Sunday, October 31, 2010

Looks like PITT might be it in the Big East

The Pitt Panthers' football team had high expectations coming into the 2010 season. They were expected to win the Big East and earn their first BCS berth in six seasons.

Things didn't start out well as they lost at Utah in overtime in the first game, and then were embarrassed by Miami at Heinz Field in their 3rd game and then played a pretty poor first half before losing at South Bend against the Fighting Irish.

They were sitting at 2-3 and the expectations dropped big time.

To open their Big East schedule, they had to travel to the Carrier Dome to take on the surprising Syracuse Orangemen, who were 4-1 and had just won at South Florida to open their portion of the Big East schedule.

Some wondered if PITT would stumble even against the Orange. Well, they didn't. They blew the doors off of Syracuse with a 45-14 victory, and they really haven't looked back since.

With blowout wins over Rutgers and Louisville at Heinz Field the past two weeks, the Panthers have outscored their first three Big East opponents, 106-38. That's pretty staggering, and in my opinion, shows that PITT is the class of the conference.

That might not mean much. After all, the conference has yet to earn a victory over a team ranked in the AP or Coach's top 25.

I was hoping they would have a better showing in their non-conference match-ups, but right now, Utah is ranked 8th in the AP, and that season-opening overtime loss to the Utes doesn't look so bad. Of course, there's still the matter of the 31-3 throttling at the hands of the Miami Hurricanes and the sloppy loss to a Notre Dame team that's having a down year.

But what nobody, including me, took into consideration this season was the team would not only be starting a freshman quarterback in Tino Sunseri, but they would also be starting three new interior offensive linemen.

And nobody can ever predict injuries and there is no doubt the defense suffered early on with the absence of star defensive lineman, Greg Romeus.

The offense struggled in both running and passing the football, and the defense wasn't able to carry the load with not only Romeus missing from the lineup, but inside linebacker, Dan Mason, out due to injury.

But the interior of the offensive line has been revamped and it seems to have made a world of difference in the offense. They are running the football with much more consistency, and Sunseri looks like he might be the real deal at quarterback. Also, wide receiver Jon Baldwin has awoken from his early-season hibernation, and the team is averaging 35 points a game in Big East play.

And the defense has finally stepped up to dominate, especially the defensive line, a good sign for the future after Romeus leaves for the NFL.

PITT's competition for the Big East this year was supposed to be Connecticut and West Virginia. Connecticut is 1-2 and were blown out by Louisville, a team in rebuilding mode. West Virginia is 1-2 and has lost their last two games to Syracuse and to UConn in overtime.

Right now, PITT is 3-0 and their nearest competitor is Syracuse sitting at 3-1, and as I mentioned earlier, Syracuse's only loss was a blowout on their home turf at the hands of PITT. Nobody else in the conference has more than one win right now. I'm not too worried about Syracuse. I think their lack of talent will catch up to them and they'll stumble a time or two before the end of the year. PITT's road isn't going to be easy, as they have three of their final four games away from Heinz field, but after surviving the early-season adversity, I believe PITT is poised to win the conference. The national experts might look at the Panthers, or any Big East winner, with a suspicious eye, and they have a right to, but the system is in place for the Panthers to earn a BCS berth and, right now, for the program, that's really all that matters. It's right there for the taking, and I believe this will be the year they jump up and grab it.

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