Offense lagging behind after conclusion of spring drills

The Pitt offense was finally moving the ball. Quarterback Bill Stull completed his last three… The Pitt offense was finally moving the ball. Quarterback Bill Stull completed his last three passes, leading to two first downs. Then Pitt got greedy.

Stull hiked the ball and handed it off to running back Dion Lewis. The freshman took a few steps forward, turned back and tossed it to Stull, or more appropriately, toward Stull and over his head. Stull ran back, picked it up and saw a couple of defenders about to tackle him. He tossed it a few feet in front of him and, thanks to the intentional grounding penalty, the Panthers lost a down, more than 25 yards and any momentum previously built.

‘We only [practiced] that a few times,’ said Stull. ‘We missed a big play opportunity on that. We’ll get back and clean it up.’

Perhaps the worst thing about that sequence is that it was one of the better drives during Saturday’s Blue-Gold game for the Pitt offense, which looked like it didn’t miss a beat from last year.

Now, saying the Pitt offense didn’t appear to miss a beat from last year sounds like it’s a compliment. It’s not. And in the Blue-Gold game on Saturday, the Pitt offense didn’t miss a beat from the team that lost 3-0 to Oregon State in last year’s Sun Bowl. Of course, it is only the Blue-Gold game, a glorified practice, and Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt made sure to note that.

‘We came out and tried to keep it fairly simple, and use [Saturday] as another day to evaluate our players,’ said Wannstedt.

In the final scrimmage of spring practice, the defense (Blue) defeated the offense (Gold), 54-23. The Blue-Gold game has its own scoring system in case those figures bring up a few questions, like how did a defense score 54 points? How did a dismal offense score 23?

Well, the defense could score points for a tackle for a loss, forced fumbles, fumbles recovered, forced punts, fourth-down stops, interceptions and a fumble or interception returned for a touchdown. The offense could score points for first downs, point after touchdowns, plays longer than 16 yards, successful two-point conversions, field goals and touchdowns.

During the game, the offense scored one touchdown and kicked one field goal. The rest of the points came on 10 first downs and two long plays. The defense won, thanks partly to three interceptions, seven tackles for a loss and six sacks.

On the opening possession, Stull connected with receiver Jonathan Baldwin for a 54-yard touchdown pass. The ball was a bit underthrown, causing Baldwin to slow down a bit and wait for it to get to him. The play came on a play-action pass, and was the closest thing to a trick play Pitt tried outside of the botched flea flicker.

‘All the spring games are going to be more vanilla,’ said Stull.

Stull finished as the most productive quarterback during the game. The returning starter completed 12-of-17 passes for 132 yards, a touchdown and an interception. Freshman Tino Sunseri completed 5-of-15 passes for 38 yards and one interception. Sophomore Pat Bostick threw for 31 yards and an interception while connecting on 4-of-10 passes.

‘Today was all about being decisive, getting the ball out of your hands and making good decisions,’ said Stull. ‘For the most part, I think we did that, but obviously there were some little things we need to clean up.’

One possible reason for the underwhelming play of the quarterbacks was pressure. On nearly every play, whichever quarterback was in was bombarded with defensive lineman bursting through their offensive counterparts in a dash to see who could take down the quarterback first.

‘We weren’t really in sync as a unit,’ said Wannstedt of the offensive line. ‘Until we get that group meshed together, it’s going to be tough to protect our quarterback.’

The offensive line was a little depleted coming into the Blue-Gold game, with expected starter Jason Pinkston out with a shoulder injury, and Wayne Jones out due to a suspension for an unknown violation of team policy. Because of this, returning starter John Malecki played every snap at guard for the first team and at center with the second team.

The offensive line’s troubles also made it tougher for the running backs to get anything going. The four running backs expected to split time — Dion Lewis, Chris Burns, Shariff Harris and Kevin Collier — ran for a combined 63 yards on 28 carries. Lewis, who is thought to be the frontrunner for the starting job, led the team with 12 attempts for 34 yards and had a game-best nine-yard run, and showed brief glimpses of elusiveness while making defenders miss.

‘We didn’t really make the plays we wanted to at running back position,’ said Lewis.

The running game, Wannstedt said, is one of the issues he plans to heavily work on this summer. Conversely, one area of the offense that the coach was pleased with was the wide receivers.

‘They made a few plays when they had opportunities, but the opportunities just weren’t there,’ said Wannstedt.

The two expected starters led the receiving unit. Baldwin had game-highs with five catches and 75 yards. Cedric McGee caught three passes for 27 yards.

Still, even with the poor showing for the offense as a whole, Wannstedt said there is plenty of time to go before Pitt’s first game, Sept. 5, against Youngstown State.

‘It’ll equal itself out. It’s one day,’ said Wannstedt. ‘We have work to do in all phases.’

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