OK friends, this was one of those weeks. What kind of week? One of those. The Anti-Preview is going to look a little trim, as The Subway Domer got a little too busy with “other” things this week. Never fear, at least KGG and the Brawling Hibernian still got ya covered. For the record; The Subway Domer likes the Irish to win this weekend, 34-17.
Moving on…
The Brawling Hibernian’s Angle: It’s the week of Notre Dame/Pitt and with it comes all the ennui, disappointment and general malaise which have defined each team’s season thus far. Both came into 2010 with high expectations, and were quickly sucker punched by the brass-knuckled fist of reality. While we Irish fans know the frustrations of Notre Dame’s season, the Panthers may be, if anything, more disappointing.
As the season began, Pitt was a Top-20 team expected to win their conference en route to possible BCS glory. Sadly, those dreams were deferred after losing to Utah on the road to start the season. Two weeks later, those dreams were pistol-whipped, robbed and dumped in an alley by the Miami Hurricanes (who else, really?) during their 31-3 trouncing of the Panthers in Shitsburgh.
How sad has Pitt’s season been? Their two wins have been over FCS’ mediocrity New Hampshire (a gloriously familiar 2-3 on the season) and FBS shit-sandwich, Florida International.
Along the way, Pitt has managed the 88th ranked passing and 51st ranked rushing offense. On the other side of the field, the Panthers are better against the pass than just 28 teams (though, one of them is Notre Dame), ranking 92nd. Against the run, Pitt is much better, ranking 15th nationally.
So, how will this game go? Pitt is going to try and run the ball; Notre Dame basically won’t. End of story. If you think that description inapt, consider the teams in question. Each is still in the unenviable position of grasping and straining to find some type of ideological grounding. In other words, they still haven’t quite figured out what they’re good at, but they’re getting there. At this stage, it seems Notre Dame can throw the ball, Pitt can run it and, at any given moment, each team’s defense might be celebrating a sackerception or scratching their collective heads trying to figure out how that third-string, walk-on fullback got into the endzone. With all of this in mind, Notre Dame prevails over the John Holmes-with-a-clipboard-led Panthers, 24-13.
KGG’s Slant: The Irish enter the game looking to get on a winning streak with their second straight victory. Its not a huge winning streak, but one that we have to start somewhere. The Irish are just 2-7 in their last 9 games and that needs to change. Brian Kelly preaches consistency with his new team and stringing together some wins will go a long way towards their confidence. The Irish face the Pittsburgh Panthers this week in a game that many thought would be an L during the offseason, but this game looks ripe for winning.
The Panthers enter this game with a 2-2 record with their wins coming against New Hampshire and Florida International and their losses coming against Utah and Miami. Pittsburgh is a team that rely’s heavily on the run and coming into this week averages 169 yards per game which is #52 in the country. Their passing attack is lead by Tino Sunseri who is completing 63% of his throws and has 12 TD’s and 6 INT’s. Pitts passing attack hasn’t been lethal this year and comes in averaging 183 yards per game. Sunseri Struggled against Miami but was able to get over the top on some of his lesser opponents. SunSeri has been sacked 7 times already so the Irish will look to apply pressure. The Irish are currently 19th in the country with 13 sacks and if they can get pressure from the front three, the Irish have a great chance of winning the game.
Pitt’s bread and butter is basically a double edge sword in their rushing attack. Dion Lewis and Ray Graham have been a potent weapon for Pittsburgh that only the Utes have really been able to bottle up. Pitt will rely heavily on the rush to try and open up the defense. Graham arrived on the scene in a big way last week when he put up 277 rushing yards and 3 TD’s. If the Irish are crowding the line to try and stop the rush, which they will most likely have to do, Sunseri will look to hit the deep threat Baldwin over the top. The Irish secondary got beat last week on a wheel route so they need to stay true this week and not bite on the play action. We have seen the defense emerging has a strong point on this team. They got plenty of practice facing the run last week so they should be primed and ready to roll.
Offensively for the Irish, look for Kelly to give Dayne a little more leash this week running the ball. Last week he scripted a brilliant set of plays to start the game and the Irish came out firing. Kelly has used different personnel every week when he starts the game and I don’t think this week will be any different. Against Stanford, Kelly used double tight ends but they were lined up as wideouts with Riddick and Floyd in the slots. Last week Kelly used a 4 wide receiver set that included John Goodman and Kyle Rudolph spread out wide, flanked by Floyd and Riddick in the slots. Every week the playbook gets a little bigger and I don’t expect this week to change. The Irish got back on the right track last week with the run game, but the bread and butter of this offense has been the nations 17th best passing attack. With the emergence of Bennett Jackson on kick returns, I think we might see #86 lined up as a receiver this week. If Jackson can pull down a “Golden Go” route once in the game, then the secondary will have to respect his speed. The Irish need to finally go up top to open up the running game. Once that happens Dayne will be able to run the zone read option more effectively and efficiently.
We saw flashes of what this offense can produce last week on the first 3 drives. If they can eliminate turnovers and Dayne can play at a high level of consistency the entire game, the Irish will win.
Irish beat the Panthers, 27- 17.
