Eli Holstein wasn’t alone in playing poorly against SMU. It was a poor effort defensively, but another poor performance from the offense as a whole was discouraging.
The Mustangs took a page out of the Cal playbook and mixed up coverages, forcing Holstein to adjust post-snap. It didn’t go well. He looked like a freshman quarterback.
“I think everybody forgets (he’s a freshman quarterback),” Narduzzi said. “… When you win, Eli is going to be the Rookie of the Reek. When you lose, which obviously it’s our first, it’s not on Eli. We didn’t protect him well enough, run the ball well enough. We played a really good defense.”
In the last three games of the season, he’s completed 54-of-91 pass attempts (59.3%) for 489 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions, adding 40 yards (1.7 yards per carry).
In the loss to SMU, he completed 29-of-48 pass attempts (60%) for 248 yards and an interception. And he picked up just 19 yards on 10 rush attempts, way down from where he’s been this season.
Holstein attempted just two passes more than 20 yards downfield against SMU, not connecting on either. 35 of his attempts were short of the sticks.
It may have been offensive coordinator Kade Bell trying to ease Holstein into a game after a couple of rough outings (and an injury), or it may have been Bell forced to do so because the offensive line was getting beat pretty consistently by a four-man rush. And with as many as eight players dropped in coverage, it really limits opportunities through the air.
It’s a trend that Pat Narduzzi expects will continue going forward.
In prepping for Cal, Syracuse and SMU over the last three weeks, what the Panthers have seen on film hasn’t been what’s happening out on the field. Narduzzi said that the Panthers went into the week assuming that what’s on tape won’t be what’s happening on the field against Virginia either.
“We’re going to have to prepare two game plans,” Narduzzi said. “We’re going to get drop eight. They got a new linebacker coach, dropped eight, played three down. We’re just assuming, we’re going out practicing this week…
“That will help Eli. That’s half coaching. That’s coaching. Practice stuff all week, have a great Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then Saturday you see something totally different.”
That’s what happened over the weekend. Narduzzi said that SMU, which boasts a top 25 unit in the country, completely mixed it up on game day.
“They are a man-free team, they didn’t play man-free,” Narduzzi said. “They didn’t like the matchups, they played cover three all day. Three weak, they played cover two. That’s what we saw.
“We have to plan on seeing cover three, three deep safeties. That’s what I told the offense yesterday. That’s how we’re game planning. We’ll adjust to whatever they do. I mean, Virginia is four-down, I tell you right now, four-down quarters team. We’ll find out if they do that. I would say we’re going to see a lot of cover-three with the boundary safety coming down.
“They’re going to make Eli make those shots. We have to be able to run the ball when they do that, too.”
Narduzzi said one of the goals going into the SMU game was to be two-dimensional. That didn’t happen. The Panthers averaged 3.2 yards per carry on 32 carries, failing to generate any push with Desmond Reid up the middle.
Pitt averaged just 3.3 yards per carry on 22 carries against Syracuse, and outside of a 72-yard touchdown from Reid, averaged 2.6 yards per carry on 27 carries against Cal. That’s not going to cut it. With no threat to sustain drives on the ground, and an offensive line that’s beaten by four-man rushes, the passing attack hasn’t been supported. There’s been a total lack of cohesion.
Holstein hasn’t played well lately, but he’s young and inexperienced. It’s up to the coaching staff — Bell, in particular — to put Holstein into the position to make plays.
Konata Mumpfield mentioned an increased rushing threat as a way of unlocking the passing attack. If an opposing defense drops eight players into coverage, it should open up opportunities on the ground for Reid. And Daniel Carter and Rodney Hammond Jr.
Pitt needs more from the offensive line — for Holstein’s sake, sure, but also for the running backs. Whether it’s more chip protections or keeping an extra player on the line, further success depends upon how the coaching staff alters the offensive gameplan.
It starts in practice this week. The Pitt coaches have to ensure that Holstein, and the entire offense, is prepared for what might be coming. Even if it doesn’t show up on film.
“He’s bright enough, smart enough to get that,” Narduzzi said. “We have to get him practice reps. Not just say if they do this coverage, go do this. That’s hard to do for a young quarterback. You go back to Kenny Pickett, his freshman year, shoot, we didn’t start him till the last game of the season, okay, because I was afraid of throwing him in early …
“For us, it’s respect to who we are, what we do. We have to respond on offense and go, ‘Okay, that’s the way it’s going to be, let’s go.’”
Pitt has its first opportunity to respond this weekend against Virginia at Acrisure Stadium. And, clearly, it’s also an opportunity to get the offense back into shape.
So the gist of the article is that opposing Coach’s DC adjust their schemes to null out PITT’s offense attack. That SMU is not stubborn and plays man-press quarters all downs and distances, and if it does not work state in the post-game presser “gotta make a play.” Interesting that opposing Coaches would do such a thing and not be so stubborn.
Narduzzi wouldn’t change his defensive scheme if the opposing OC handed him their playbook.
Narduzzi has been adapting his defensive scheme. How do you think the offense was able to mount the comebacks against WVU and Cinci? The defensive was adjusted for the second half and was dominant in the second half of both of those games. SMU is on a different level than those two teams. I believe both Narduzzi and Bell learned a lesson from the SMU game and will hopefully put the players in a better position to execute.
Learning. You would think Oklahoma State at Home a few years back, or Syracuse game last Fall in NYC would be such an opportunity to bend a bit. Totally refused to move off of man-press quarters.