Football: Panthers hope to bounce back with win in season opener

Last Thursday’s 27-24 overtime loss at Utah brought plenty of irrational indictments to the… Last Thursday’s 27-24 overtime loss at Utah brought plenty of irrational indictments to the doorstep of seemingly every Panther.

But head coach Dave Wannstedt believes his team will fix last week’s problems in time for this weekend’s home opener against the New Hampshire Wildcats (1-0), Saturday at 1 p.m. at Heinz Field.

“There wasn’t anything really on the tape that you would say could not be corrected, whether it was a missed tackle or mental mistake,” Wannstedt said. “I think it’s very important for a football team to understand what will lose games for you so that you can understand what wins a game for you.”

The brunt of the criticism fell on Sunseri, whose interception to start overtime led to Utah’s game-winning field goal. But considering that he engineered an 11-point fourth-quarter comeback in a hostile environment in his first career start, his coach had to defend his resilient effort.

“I wish there was an easy way to get a young quarterback experience, but there isn’t,” Wannstedt said. “When he came off after the interception, he knew exactly what happened — who he was looking for first and how he had held the ball. It wasn’t that situation where he came off, looked at you and said, ‘What happened? Where did that guy come from?’ He understands what we’re trying to get done on offense.”

Sunseri finished the game 16-for-28 for 184 yards, with one touchdown to go with his interception in the extra session.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire doesn’t often have to cope with interceptions — they don’t often pass. The Wildcats threw the ball just 18 times in 63 offensive plays in last week’s 33-3 victory over Central Connecticut State.

“They’re going to run the ball,” Wannstedt said. “They’re a little more spread option, quarterback-type team than what Utah was. They’ll run a triple-type option.”

Wannstedt noted the impressive 19-carry, 197-yard effort of Wildcat sophomore running back Dontra Peters against Central Connecticut State. Both of Peters’ touchdown runs came out of the spread-option formation. Play-action then allowed senior quarterback R.J. Toman to find Chris Jeannot in the end zone for another score.

“Their quarterback is an outstanding player,” Wannstedt said. “When you look at his interception-to-touchdown ratio a year ago — I think it was 15 touchdowns with seven interceptions — that’s outstanding.”

On Pitt’s side, Dion Lewis ran for just 33 yards over last week’s final three quarters, as the Utes made the Heisman-hyped back work for every inch between the tackles and wore him down. He can catch his breath Saturday, though, if Ray Graham — who is recovering from a knee injury — returns to action.

“We could have played [Graham against Utah] if we wanted to,” Wannstedt said. “If he practices well this week and the opportunity presents itself, we’ll play him this week.”

Although Graham might return to the field, safety Dom DeCicco — who has an injured hamstring ­— is listed as day-to-day and may miss Saturday’s game.

Nonetheless, the long break between games afforded the Panthers extra time on the practice field. Thanks to a Thursday night season-opener, Pitt had time to analyze their errors against Utah before planning for the Wildcats.

“We really used the extra days to focus on us, make sure that everybody understood what needed to be done and move forward,” Wannstedt said.

The answer to Pitt’s problems may lie in the offensive line finding their stride. The maturation of the young unit will help alleviate problems under center and in the backfield, according to Wannstedt.

“I thought that as the game went on, our offensive line, Tino Sunseri and our whole offense became more comfortable,” Wannstedt said. “I thought that our offensive line made adjustments as the game went on and started coming together.”

The group looked out of sync at times against the Utes, committing nine procedure penalties.

“I’ve used the expression ‘It’s a work in progress,’” Wannstedt said. “It’s going to take a little bit of time there. You have three new guys making the checks, trying to work together on making the combination blocks. It just doesn’t happen overnight.”

Pitt fell from the AP Top 25 this week, but New Hampshire, a Football Championship Subdivision school — formerly called Division I-AA — rose to fifth in their coaches poll.

“They’ve stepped up to play teams and had success,” Wannstedt said. “We’re focused, and we better be. Right now we have to get a win. We have to correct the things that we did not do well enough to win last week.”