Rushing defense should cause concerns

Three games into the 2006 season and the Pitt football team is right back to where it left… Three games into the 2006 season and the Pitt football team is right back to where it left off in 2005 — looking awful against a rushing attack.

Holding down two less-than-stellar teams in Virginia and Cincinnati gave a lot of fans hope for the season, but it also didn’t fool just as many. Up against its stiffest competition since that dreadful night in Morgantown on Thanksgiving Day last year, the Panthers fell apart.

Michigan State quarterback Drew Stanton, known mostly for his cannon-like arm, torched the Pitt defense with both it and his legs.

He and the running back duo of Javon Ringer and Jehuu Caulcrik tallied 325 yards rushing together. The Spartans, as a team, posted 335 yards rushing on 48 carries.

And they did so by utilizing different versions of one play — the option.

“We prepared for everything,” Pitt linebacker Clint Session said of the option rushing attack. “In football, you can’t prepare for just one play or they’ll beat you with something else. That’s football.”

The Spartans’ 300-yard performance was the first time a Pitt opponent rushed for more than 300 yards on its defense, since, well, um…three games ago.

Everyone remembers last season’s finale against the Mountaineers when quarterback Pat White and running back Steve Slaton led West Virginia in pounding not 300, but 451 total yards on the ground.

And, if you remember correctly (which I’m sure you do), White and Slaton were not seniors. They still aren’t seniors.

The duo is still at West Virginia and still posting huge numbers. Through three games in Morgantown, Slaton has rushed for 503 yards, while White has added 155 more.

Keep in mind that I’m not looking past the next seven games on the Pitt schedule to West Virginia. Pitt has time to make some adjustments and shore up its tackling before the Mountaineers step off the back porch into the yard this year.

It’s just that I’m scared. Scared for the season and scared for the defense. If Saturday’s game tells anything, we should all be scared of the darkness that waits at the end of the season’s tunnel.

“He (Stanton) probably shocked us today with his running,” Pitt cornerback Darrelle Revis said. “But that’s still not an excuse for it.

“We’re going to see this again. West Virginia runs that style and is very good at it. This is definitely something we can work on this week and throughout the rest of the season.”

There were times in which the Pitt defense had Stanton and his running backs locked up behind the line of scrimmage for a loss, but didn’t finish with a tackle. That is even more of a concern.

Stanton rushed 13 times in the game and rarely found himself down on the ground after a big hit. He continuously lined up under center, called for an option and executed it to perfection.

Plenty of times he did so on third down, too. The Spartans were 11 of 15 on third down — a staggering stat that kept Pitt’s defense on the field far longer than it had to be. A couple of tackles here and there, however, could have changed that.

“I missed a few tackles myself,” Session admitted after the game. “We all did. When you miss tackles, you put your team in a bad situation, and that happened a lot today.”

Defensive captain H.B. Blades agreed.

“We’ve got to make those tackles,” he said. “But this is adversity, and it matters how you respond to it. We’ve got a game next week we need to focus on now. We can’t keep thinking about this loss.”

Here’s to hoping that the tackling improves, which I believe it will. Blades and Revis are too good and have too much pride to let their defense go down like this again.

But the thought of White and Slaton running up and down Heinz Field will still linger in the back of my mind.

I’m no football genius, but something tells me that White is a bit faster than Stanton, and Slaton is probably the hardest back to tackle in the NCAA — just ask Marshall, Eastern Washington and Maryland.

Alan Smodic is the Sports Editor for The Pitt News. E-mail him at ams85@pitt.edu.