Breaking the Walt Harris Curse: Previewing Pitt

By way of an outstanding team effort, Virginia Tech won a crucial division game on the road at a better-than-their-record-indicates North Carolina. That was more than a week ago, and Tech used its much needed time off to get healthy. The Hokies head to Heinz Field on Thursday night, which has been a house of horrors for Tech since Walt Harris's coaching tenure in the early 2000's. Virginia Tech has lost three straight games on Pitt's home field (2012, 2003 and 2001), including an embarrassing 35-17 loss in 2012.

Last season, the Hokies were able to stymie Paul Chryst's power rushing attack, and the Logan Thomas-led offense managed enough early scoring to hold off any comeback attempt by the Panthers. After losing NFL draft picks Aaron Donald (who dominated the Hokies offensive line last season), Tom Savage and Devin Street, Pitt has experienced a roller coaster of a season where individual stars James Conner and Tyler Boyd have put up huge numbers, but still enter the game in the midst of a three game losing streak.

The Keys to The Game: Defensive Adjustments to Pitt's Personnel

Pitt hangs its hat on a pro-set power offense that rarely features more than two wide receivers except on clear passing downs. The Panthers have two of the best individual players in the country in 6-2, 250 pound sophomore running back James Conner and 6-2, 190 pound sophomore receiver Tyler Boyd.

Pitt doesn't surprise you on offense. The Panthers will pound Conner using powers, inside zones, and counter-trey's, and then look to get favorable throwing situations where they can hit Boyd on big plays with play-action. Conner has rushed for an average of 145 yards per game, 5.6 yards per carry and has scored 9 touchdowns already this season. He is a load to tackle at the second level, but he has good feet and vision to get to holes on cutbacks. Once Conner gets downhill into the secondary, he punishes defensive backs.

Here are some of the basic running plays utilized by Pitt. First, Pitt loves to use a counter trey from a two H-Back, one tight end, one wide receiver alignment. This counter-trey fakes Conner running on an inside zone to the bottom of the screen, and then counter stepping to follow a pulling left guard and left H-Back into the hole.

The key block is the right H-Back sealing the edge defender to the outside. Conner is patient and cuts inside off that block. The guard and the left H-Back lead Conner through the hole. He gains momentum once he starts downhill. First contact is made after a nice gain, but Conner drives the pile for an additional 7 yards.

Conner isn't a sledge hammer. He is a patient back who has good feet and can slow a play down to set up a block. This is critical on Pitt's bread and butter inside zone play, where Conner often has to cut back into a gap formed in the back side pursuit of the defense. Pitt's variation is designed to use the H-Back on the back side of the zone play to seal the back side edge defender down inside, which allows the tailback to bounce to the outside against the grain of the defensive pursuit. Here is a terrific example of how Pitt executes their inside zone. Backup tailback Chris James (No. 5) runs for a big gain.

Quarterback Chad Voytik opens up to his left, just like a typical zone left handoff, but he reverses out and creates a mesh point on James's right side. If you watch the Virginia corner to the top of the screen, he reads how the quarterback opens. Both the tight receiver and the H-Back to the top of the screen dive to the inside like on a drag route. The defense pursues to the bottom of the screen in reaction to their key on Voytik, and when they change directions, the tight receiver and the H-Back to the top of the screen have them sealed inside. James cuts to his right, and he finds open ground until the corner can recover to push him out of bounds. You may recall, Pitt tormented the Hokies with this same play with Rushel Shell in the 2012 loss.

Boyd perfectly complements Conner's bruising running style. Pitt works to get Boyd the football in a variety of ways. Chryst will use Boyd on jet sweeps and a variety of screens. Usually Pitt is pretty transparent when they use Boyd on a jet sweep and rarely fake it to him and give it to Conner. Here is a great example of a typical Boyd jet sweep. Note how the fullback takes the defense to the football.

