How to Beat Pitt or Anyone for That Matter

I guess a good way to figure out how to beat Pitt is to look at how it's been done this year. Unfortunately, what I'm seeing doesn't look like something West Virginia has done since Marc Bulger was here. Which is a three to one margin of passing yards to rushing yards. Hell, I'm not sure Bulger ever did that. Don Nehlen wouldn't hear of such.

Of course Bowling Green, Rutgers, and Cincinnati aren't considered running teams this year. Pitt has only been out gained on the ground three times, and two of those were victories. The Cincinnati loss isn't hard to understand, but the Rutgers and Bowling Green losses still have me looking back to make sure I'm right. We've had those kind of losses as well. It makes one mad to think about such things. You know, breaking guitars left and right. Even keyboards were given no quarter...we don't really have drums.

Do I think West Virginia should come out chucking it up? No. Will they? That's what scares me. I just don't think we should be dictated to by anyone. Especially Pitt. We should come out and try to take the crowd out of the game by running like men possessed. I want to hear Wannstedt say, "we need to run faster" again. Wasn't that fun? Sure it was.

It would seem to me that we should see more of Sanders and Devine in the backfield at the same time. Dual wheel routes of glory? You can see it, I know you can. Something else that might work would be to throw it to Tyler Urban. Provided he would catch it. That's not fair, he's only had two or three thrown his way all year. I'm not saying anything about Jock. That didn't really happen...ever. If Pitt isn't getting penetration on a regular basis, maybe a delayed hand off would work. Hey, I'm just throwing it up against the wall to see if anything sticks.

We probably won't see any of the above, but I suspect a dedication to the run will be needed to win. Those teams all beat Pitt by doing what they've done all year. That's what West Virginia is going to have to do. We run the ball well when we commit to it. Sure Pitt has a good run defense and an outstanding linebacker in McKillop. We're just not going to win this game by pretending to be something we're not. And hey, we could use a big game from the defense. Yeah, that would be swell.