SportsRatings 2013 College Football Pre-season Top 125
Pittsburgh Panthers (ACC #11; Coastal #6) |
![]() #82 |
2012 Results |
AP NR USA NR | Strength:#57 Success:#66 Overall:#49 |
Record: 6-7 | Bowl: Lost to Ole Miss 38-17 (Compass) |
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2013 Outlook |
Picks: AP NR | USA NR | Lindy's #58 | Athlon #52 | Steele #67 |
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Record: 4-8 | Bowl: None (Eligibility odds: 19%) |
No one's ranking Pitt very high this year but we seem to be the outlier on the low side. Let's find out why.
Offense 5 ret. starters |
2012 Scoring Offense: #78 (raw) #71 (adjusted for opposition) |
2013 Projected Scoring Offense: #115 (adjusted) |
Look no further than a very depleted offense as the culprit for Pitt's possible woes this year.
Passing Game |
2012 Passing Rank: #46 (raw) #46 (adjusted) | 2012 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #109 |
2013 Projected Passing Rank: #95 (adjusted) |
2103 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #109 |
Tino Sunseri (3,268 yards, 21 TDs, 3 int) capped his career with a great performance in 2012, and now the Panthers must move on. Tom Savage, who had 2,211 yards (14 TDs, 7 int) in his best year at Rutgers is the obvious choice if experience is the measure, but that was in 2009 and his 52% completion rate doesn't approach Suneri's 65% last year. For new blood there's Chad Voytik, a redshirt freshman. (Savage was announced as the starter recently). For targets they lose 5 of last year's top seven including #1 Mike Shanahan (983 yards, 6 TDs) so they will rely heavily on Devin Street (975 yards, 5 TDs). The offensive line give up 38 sacks (5+ in four games), but that was a huge improvement from 2011's 64. We don't count on another step up to help the QB. In all, not a ringing endorsement for the passing game but a good QB, or a newly-discovered talent at receiver, can sometimes make a big difference.
Rushing | 2012 Rushing Rank: #94 (raw) #74 (adjusted) | 2013 Projected Rushing Rank: #103 (adj.) |
Pitt fans knew that the Ray Graham (1,042 yards, 11 TDs) era would be coming to a close but not that the Rushel Shell (641, 4) era, which seemingly had just begun, was over as well. Shell announced that he was transferring, then at some point changed his mind only to be told he wasn't welcome back. He ended up at West Virginia when all was said and done. That leaves Isaac Bennett (141 yards) the go-to guy in the backfield. The offensive line returns full-time starters Cory King and Matt Rotheram and majority-time starter Ryan Schlieper, as well as two half-time starters from 2011. They also had part-time starter Arthur Doakes but he transferred over the summer. Without Graham and Shell things look a bit bleak.
2012 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #31 Pass Defense per-game: #36 Per-attempt: #18 | ||
Defense 7 ret. starters |
'12 Scoring Defense: #22 (raw) #42 (adjusted) | '12 sacks: #45 | '12 picks: #34 |
'13 Projected Scoring Defense: #42 (adjusted) |
'13 sacks: #33 | '13 picks: #41 |
Pitt's defense was a strong point last year, with both solid rushing and passing defense. The front four returns three starters including star Aaron Donald (5.5 sacks, 13 tackles for loss). Linebacker seemed to be pretty set, too, with two starters back, but Todd Thomas left the program this summer and backup Dan Mason also left. The secondary has three starters back including top tackler Jason Hendricks (90 tackles, 6 interceptions) and Lafayette Pitts (9 pass breakups). The losses at linebacker prevent the D from advancing on paper, but they shouldn't regress.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: Punter Matt Yoklic (41.8 average) is back but kicker Kevin Harper (20 of 27 field goals last year) is not; either true freshman Chris Blewitt or redshirt Brad Lukasac will be the replacement. Let me be the first (or millionth?) to question whether someone named Blewitt should be a kicker.
- Return Game: Corner Lafayette Pitts averaged 24.3 yards per kickoff return and it looks like he'll handle most punts this year too, replacing Cameron Saddler (7.4 average).
