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Time for another trek into the soft center of the ACC!
Excitement is pretty low when it comes to the Syracuse NC State Duke Virginia UNC game this week, a matchup which can best be described as a winnable rivalry game infrequently played in the middle of the schedule in the lower-middle of the schedule on Thursday. It's clear by now that this team isn't going to meet our highest hopes for this year - far from it. But anyone who's disappointed right now had too high hopes to begin with. After all, we've known from the beginning that this was going to be a rebuilding down purge brutal mulligan year. We were never going to win the division more than five or six games a conference game by our own merits with style this year. However, I'd personally still consider this season a "success" of sorts if they manage to put it all together from here on out and make a bowl game get a good win or two here or there and develop young talent not destroy the whole program by being garbage look competent in victory at least once qualify for a bowl game on the strength of their powerful APR scores - and I don't think that's too much of a reach.
The keys to victory are right there in front of us, starting at quarterback. I'm no coach, but after last week Max Browne Ben DiNucci Kenny Pickett Kenny Pickett Ben DiNucci has to be the guy under center going forward. I get that the QB controversy hasn't gone to bed just yet, but he looked so good against Rice we're not going to throw Pickett straight into the fire we need to throw Pickett straight into the fire Pickett can't possibly be worse than DiNucci he look okay last week! Surely he can use his football IQ and experience magic feet and pluck potential (I guess) to lead us to victory against a team that we always beat and just lost to MTSU is due for an upset might be worse than us is Virginia is just absolutely, unredeemable terrible (and significantly injured). His job will be made a lot easier if the running game finally clicks like it did last year, which means feeding the ball as much as possible to Chawntez Moss Jordan Whitehead QB sneaks Darrin Hall DARRIN FREAKING HALL, and if finally develops a real rhythm with Jester Weah.
On the other side of the ball, the defense has been surprisingly okay - but we all know that won't last.
And even if things get better, real changes need to be made this offseason. Leadership needs to fire Shawn Watson fire Shawn Watson right now fire Shawn Watson yesterday, fire Pat Narduzzi next, and fill the entire 2018 roster with transfers fire Shawn Watson and give Pat Narduzzi a stern talking-to give Shawn Watson a stern talking-to if they want to be competitive in 2018. As presently constructed, this is not a team who is heading anywhere near the level of presumptive playoff contender playoff team national champion Big Ten champion Outback Bowl participant Penn State. But at least making the baby steps of progress will at least save our vaunted bowl streak face us from the hell that this season has become my sanity our vaunted bowl streak... on a technicality. So get your spirits up and get ready for a grudge match an upset pain maybe one quality offensive drive one of those games where the commentators are trying on wigs and ignoring all the action by the third quarter. Kickoff is at 12:30pm 12:00pm 11:00am 9:30am 3:00am and the game will be carried locally on the ACC Network ATT SportsNet WQED closed-circuit broadcast ESPN(?!). If you plan on going but haven't got your ticket yet, no worries: attendance this week is expected to be low low low low lol.Be sure to Like Cardiac Hill’s Facebook page or follow us on Twitter (@PittPantherBlog) for regular updates on Pitt athletics. @N_THEYSTAYTHERE wrote this in HTML. See you Friday!