At first I was upset that I wasn't going to be able to watch Pitt play today as ESPNU is not part of my cable package. Looking back, it was probably for the best as Pitt played its worst game of the season and lost to Rutgers. Again. Pitt is now 2-5 in it's last seven games against the Scarlet Knights.
After being impressed with the offense's performance last week against South Florida, they failed to show up in Jersey. Nine penalties, including a bunch of offensive pass interference penalties. 2-14 on third down. Four interceptions thrown. Only 131 yards of passing. Six sacks allowed. You get the idea.
Tino was so bad that he was pulled in the 3rd quarter for Anderson, who then proceeded to throw an interception. The QB controversy is back again after taking a week off. At this point, it can't hurt to give Trey more time at QB. With a struggling Utah team coming into town next week with kickoff at 10:00 a.m. Utah time, the offense may be able to catch Utah's defense sleeping early.
As for this game, Ray struggled early, hampered by what appeared to be minor leg injuries. He seemed to get going in the second half, but after Pitt scored to bring the game to 20-10, Rutgers proceeded to score soon after to make it 27-10 and the game was out of reach. He still had 165 yards and a TD, but he got absolutely no help from the passing game.
The defense played well in the first half, holding Rutgers to six points and 95 total yards. The second half was more of what we've come to expect from this Pitt team. A strong or decent first half and a terrible second half. They actually only allowed 176 yards of offense. The offense kept giving Rutgers favorable field position with turnovers and inconsistent offense.
At the halfway point Pitt is 3-3, which honestly was expected with the opening slate that Pitt had. Fans sometimes forget this, but there was a huge change in offensive and defensive schemes this past offseason and a roster full of players not recruited to run either. You had to figure that Pitt would have games like this. We saw last week what this team can look like at it's best. This week, we saw what the team looks like at it's worst. Pitt can still compete for a Big East title, but it just got more difficult, especially with Cincinnati looking stronger by the week and West Virginia looking like the clear favorite.