- Turnovers projection: The big concern here is Sunseri's 3 interceptions last year. With a new QB taking over, odds are there will be a whole lot more drives that end prematurely compared to last season.
Coaching/Recruiting 2013 Recruiting Rank: #25 2012 Recruiting Rank: #51
Due to one-and-done Todd Graham, Pitt experienced two "coaching transition" recruiting years in a row, made worse by the aborted hiring of Mike Haywood. But now Paul Chryst has the "2nd-year-bounce" with a top 25 recruiting class. We rate it 3rd in the ACC, just behind Clemson but ahead of Miami (this may change due to any fall camp attrition). The class includes three consensus blue chip players, the best of which is probably offensive lineman Dorian Johnson, though another, QB Tra'Von Chapman, was released from scholarship over the summer. Even if the Panthers suffer the rebuilding year we forecast, if Chryst keeps recruiting like this they'll be looking up very soon.
2012 Recap
The Paul Chryst coaching era got off to a terrible start with the home loss to Youngstown State (31-17). it got worse 5 days later against Cincinnati as the Panthers lost 34-10
on the road. But on game three—10 days after the Thursday night Cincy
game—Pitt had solved a lot of their basic problems and upset Virginia
Tech 35-17. They beat a 2nd FCS team, Gardner-Webb, before hitting
another rough patch: The offense stalled against Syracuse (a 14-13 loss), then the
defense faltered against Louisville (45-35), and the offense again had a
terrible game in the Buffalo win (20-6). The Temple win evened their record at 4-4, then they played at Notre Dame and took the Irish into three
overtimes before falling. The Irish, of course, finished 12-1; who would
have guessed following week 2 that Pitt would be capable of something
like that? The heartbreak of the narrow loss probably carried through to
the 24-17 UConn loss. And after that 2-game-losing streak, they had a 2-game
winning streak, their pattern all season long. The final two were the
Panthers' best two wins as they crushed Rutgers 27-6 and South Florida 27-3. Sent to the Compass Bowl for the third straight year, they were understandably unenthused and lost 38-17, giving them a 6-7 record following a Compass Bowl loss for the 2nd straight year.
Last year's prediction: We ranked them pretty accurately (#49) and had a 6-6 game-by-game projection, though only half the picks were correct. The cumulative projection was 7-5, and we foolishly thought they'd end up in the Pinstripe Bowl instead of the Compass.
2013 Outlook
Pitt 2013 schedule & forecast |
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9/2 | Mon | vs. | *Florida State | 8% | L | |||
9/14 | Sat | vs. | New Mexico | 82% | W | |||
9/21 | Sat | @ | *Duke | 40% | L | |||
9/28 | Sat | vs. | *Virginia | 52% | W | |||
10/12 | Sat | @ | *Virginia Tech | 23% | L | |||
10/19 | Sat | vs. | Old Dominion | 70% | W | |||
10/26 | Sat | @ | Navy | 57% | W | |||
11/2 | Sat | @ | *Georgia Tech | 12% | L | |||
11/9 | Sat | vs. | Notre Dame | 14% | L | |||
11/16 | Sat | vs. | *North Carolina | 24% | L | |||
11/23 | Sat | @ | *Syracuse | 28% | L | |||
11/29 | Fri | vs. | *Miami (Florida) | 12% | L | |||
Straight up: 4-8 Cume: 4-8 Bowl eligible: 19%
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Pitt gets one hell of an introduction to the ACC as they host Florida State in the opener. If they win that game then we have to reevaluate both programs. The Panthers should beat New Mexico, and probably split Duke and Virginia. Virginia Tech is another tough one, this time on the road, but they should handle Old Dominion and probably Navy too before they head into a really tough backstretch in which they could lose all five.
Our best guess is a 4-8 season, one way or another. To reach bowl eligibility there's not much leeway as six games are below 25%, meaning they'd have to win the four we pick plus Duke and Syracuse. Doesn't sound too unreasonable, really, but both those games are on the road.
Last year we saw Pitt look horrible and hopeless for two games before getting it together. The same thing might happen to the Pitt offense this year. We're predicting a sharp drop, but it might not last, and if things start clicking it won't be a rebuilding year—just a couple of rebuilding games like last year.
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