Boyd excels as a deep and intermediate route runner who can go up and win one-on-one battles deep. He has 30 catches for 428 yards and 4 scores so far this season. On this play, he turns the Boston College defensive back inside out by faking a corner route and then coming back to the inside on a post.

Perhaps most concerning is Boyd's ability to go up and take away the football at the highest point. Here, Boyd runs an outside release fade route from the slot. Yes, it is the same route that killed the Hokies against East Carolina.

The Hokies used more zone coverage against North Carolina last week, but bracketing Boyd with a safety doesn't mean a better outcome. He will take a hit to make a play. Here against Virginia, Voytik rolls out on a broken play, and throws a ball up for Boyd. He makes a tough catch even though he knows the 'Hoos safety is going to hammer him.

Potential Bud Adjustments

Last season, Bud Foster made two adjustments that had a major impact in shutting down Pitt's strengths. Most importantly, instead of Kyle Fuller playing exclusively to the boundary, whenever Pitt used a formation where Tyler Boyd aligned in the slot to the field side, Fuller crossed over and covered Boyd man-to-man while Kendall Fuller covered former Pitt receiver Devin Street.

Without Street, Pitt's secondary receivers are not nearly as dangerous this season. I fully expect Kendall Fuller to match up with Boyd wherever he goes, while the rest of the secondary plays zone away from his coverage. If Boyd is on the boundary, Fuller will be on an island with him on the boundary. If he moves to the field side, Fuller will go with him. I only envision that Foster will change to a bracket zone on Boyd if the Hokies have a big lead.

There is one major drawback to this strategy. While Pitt does not have a receiver compliment as strong as Devin Street, matching Fuller on Boyd leaves Donovan Riley on big 6-2, 220 pound Manasseh Garner (14 receptions, 164 yards and 2 TDs). Garner isn't a great route runner, but like Georgia Tech's receivers, he is big enough to go up and bring down the ball against man coverage. Garner is big enough that Pitt has used him as an H-Back.

On this play, Voytik motions the H-Back wide of Garner in the slot. Again, Pitt throws that familiar outside release fade to Garner's back shoulder. Virginia corner Maurice Canady can't find the ball and Garner makes a great catch.

Foster's other adjustment was to use Dadi Nicolas as a "whip" linebacker aligned to the strong side of Pitt's formation. From that alignment, Dadi used his speed on the edge to create chaos in the backfield. Conner is quick for such a big man, but penetration by the defensive line causes Conner to move laterally, and it takes more time for a hefty ball carrier to adjust from moving laterally back to moving downhill. On film, plays where Conner is forced to adjust in the backfield, without an immediate large cutback lane, demonstrate very limited effectiveness. Virginia's penetration and edge pressure by their defensive backs confined Conner after a hot start.

On this play from last season, edge penetration by J.R. Collins and Tariq Edwards force Conner (wearing No. 40) to hesitate.

Luther Maddy made the key play and jammed up the immediate hole for Conner, preventing any kind of immediate outlet. For the edge pressure from players like Nicolas and Deon Clarke to work, the Hokie interior defenders must be solid in maintaining their gaps fits. If Foster uses a heavy dose of edge speed, Marshall, Williams, and Walker cannot penetrate only to lose their gap fits inside. If they do, it creates a gap for Conner to run away from those edge defenders. Foster will have all four down linemen, a whip linebacker, and Jarrett in the box most of the game. If Conner can get through that first wall of defenders, the Hokies won't have much defensive support besides Bonner at the second level.

Even though Boyd and Conner are both outstanding individual players, Pitt has only averaged 16.3 points per game in their 3 losses. Chad Voytik is a mobile QB with a good arm, but he is inconsistent with his accuracy and has completed just 58.7% of his passes. He will force some balls into dangerous spots. If Conner isn't effective, and as result Boyd isn't getting wide open looks on play-action, Foster's defense should be able to keep the Panthers off the scoreboard enough to put the Hokie offense in position to win the game and break the Walt Harris curse.