The fine line between winning and losing

What makes a football team win?

That seems to be a question heard pretty often around here… What makes a football team win?

That seems to be a question heard pretty often around here these days. The Pitt football team only won five games this season. The Steelers are on a three-game losing streak and are letting the division title and a playoff berth slip away. And even the cross-state pro team, 10 or so months removed from a Super Bowl berth, just lost 42-0 on Monday night and are 0-4 in their division.

Just a year ago, these three football teams were at the top of their games. Pitt was headed to the school’s first BCS bowl bid after winning a Big East Conference title. The Steelers went a franchise best 15-1 in the regular season, while the Eagles finally got over the NFC championship game hump that plagued them for so long.

And now, it seems almost evident that none of the three teams so closely followed on this campus will be playing any postseason football.

WHY? WHAT HAPPENED?

Well, in my humble opinion as a somewhat knowledgeable fan of the game of football, I believe I have the answer.

And this isn’t something I have come up with on my own. No, this is something that is blatantly obvious to any football fan, but it just seems to go unnoticed quite frequently. For any football team, it all starts with the offensive line.

Without an offensive line that can get the job done, your football team won’t go anywhere. They establish the running game, which opens the passing game, which makes teams try and stop a balanced offense. And as the USC Trojans have proven this year, it is pretty tough to stop a well-balanced offense.

Despite all the publicity surrounding USC, their offensive line gets none of the recognition and none of the credit. That’s the strange thing about the O-line. When things are going well, and they’re doing a great job starting the offense, they get none of the credit, but when things are going poorly (See: Tommy Maddox in the Jacksonville game in Week 6 this year) the O-line will be one of the first to take the blame.

Take a quick look at Pitt this year. They lost their leader in Rob Petitti to the NFL and were very young this year. The Panthers couldn’t run the ball very well at all – they averaged 3.2 yards per carry this season, and only 116.8 yards a game, good enough for seventh out of eight Big East teams.

The Eagles’ problems are even easier to see. Yeah, you think I’m talking about the T.O. saga or the season-ending injury to Donovan McNabb. Sure, those all hurt the birds, but out of the five starting linemen in Super Bowl XXIX, only right tackle Jon Runyan and left guard Artis Hicks started last night against Seattle. When the offensive line, which thrives on continuity, experiences an injury to one player, it is detrimental to the whole unit.

Regardless of who is throwing or catching in Philly, this year should teach Philly fans it matters whose blocking.

That is a lesson Steelers fans also should have learned as the team went on to see ridiculous success last season.

Yes, I’m aware that Big Ben became a hero and didn’t lose in the regular season. And I know that Jerome Bettis outran Father Time while filling in for Duce Staley. But none of that would have been possible if the offensive line wouldn’t have finally gotten healthy.

In 2003, the Steelers went 6-10 – a far cry from 15-1 for sure. In 2003, the line never got healthy and the Steelers offense never got anything going.

Last year, a healthy Steelers line was being touted as the most physical line in the game, and their play was the main reason the Steelers were so effective last season.

This year, the line looked as if they would pick up right where they left off, as the Steelers started 7-2, averaging 142.5 yards per game on the ground.

During the three-game skid that has dropped them to 7-5, the Steelers are only averaging 83.7 yards per game rushing. That simply will not get it done.

It seems very simple. Run the ball successfully, and win.

Look at the Super Bowl teams from Dallas in the mid-1990s. Sure they had the all-time leader in Emmitt Smith, but ask anyone who knows anything about football and they’ll tell you that he ran in front of the one of the best offensive lines in history.

As simple as the solution may seem, it appears as if the Steelers and Eagles are doomed for the remainder of 2005 season. However, this little history lesson should show you that if both teams’ offensive lines could get back on the right track, anything can happen.

As for Pitt, let’s just hope former offensive lineman himself, Dave Wannstedt is getting the personnel he wants to be able to pound the ball like he wants. And according to him after the WVU game, “help is on the way.”

Dave Thomas is a 6-foot-1-inch, 225-pound senior staff writer for The Pitt News who played tackle in high school and will still have at least one year of eligibility left. Give Coach Wannstedt his e-mail: dthomas7224@yahoo.com.