We’ll be bringing Greek Salad. Oh yeah.
—TNT
Big Al says
Penn State will win this game but I don’t think they’ll cover the 17 points. Pitt’s offense is pretty bad and State’s defense should hold it to less than 300 yards of total offense. If Pitt generates more that, it will be a good indication that State’s defense is not the dominant force the Sanguinarians think it is and that there will be no B1G championship this year. (which probably wouldn’t happen even with a dominant defense but at least there would be a non negligible chance)
Pitt’s defensive front seven isn’t all that talented, but this is the 1st semi decent secondary State’s offense has faced. And I’m sure Nards, has dreamed up some strange new blitzes, twists, and stunts that will confuse the OL and Clifford. So I’m expecting a fairly low scoring game unless there are a lot of turnovers. Penn State 27 Pitt 13
PS
Maybe some local high schools could adopt the cubs as live mascots. Florida has so many high schools that at least a few of them must use Bears as their mascot. Although, IIRC, Florida high schools tend to favor weird ass mascots like Manatees and Sand Crabs. (it’s surprising the Xtian fundamentalists haven’t gotten the latter one banned for condoning pre-marital sex.)
The Nittany Turkey says
The mascot situation is even weirder than that when you consider that the high school my kids would attend if I had high school age kids is Lyman High. It’s mascot is the Greyhound, and it is located right across the street from a dog track. Now, couple that with the constitutional amendment that passed on the ballot in the last cycle that bans greyhound racing in Florida, and you have a school in a potential quest for a new mascot. Let me be the first to propose the Lyman Bears.
You touched on what concerns me most about the Pitt game — Narduzzi. I think he’s fully capable of out-coaching Franklin. He’ll figure out some way to use his crippled front seven to put enough pressure on Clifford to rush him into throwing to a semi-competent secondary. PSU has allowed three sacks to presumed cupcakes thus far.
Update on the bears: FWC removed the trap, with no bear in it. They say they don’t want to leave a baited trap out for too long, as it will attract other bears. So it’s Bears 1, FWC 0, going into the second quarter. (Now the lady who is hiding Mama Bear in her garage can open the door).
—TNT
K. John says
I would have to agree that we need a couple of weeks to really see what this team is. I am not happy with what have seen so far and think the second half of the Buffalo game had more to do with them than with us. Right now, I see a couple of major weaknesses on both sides of the ball. Buffalo exploited them last week which allowed them to play keep away but unforced mistakes ultimately did them in. How would the PSU brain trust have reacted had Buffalo gone into the fourth with a two score lead which is probably what happens had the Buffalo QB not misfired on two passes or the punter not committing a stupid penalty? I think it is a radically different game.
With that said, Pitt can exploit one of our two weaknesses on defense but that won’t be enough to put up a real amount of points but it will be enough to win the time of possession battle. Defensively, who knows? I am more worried that Ricky Rahne is giving Sean Clifford the Hackenberg treatment (square peg, round hole). After moving away from the RPO in Trace’s senior year due to post-Barkley ineffectiveness, it is back with a vengeance, but with a pro-style QB not suited to run them. On top of that, scheme wise, minus the inclusion of a few route concepts not seen since the pre-Minnesota portion of the 2016 season (before JoeMo simplified the offense by gutting the passing game), in the limited sample, we are not seeing much in the way of shifts in the offense designed to take advantage of Clifford’s significantly better arm.
I am going to go with an even battle until the third quarter like last year’s Pitt or Illinois games. The question is, when Pitt makes a big mistake, will they quit like in 2018, keep it together or something in between like we saw with Buffalo last week? I am going with a Buffalo like performance.
Penn State 37
Pitt 21
The Nittany Turkey says
We learned a lot from the Pitt game. We learned that they ain’t ready.
Who knows what would have happened if Narduzzi had gone for the TD on 4th and goal from the 1? An overtime loss? You only get points for that in hockey.
You called it right with respect to TOP and offensive coaching incompetence. On the other hand, while Clifford’s arm is significantly better, overthrowing deep receivers in the clear after three games must give us pause.
Other than special teams appearing to be consistently good, the only conclusion I can draw from the Pitt game is that they ain’t ready.
—TNT