FPI offensive efficiency. Pitt has been worse than VT thus far. For comparison, Purdue is 53, Rutgers is 56, Marshall is 65. pic.twitter.com/UFSIaIJsxg— Pete B. (@petebvt) September 26, 2023
On one hand, yes Pitt has played some better teams. On the other hand, this is Narduzzi's 10th year as head coach of Pitt, and to see them going through similar struggles on offense to what we are with Pry in his 2nd after a miserable end to the previous regime is....
Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, thats for sure.
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Just wait until their RB breaks for 300 yards on 30 attempts. It'll be 26 attempts for about 50 yards, and 4 attempts for 250 yards and 4 TDs.
It's Pitt. NOTHING this off-season or season has shown me that VT is ready to compete with them mentally or physically. Yes, they are the same 6-6 Pitt of course, but they are mentally and physically tougher- you can bank on that. They will push us around physically and we will have a bunch of pre-snap penalties in key moments mentally that they won't have. nothing from either team has shown me otherwise.
So you're telling me there's a chance??
There is always a chance. Right now the starting LT and QB for Pitt I think are doubtful for playing on Saturday. That means Drones has heaps of experience over their backup. Then again it means we are playing a backup QB...
That also means that a backup is going to light us up for 300 yards and 3 TDS.
The way Jurkovec has played we might have a better chance of winning with him healthy
This game has potential to be so ugly lol... and it's in primetime
ACCN loves putting us at that 8pm slot and broadcasting Enter Sandman... I don't hate it.
Yeah I'm all for it. Love it for the students to get night games.
There is a part of me thinking this is still part of the ESPN trying to make the ACC look bad nationally to avoid paying us more money. The best matchup the ACC could find this week was two 1-3 teams???
That's not how it works at all. ESPN gets choices between 12pm, 3:30pm, and 7/8pm on ACC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ACCN. Then, they make decisions around what other networks are doing - so if Fox is broadcasting OU/TX at noon, ESPN may want to go head to head with FOX, or they may want to take an L, let Fox win the 12pm slot, but take a W somewhere else.
This game is probably in their 8th best spot (3 ABC slots, 3 ESPN slots, ESPN2 prime time slots all get more viewers than ACCN at prime time.
The 'ESPN hates the ACC/VT' narrative is so tired and utterly preposterous. ESPN cares about their bottom line. They don't need to devalue the ACC - the ACC is locked into an agreement for the next decade - we can't renegotiate our rights. ESPN wants the ACC to be amazing so we can outperform our contract.
Even if espn wanted the ACC to die, the ACC is good enough at doing that on its own (literally - that's what #goacc is all about), ESPN wouldn't need to do anything.
My point is still they picked us for the night game? This is normally a marque slot.
Not when it's ACCN.
Nooner on ABC gets more eyeballs than 8pm on ACCN
Honestly, ever since FOX went Big Noon Saturday, the bigger games on all networks have been getting earlier slots, unless it's Gameday.
Take a look at the ACC schedule this week and you will see why. ND-Duke and Cuse-Clemson are both national broadcasts so this choice came down to Pitt@VT or UVa@BC.
Louisville @NCSU would have definitely gotten it if they hadn't already been slated for a Fri night game.
Aren't these opponent adjusted statistics?
Yes my reply under that tweet has that quote directly from that espn page
"Team efficiencies are based on the point contributions of each unit to the team's scoring margin, on a per-play basis. The values are adjusted for strength of schedule and down-weighted for "garbage time" (based on win probability)."
Fronted and had my out of state friend put a few dimes on Pitt at -2.
Surprised to see Auburn and OK State that low.
Each week there's just enough fodder to be disappointed again Saturday!
I know Pitts offense has been bad, but they may actually be better off without Jurkovec.
Even if they have nothing going for them at all, they should be able to count on at least 2-3 explosive runs against this D. Lets be honest, neither Marshall nor Rutgers had anything that even resembled a functional passing game and they still consistently moved the ball on the ground and punctuated that with long TD runs.
If they play conservative, boring Football and wait for us to implode I don't see how they don't win by at least a TD. Pitt up to -6.5 seems like easy money.
We don't beat Pitt when we have good teams. Take Pitt and the points
The teams 0-0 heading into this week lets fuck pitt up. Honestly if (yeah i know i know big IF) we beat Pitt how much do you guys think the fan base would forget whats happened the previous weeks out of curiosity. I know it wouldnt be like nothings happened, but I bet it would be a huge weight lifted
All depends what happens in the following weeks. Find 4 wins in ACC play? The OCC record is forgiven. Beat Pitt then finish with just 2-3 wins? Fans will be pissed.
Beating Pittsburgh certainly wouldn't hurt anything. But I don't think beating a bad team after losing 3 straight games to mediocre teams will cure many ills. VT is just bad this year. And we will likely be bad again next year. Hopefully we see some improvement but I don't have a lot of warm and fuzzies with this staff. I like Pry a lot and I want to drink his kool-aid but he needs to put a better product on the field than he has been. Yes, the roster is a mess and it will take time to flip but we're still underperforming relative to the pieces we do have. That doesn't bode well.
