Pitt blows fourth quarter lead against North Carolina, loses 37-36

Sort of becoming a theme, right?

Pitt’s defense again had a chance to close the door on an opponent for the second consecutive week and came up short again. This time, it was North Carolina defeating the Panthers, 37-36 on a last-second touchdown pass in a jumbled mess where the Tar Heels barely got the play off in time.

This one isn’t all on the defense, of course. Sure, they gave up an unreal three fourth down conversions on the final drive. Sure, they allowed more than 35 points for the second straight week. And, well, sure, they gave up two touchdowns in the final five and a half minutes. They deserve a lot of the blame. But they had help in this one as, after a brilliant game offensively, the Panthers again struggled on that side of the ball late.

Pitt’s offense had a chance to seal the game. A few of them, actually. But they could only muster a measly three points on their final four drives.

Not scoring was only one of the team’s sins. When you look back at how little time they ate off the clock, it was borderline criminal. The first of those was a three-and-out that took only 1:22 off the clock. Next, they scored a field goal, but at only 2:42. The last two were three-and-outs that both lasted less than 1:50. None of that will cut it, folks.

What I didn’t understand as well was the uber-conservative playcalling on that last drive, too. On that final drive, Pitt basically ran two straight forward runs with Conner before tossing a screen his way. It made little sense in reality given all of the success they had with the innovative plays earlier in the game.

Henderson, for the record, was running ragged over the Tar Heels. He had a whopping 107 yards on only nine carries. Conner did a nice two-way act again with 66 rushing yards and 64 passing yards. But if you’re pinning this all on Canada for not going to Henderson on that last drive, I’d encourage you to think again.

Now, I think Canada should have done more, but let’s look at those drives. This wasn’t merely a case of abandoning Henderson. They involved him on two plays on the first drive but couldn’t move the chains. They tried to get the ball to Henderson and Chawntez Moss on the next one resulting in a punt and they were shut down. The fact is that they used Henderson on those other two drives and they couldn’t pick up a first down. Going to Conner was fine by me, but I think the plays should have been a little less standard.

A big goat on those drives was quarterback Nathan Peterman. Peterman to that point had played a fine game but he badly missed on two big short third down passes. It’s frustrating because Pitt doesn’t need the world from him - just to convert on the short throws, avoid mistakes, and make one or two plays. He mostly did that all day except on those drives.

Fact is, there’s plenty of blame to go around offensively.

Defensively, I’m at a loss where Pitt goes from here. The book is clearly out that they can’t cover and I thought it was sort of ironic that, on the game’s final play from scrimmage, Ryan Lewis blatantly held the North Carolina receiver before giving up a touchdown, anyway. It’s sort of like the old adage in basketball - if you’re going to foul, at least stop the opponent from scoring.

The defense did its part earlier that half by limiting the Tar Heels to only seven points until the final six minutes but folded when you really needed them.

There were all sorts of problems in pass coverage. In particular, I called out several times on Twitter when Oluwaseun Idowu was exposed at linebacker. He couldn’t keep up with North Carolina’s Ryan Switzer and while you don’t necessarily expect him to be able to, he really didn’t do a good job on him. He wasn’t only beaten, but on at least one occasion, he completely missed the assignment and on another play with a clean shot at the quarterback, whiffed on a wide open sack.

Losing Elijah Zeise for the season looks like an even more significant loss at this point. Idowu has had some nice moments at other times in the season, so I don’t want to be too harsh on him. And it’s easy to forget that he was just a walk-on before earning a scholarship this year. But he had a really, really tough day today.

Also in my doghouse was Terrish Webb, who struggled mightily. Several times Webb was beaten and a few more, he looked completely lost out there in which way to go, opting to leave a few guys uncovered. If there’s a reason to not give Reggie Mitchell a shot, I’m missing what that is. The Webb-Mitchell battle went right down to the last second at training camp and Webb has really had a tough time this year.

One guy that should be devoid of criticism is Ejuan Price. That guy was superhuman today, recording a safety, adding a sack or two, and he was constantly in the backfield despite being held. I know we’ve propped up Aaron Donald quite a bit since his senior year at Pitt, as we should have. But while Price might not quite be on that level, he’s really close, folks. I also thought he was held a few times today and he’s a very, very good player.

I wrote this during the game, but at some point, this becomes less about the talent you have and more about needing to have guys knowing what they need to do. And if they know what they need to do and are not capable of doing it, maybe you need to change how you’re doing them.

Anthony Dorsett, Jr., former Pitt player and obviously the son of Tony Dorsett, had a lot of pointed comments on Twitter today. You can go check out his account, but one thing he said is something we’ve heard before that was pretty significant:

Pitt seems to be forcing their corners to try to stretch themselves and cover one on one. It’s clear they are unable to do that on a regular basis. That’s not a knock on those guys but we’re seeing time and again the struggles they’re having. Pitt’s system, as even Pat Narduzzi said earlier this week in his press conference, requires that those guys play one on one at times. Based on the number of times you’re seeing them out there on their own, it’s clear that either one of two things is happening.

Perhaps the safeties are missing assignments entirely. In that case, it’s something that needs to be coached better to know where they need to be. The other option is that Pitt’s coaching staff insists on playing that much one-on-one coverage and their corners simply aren’t talented enough to keep up. In that case, it’s a bit of stubbornness to not change the defense to give them more help.

It’s clear that in watching the past two games that they are going to struggle against any capable quarterback. Perhaps the way they’ve been playing will be enough to beat the weaker teams on the schedule. And sure, the counter argument could be that Pitt nearly won both games, anyway. But the fact is that they are giving up big chunks of yardage on a routine basis. And even against North Carolina, part of the reason they were able to slow the Tar Heels’ offense down earlier was because they were still trying to run the ball. If I’m any defense with any kind of a quarterback, I don’t know why you wouldn’t look at game film of the past two games and throw the ball 50 times.

I always hate trying to oversimplify things, but that’s where we’re at. Pitt’s offense has shown they can score points and Pitt’s defense has shown that they can’t stop teams from scoring. Sure, there are variances - the offense will struggle sometimes and the defense will shine. But overall, that’s where we are.

And if that’s where we are, we’re looking at another team very similar to the ones we’ve seen in the past.

Not great, not terrible, just sort of ... there.

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