Pitt Faces Pivotal Game Against Syracuse
It goes without saying that this season hasn’t gotten off to the best start for Pitt football. Through the first 5 games of the season they sit at 2-3. This record, while disappointing, was not completely unforeseen. With tough games against Penn State and Central Florida on the schedule, only the most optimistic predictions would’ve had Pitt with a significantly better record than what they have currently. Despite this, the method by which Pitt has arrived at their current record is extremely disappointing. While the losses to Penn State and Central Florida were not unexpected, neither game was competitive with Pitt being blown out in both. Their loss to North Carolina however may be worse than either of those. Despite looking awful in every other game they’ve played this season, against Pitt the Tar Heels had a prolific offensive attack that the Panther defense could not stop. The result was a 38-35 loss to what is likely the worst team in the ACC. Even Pitt’s lone win against an FBS opponent comes with an asterisk, as it came against Georgia Tech’s flexbone option attack that presents little to no threat through the air.
Even with this record, things could be considered in a more positive light if their losses to Penn State and Central Florida were by a narrower margin and if the third loss came against Georgia Tech, instead of North Carolina. However, Pitt’s performance in all aspects of the game has been unsatisfactory. On offense, Pitt has been averaging 5.5 yards per play (88th in FBS), 343.2 yards per game (113th in FBS), and 22.4 points per game (106th in FBS). On defense they are giving up 6.3 yards per play (108th in FBS), 430.6 yards per game (102nd in FBS), and 32.0 points per game (98th in FBS). Even on Special Teams things are very disappointing, with new punter Kirk Christodoulou is only averaging 38.2 yards per punt (110th in FBS) and the debacles from this unit as a whole against Penn State are well-known. Quite frankly, these numbers are horrendous and not acceptable for a team that aspires to compete for ACC titles.
Despite the rough start Pitt still has a chance to turn things around, but if they have any hope of making something of this season, it has to start this weekend against Syracuse. Though theoretically they still have a chance at winning the Coastal and making good on Pat Narduzzi’s preseason boast, it’s not realistic to expect that. It is still likely a realistic goal for this season for Pitt to qualify for a bowl game though. For a Power 5 team like Pitt, getting to 6 wins and qualifying for a bowl game should be considered to be a bare minimum goal. However, Pitt is in danger of missing that base expectation for the 2nd year in a row.
I like to qualify games based on win probabilities, where a likely win is an 80% or more chance of winning, a probable win is a 60%-80% chance of winning, a toss-up is a 40%-60% chance of winning, a probable loss is a 20%-40% chance of winning, and a likely loss is a less than 20% chance of winning. Looking through the rest of the schedule, there are no games that could be considered likely or probable wins given Pitt’s performance through the first 5 games and the teams remaining to play. This makes the road to 6 wins much more treacherous than it looked prior to the season starting. Based on my own opinion, there are three games on the schedule that are likely losses (Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Miami), two games that are probable losses (Duke & Syracuse) and two games that are toss-ups (Virginia & Wake Forest). According to Bill Connelly of SB Nation’s excellent S&P+ team rating system, only Miami and Notre Dame would be considered likely losses, but every other game would be considered a probable loss. Any way you slice it, under the current trajectory, this looks like a team that will win 3 or 4 games and has a real chance of losing every game the rest of the season and finishing 2-10. Should this eventuality come to pass, it would represent the first time since 1998 that Pitt failed to get more than 2 wins and the lowest winning percentage (.167) since 1972 when Pitt finished 1-10 (.091).
Under both my opinion and S&P+, this weekend’s game is considered a probable loss. Mr. Connelly projects Syracuse to win by about a touchdown and gives the Panthers a 36% chance of winning. This obviously isn’t great, but the situation, at least for this weekend, shouldn’t be considered hopeless. A win over Syracuse is very much a possibility, which is good because this game is probably already a must-win for Pitt if they hope to salvage something out of this season.
With the odds of a win over undefeated Notre Dame next week very long, Pitt would in all likelihood enter their Bye the weekend after sitting at 2-5 should they lose to Syracuse. This would give them very little margin for error over the back half of the season. They could only afford one more loss and, given the opponents they would still have to face and their performance over the first half of the season, this would prove an extremely unlikely eventuality. A win over Syracuse likely means they enter the Bye at 3-4, giving them more wiggle room. They would still need to win 3 of their last 5 games, but they would’ve also shown that they have the capability to beat a team that runs a modern FBS offense, making the expectation that they have the capability to beat the remaining teams a more likely proposition.
Pitt is not going to magically drastically improve on both offense and defense and become a Top 25 caliber team this season. However, they can play at a higher level than we’ve seen this year, at least at an average level compared to the rest of the FBS (Around the rank of 65th for all of the above statistics). If they can just do that they can at the very least be more competitive against teams they aren’t supposed to beat and win a few of these toss-ups. Thanks to Pitt’s loss to North Carolina, their hopes for making a bowl game are already on life support. The season isn’t lost yet though, but if they hope to turn things around they absolutely need to get a win against Syracuse this weekend.
*Stats courtesy of College Football Reference
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