Football: Pitt to focus on fundamentals against Maine

The Maine football team will seek its first-ever victory over a Football Bowl Subdivision team… The Maine football team will seek a victory over a Football Bowl Subdivision team when the Black Bears face Pitt on Saturday.

Maine, which plays in the Football Championship Subdivision — formerly known as Division I-AA — is coming off a 28-13 win over Bryant. But Maine head coach Jack Cosgrove said he knows that when the Black Bears kick off with the Panthers at 1 p.m. at Heinz Field, the competition will increase.

“I’ve always felt that in order for a team of our stature to be successful against a team like [Pitt], they have to play bad and we have to play great,” Cosgrove said in a teleconference.

And even though Maine doesn’t play in the Football Bowl Subdivision,, it still has formidable players that could be potential threats to Pitt’s defense. Senior defensive back Trevor Coston led Maine in its first game, returning a punt 74 yards for a touchdown and adding two interceptions. Pitt football head coach Todd Graham said he is aware of Maine’s prowess on special teams.

He added that Maine’s senior quarterback Warren Smith reminds him of Pitt backup quarterback Trey Anderson.

“He’s a very good operator,” Graham said at a press conference on Tuesday. “He’s quick and a fast read-zone-type guy.”

Senior running back Pushaun Brown adds an additional threat on the ground. Against Bryant, Brown rushed for 146 yards and two touchdowns. Graham said that, overall, he expects the Black Bears to play aggressively.

“Coach Cosgrove has been there 19 years. They are very well coached; I like his style,” he said. “I’m impressed with how well-coached they are. They are very disciplined.”

But the Panthers should have an advantage on both the offensive and defensive lines. Although Maine boasts experience on both lines, the Black Bears are undersized compared to Pitt’s Division I offensive and defensive linemen.

Pitt will look to execute Graham’s offense more smoothly on Saturday. In the first half against Buffalo — an eventual 35-16 win for the Panthers — Pitt scored just seven points.

“If we hit Cameron Saddler, that’s a walk-off touchdown,” Graham said of the missed opportunities against Buffalo. “If we hit Devin Street, that’s a walk-off touchdown, and you’re at 250 or 300 yards passing.”

After the Buffalo game, redshirt junior quarterback Tino Sunseri said that his reads were right in the first half, which he considered positive heading into the break.

“We were able to go into halftime really just focusing on us,” he said. “We came out in the second half feeling like if we were just able to focus in, just finish plays, we were going to be able to score points.”

Sunseri and the Panthers appeared to grow more comfortable with the no-huddle system in the second half, and they’ll look to improve on that performance against Maine. Sunseri finished the game with 179 passing yards and a touchdown.

“It’s just not knowing our system and trusting it enough,” Graham said. “In scrimmages it’s, ‘1, 2, check down,’ and he’s throwing it. In the game, it’s just experience in the offense and what we’re doing.”

Graham added that he wants to see the Panthers improve fundamentally in their second game of the season.

“I emphasize no penalties and take care of the football,” he said. “Defense, no penalties and get takeaways. We put the ball in jeopardy three times and lost it once. We only got one turnover, but we could have gotten two. That’s uncharacteristic of how we want to play defense.”

Although Pitt struggled to establish the running game in the first half against Buffalo, Ray Graham ran for 201 yards and found the end zone twice in the second half.

Senior transfer Zach Brown added some power to the running game, and Graham said he was impressed with both of the tailbacks’ performances.

“If that guy [Ray Graham] has that much [of a hole], he is extremely special,” the head coach said. “The other guy, Zach Brown, impressed me. He just looks like a veteran. It’s called experience. We have a very dynamic group.”

Defensively, Pitt allowed just three points in the first half — and 16 points overall — against Buffalo. But although the defense seemed to dominate in the first half, Graham said after the game that the Panthers seemed to go downhill defensively after the break.

“There are a lot of things defensively we can get better on,” Graham said on Tuesday. “Then there was a lull, and we were supposed to be up on the receivers, but we were backed up. There were a lot of mental mistakes down the line.”

Graham said he told the players that they are “still infants in [the] scheme,” and that it will take time to completely master the new system.

“We have to be constantly working toward knowledge,” he said. “That takes time. It takes studying, and it takes that voluntary extra time to do that.”