Week 1 Observations of Future VT opponents

1) For as much as the narrative today will focus on UNC being a dumpster fire, their defense out on a very impressive showing yesterday. Their defensive tackle pairing (Dalton and Crawford) was active which freed up clean lanes for their linebackers. Their secondary was very solid. And Malik Carney was incredibly twitchy and disruptive. Carney has a 4 game suspension coming at some point this season. Hope he isn't in uniform versus VT.

Offensively, UNC was a disaster. There was no vertical presence in the passing game, made worse by Nathan Elliott misreading defenses on almost every deep throw I saw. Their offensive line struggled to get any kind of movement in the run game and didn't protect against linebacker pressure coming from Cal's 3-4 look. It is shocking that Fedora would have such a drop off talent wise from a couple of years ago on the offensive side of the ball.

2) As much as UNC looked bad, Pitt's offense looked scary as hell. Pickett gives them an added QB run dimension to go with three good tailbacks and a very sound offensive line that uses unbalanced looks as well as any team in the country. Despite losing Jester Weah, Pitt's WR corps looks to have more depth and Pickett was targeting all of them. Ffrench in particular showed some wiggle, while Lopes and a new transfer both were sound making plays against man coverage in the intermediate passing game. The return of Pitt's fullback, who is a monster blocker and pass catcher, helps all around.

Pitt's Achilles heel on offense is the lack of a game breaking threat. Even against Albany they were not taking shots down the field, and given how well they ran the ball and how Pickett extended plays with his legs, something should have popped. They will have to be extremely efficient. Punts will get them.

Defensively, Pitt is suspect. Albany has lots of open receivers against their quarters coverage, particularly on double post routes. Albany's QB wasn't accurate enough to make Pitt pay. Up front, Pitt was ok, but they didn't generate a ton of quick pass rush. Their best played on defense was a middle linebacker (No. 58) who was very strong plugging into bubbles and had several hard collisions. Pitt's safeties also play with a very heavy shoulder in the box.

3) I watched a little bit of Notre Dame. Wimbush will be challenging to defend, but other than Boykin on the outside, I don't think their passing game scares me. Defensively, Notre Dame looks much quicker and twitchy versus two years ago. Jerry Tillery in the middle (DT) is a monster. He will be a match up nightmare.