Beyond the Box Score: What’s Wrong with Pitt’s Running Game?

For our PSN Die-Hards, we go beyond the box score with play tracking, analysis, depth charts and participation from each Pitt football game.

It’s safe to say that Pitt had a tough time running the ball on Saturday in the Panthers’ 17-10 loss to No. 13 Penn State.

The Panthers finished with 24 yards on 25 carries, and they especially had trouble running the ball when they called a designed running play. Pitt’s running backs took the ball 14 times and gained a total of 10 yards.

So what was wrong? And how can it be better?

I set out to see if there was some kind of pattern to be derived from the data. What exactly was Pitt doing on its running plays and was there anything that was working?