Pitt hasn’t played well offensively in a few weeks now, since a poor showing in a win against Cal, and while there’s not just one area to be blamed, the play up front needs to improve.
It’s a battered unit, once again, but the issues were exposed against a good SMU defense.
Pitt is missing Branson Taylor for the rest of the season, which is a significant loss, but it’s an experienced offensive line nonetheless. And as SMU rushed three defenders, dropping eight into coverage, the line still struggled. It was a thoroughly poor performance.
“It starts with the protection,” Pat Narduzzi said Monday at his weekly press conference. “It starts with the trust up front. We’re missing blocks inside, as well, not just at left tackle or left guard. We just got to be better up front.
“Again, they’re talented. Let me tell you, they’re talented up front. They had some dudes that could rush the quarterback. Again, we sit here and can move on to Virginia. I don’t want to make excuses because all they are is excuses. We got to get it done as coaches, got to get it done as players. That’s the expectation. They have a good football team, and we didn’t play as good.”
The left side of the line struggled against SMU, with Terrence Enos Jr. making his second start of the season for the injured Taylor, and Ryan Jacoby and Jason Collier Jr. rotating. But the line as a whole struggled,
Holstein has been pressured on just over a third of his dropbacks this season, despite teams blitzing just under one-quarter of the time, and the line allowed 12 pressures and 10 hurries. Narduzzi talked about keeping an extra player on the line immediately after the loss to the Mustangs, but it’s not feasible with the way teams have attacked Holstein.
The play upfront simply has to be better, whether that’s from different combinations, new alignments or whatever.
“We do some of that,” Narduzzi said. “We do some chip protections and all that. Keep an extra guy in there. But it doesn’t do anything. Passing game, send out three, send out the tight end later, back out late. It’s okay. They just got more guys back there.
“If you’re max protecting, they’re dropping eight, you’re protecting six guys on three. Guess right. You obviously want to protect when you need to protect. You got to guess.”
The offense as a whole — every position group — needs to be better for a bounce-back to occur against Virginia, but like Narduzzi said, it starts up front. If Pitt wants to establish itself through the air and on the ground, it starts up front.
“Starts up front, makes everybody else’s job easier,” Narduzzi said. “In the run game, yeah, we need those five guys up there to be beasts up front. They have to get the run game going. Two-dimensional. One of our goals going into that game was to be two-dimensional. We knew against a good defense, you can’t be just throwing it back. End up having to throw it more than you want to because you got behind. You’re not doing what you really need to do to win a football game.
“We needed to be two-dimensional. We weren’t like we wanted to. I think 103 yards, whatever it was, wasn’t enough. We want 150.”
Pitt and Virginia will kick off at 8 p.m. tonight at Acrisure Stadium, and the offensive line — like the entire offense — will need to bounce back.
Just because they have experience doesn’t mean they’re good players. The o line recruiting has been average at best here for years this isn’t anything new. When you have a majority of lightly recruited o lineman and transfers patching holes it’s probably not a recipe for a championship caliber o line.
Not many Fralics have been recruited in gorever….all 6’5” 280 lbs of him… ( lightweight by todays standard… no fat on him… lots of blubber- useless fat on todays O- lineman