Most people upset at this point will probably remain upset for the rest of the season.
A theoretical and IMO very good outcome for the season and my expected sentiments from the peanut gallery:
W Pitt - Yeah, but they're just as bad as us
L FSU - FSU was bad 2 years ago why can't we be as good as them
L Wake - Close loss with dumb errors. Pitchforks return
W Cuse - Terrordome > Carrierdome
L Louisville - Why is xxx player still playing? Our coaches are idiots.
W BC - 7 to 6, get rid of the entire offense
L NCST - burn it to the ground
W lolUVA - I f*cking love this team, I wish we would have not botched the Purdue/Marshall game so we could be bowling.
I could live with that as long as Wake & Loserville are at least close. I am not sure we are even going to be in the same building as FSU.
I think we're playing that game in a stadium, so we should be ok.
What if I told you that the building codes and inspectors treat stadiums as buildings...
ducks.
FSU's stadium looks more like a huge brick building that a stadium from the outside. It was impressive when I first saw it.
We don't beat Pitt and Cuse when we are good. Keep that in mind
Oh I know, that was why I added 'theoretical and very good outcome'. It is not how I expect the rest of the season to go, just showing how angry fans will still be angry even if we make progress in the coming weeks. The real outcome and reactions will likely be worse than what I put together.
5-7 overall, 4-4 in the ACC this year would an amazing accomplishment at this point
Such an amazing accomplishment, in fact, that even the most optimistic fans would have a hard time finding 4 more wins on our remaining schedule right now. Uva. BC. I think splitting those and losing everything else is the most realistic expectation
revisiting this, so how're we feeling now??
Better, but I think Pitt is 💩💩💩
Lose the next 2 and this win means nothing.
Pitt is bad. But they are physical. I'm not just happy with the win but also the way we went out and took it. After Pitt's two big tds early in the 3rd this team could have folded and they didn't. That's a big step. For the first time in a long time I saw a VT squad that looked like they had a little swagger. And we played the whole game. Up to this point, the Pry era had been plagued by games where the team went missing for entire quarters and that didn't happen last night.
I still think this team has a long way to go before they can win 8+ games but it was nice to see a team that started fast, met some adversity throughout the game and stood up to it, taking each hit and hitting right back.
We've seen VT have a monster game before and then completely regress to the point that the monster game is the anomaly. It will be important for Pry to make sure this team builds. Getting FSU right now is tough. I hope we can continue to gain confidence moving forward even with a very good opponent up next.
This is almost bigger than the offensive progress we saw. Every Hokie team for the last 5 or 6 years (with the possible exception of 2019) would have turtled and lost. Hell, the team we got for the first 4 games of the season might have lost. But they came right back and put up 10 more points to uh, salt it away.
I know it's just Pitt, but it's hard not to think maybe they've turned a corner.
I guess I've turned into the Fuck Pat Narduzzi guy when I don't see it on the thread...There you go. Enjoy.
This game is going to be all about physically asserting will because the skill isn't there for either team. Pitt has dominated the trenches against the Hokies for awhile. Can the light switch come on?
Pitt is going to kill us, as they normally do. Why does anyone think this year will be different? Because Pitt is bad? lol- they are usually bad, and they whip our ass up and down the field- like they will do on Saturday
I will say as much I think you are right, I hope you are wrong.
Me too, but we sadly know how this goes. We might hang tough, until their RB goes untouched for a 70 yard touchdown, because we don't seal the edge.
I won't believe in the offense until this team shows the ability to create confusion by the opponents Defense in short yardage.
Stop calling plays to get the minimum yardage needed and start calling plays where you assert yourself on offense based on your strengths and keeping the other team off balance.
For record, I don't believe we will. If we do we have a chance to improve
I feel like that is a very pro thing to do. But NFL QBs are better at sustaining long drives and getting just enough is important while in college you want big plays and demoralizing play calling.
This game screams Pitt 16-7 to me. Their offense might actually be worse than ours, but their defense is going to love playing our offense. I don't expect to get any running game going and Drones won't be completing much down the field. It'll be lots of pressure blitzes on 3rd and longs with blatant DPI that goes uncalled. 2-3 bad run fits from our LBs and them cashing in on better field position is all it will really take for them to win.
Very happy to be completely wrong about this game!
Calling it now 20-17 HOKIES
Sounds like Jerkovic is starting
Thought 1: hell yeah, I don't want any part in a backup QB
Thought 2: sack his ass, break him.
Welp, yeah their offense might be a complete train wreck. I mean we helped but oof. Narduzzi has himself some issues right now, hate that for him
I love that their problems on offense are completely his fault. They had a fantastic year with Pickett and their OC in 2021. But Narduzzi hated it so much that he decided to hire BC's OC and then doubled down with Jurkevic to return to the stone ages.
Catching back up on this with some stats....
That is what you call a feast or famine offense. And I'm not going to sugarcoat it, a few of those big plays were very much assisted by some glaring mistakes by our defensive players.
Almost 50% of their total yard was on the two long scoring passes. Otherwise we held pitt to about 140 yards total offense.