Football: Panthers hitting fork in the road

Three games into the 2011 football season, the Pitt Panthers sit at an underwhelming 2-1, and… Three games into the 2011 football season, the Pitt Panthers sit at an underwhelming 2-1, and the only consistency has been a lack of fourth-quarter production.

The Panthers have been able to hold all three of their opponents to no points in the first quarter, and are consistently successful in coming out of the gates strong on defense. Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to bookend strong first-quarter production with strong fourth-quarter production.

Against opponents like Buffalo and Maine, they were able to sneak by and come away with wins, but Pitt football’s loss this past weekend against Iowa came down to a team-wide breakdown in the fourth quarter.

That breakdown is supported by the numbers: The Panthers have been outscored 41-24 in the fourth quarter, and this week marks the start of the tough part of their schedule.

After Saturday’s game against Notre Dame, which head coach Todd Graham called “the best offense we’ve seen yet this season,” the Panthers will jump into conference play.

Five days after Notre Dame, Pitt starts its Big East schedule against the South Florida Bulls. If the Panthers’ poor performance during the fourth quarter isn’t turned around this week in practice, the season could take a turn for the worse.

“There is no excuse in how we’re finishing the games,” Graham said. “Simply put: We have to get better.”

Some have said, including members of the media, that the team is still transitioning to Graham’s up-tempo style, but the players are saying that’s not the case.

“Truthfully, I think that transition is over, especially now that we got a couple games under our belt,” junior wide receiver Mike Shanahan said. “We know what to expect during games and we know that now all we have to do is keep working at it and keep trying to get better everyday.”

The prevailing attitude around the Panthers’ complex is that they just need to execute better. The coaching system is now in place, and it’s a system that has worked for Graham at other schools where the talent of the players isn’t on the level that it is here.

“It’s come down to execution,” Shanahan added. “We’ve got to focus in and dig deeper in the fourth quarter, because that’s when games are won and lost.”

The theme of practice all week has been “owning the ball on offense and getting takeaways on defense,” Graham said on Wednesday. Hand in hand with this mentality is a focus on playing hard for the full four quarters, Graham added. The players are aware this is a situation that isn’t easy to imitate, since practice is often stopped to implement different wrinkles in the game plan. One of the main focuses of offseason workouts was for the team to be in better condition than their opponents, which would lead to the team winning the fourth quarter.

Redshirt senior defensive tackle Myles Caragein is leading the charge for Pitt’s mentality change.

“This week we’ve really been emphasizing finish,” Caragein said. “I know it’s hard to simulate finishing out a fourth quarter in practice, but we’ve been working on the little things and we think the little things will produce big things.”

The little things can make a big difference, so they focus on the mental aspects of the game in practice, too.

“At the end of each play, we’ve been focusing on finishing through the whistle,” Caragein said on Wednesday. “We’re trying to see if that will help us finish better in the fourth quarter. It’s all about a mindset.”

If the Panthers can start finishing games like they start games, they’ll be much better prepared for the task of working their way to the top of the Big East Conference. The 41-24 shallacking Pitt has taken in the fourth quarter this season is in spite of the fact they won their first two games.

While the Panthers kept it close against Maine and Buffalo — two low ranked opponents — they jumped out to a 27-10 lead against Iowa before their fourth quarter troubles arrived.

If results aren’t seen from the Panthers new focus this weekend, they could be in for a long afternoon against Notre Dame.