BleacherCoaches.com

[center]Pitt (5-1 3-0) at Syracuse (3-3 1-1)  Saturday 12:00 ESPNU[/center]

[left]Pitt heads to the Carrier Dome Saturday to take on a pretty average Syracuse team.  Pitt will play their first game as a ranked team since they played Utah on the road in 2010 to start the season.   Yeah, it's been a while.    Is Pitt really the 25th best team in the country?  To be honest, I don't think.  I wouldn't have put them in the rankings myself just yet.  I will say this, they have not played any really tough teams other than Iowa, but they have played four road games already - probably more than most power five teams have done already. [/left]


[left]I am pleased Pitt is winning some of these games that they normally would have lost in the past four years under Graham and Chryst. They aren't dominating teams, but they are grinding out some of these wins.  Pitt's defense got exposed a little bit against the triple option, but they still held Georgia Tech 10 points under their season average and only allowed 1 touchdown in the second half.   I expect Pitt's aggressive defense to return to form against a banged up Syracuse offense. [/left]


[left]Definite trap game for Pitt.  They should beat Syracuse, but like I said, I don't think Pitt is as good as a lot of Pitt fans are making them out to be just yet.  They need to prove it to me.  But if they do win, it sets up a gigantic ACC Coastal showdown next week at Heinz Field against North Carolina. [/left]

I do not think Pitt is very good, but I have seen some not so good Penn State teams win some early season games, confidence snowballs, then they begin to win games you don't think they will win.  I think that is what is happening with Pitt.  This season feels like a season where everything is breaking Pitt's way with the teams they are playing. 
 
They play an Akron team, who is experimenting with a QB who is not very good, while playing in a downpoor.  That game had the makings of a game Pitt could lose...night game, on the road, but the rain minimized the effect a crowd would have and Travon Chapman is not a very good qb

Virginia Tech loses it's starting QB, the game is played at noon at a normal hostile venue in an area where flooding was occurring.  The fanbase at Virginia tech didn't show up and neither did their team.  

They play a Georgia Tech team who is missing 12 players from it's 2 deep.  They have so many losses you begin to wonder if they didn't care.  Narduzzi makes a coaching decision that would have been questioned greatly had Blewit missed the 56 yard field goal.  It works out.  

Playing with confidence and having something to play for are 2 huge variables in college football.  A loss this weekend could send that in the opposite direction when Pitt finally starts playing more talented teams, but I do not expect that to happen.  

It's a shame really, I think Pitt is 6-0 with a healthy James Conner. Pitt's running game was a bit stagnant against Iowa, I think Conner makes the difference in a close game.  Oh well, injuries happen. 

Every season many teams start out "experimenting" with quarterbacks. What's new about that? But while the Zips were experimenting, so was Pitt, with Peterman and Voytek. BOTH teams played under the same weather conditions, so the home team really had the advantage there. Pitt was "experimenting" with running backs too, with their starting RB out for the season after game one. And I'm not sure that the rain that night subdued that rabid Akron home crowd. At this present time, kirk does not feel Pitt is very good. Well, they've snookered some people. College polls are taking notice, and Sagarin has them 35th in the nation.