Pitt prepares for South Florida, again

With all of the Pitt campus wanting only to talk of the BCS, head football coach Walt Harris… With all of the Pitt campus wanting only to talk of the BCS, head football coach Walt Harris and his Panthers have only enough room on their agenda for three other letters — USF.

In what Harris called a “must-win game,” the Panthers (7-3 overall, 4-2 Big East) will travel to Tampa Bay, Fla., to take on the South Florida Bulls (4-6, 3-5 Conference USA) in a makeup game that was originally scheduled for Sept. 6. A win would lock up a BCS bid for Pitt, a bid Harris doesn’t want to talk about until after the game.

“I don’t really want to talk about all that stuff,” Harris said in his weekly press conference Monday. “I want our players to focus on what we have to do to get it done against South Florida.”

He was quick to talk about the last and only time the two schools met, a shocking 35-26 South Florida victory in the confine of Heinz Field. It was the Bulls’ inaugural season playing I-A football, but an onside kick to start the game gave them the confidence they needed to pull of the upset.

Despite the Bulls not being bowl-eligible this season — currently in a two-game slide with losses to Memphis and Cincinnati — Harris expects to find a motivated opponent in Saturday’s matchup of future Big East foes. South Florida is scheduled to join the Big East next season.

“[Saturday’s] a big game for all those who were here in 2001,” Harris said. “It’s a big game, and it’s on the road against a team that would like nothing more than to spoil our opportunity that we have built for ourselves in the past 10 games.”

If the Panthers are to finish what they started building, they must stop a surprisingly potent Bull rushing attack. South Florida has not traditionally been known for its running game, as Pitt saw in 2001.

In that game, South Florida quarterback Marquel Blackwell, now a graduate, threw for 343 yards on 65 passing attempts. The Panthers were unable to get pressure on Blackwell, as they recorded no sacks on the afternoon.

But this season is a little different. The Bulls have a new running back in their junior college transfer Andre Hall. He has already set the school’s single season record with 1,272 yards rushing, putting him third on the school’s all-time rushing list, even though this is only his first season.

“I think they have a great runner,” Harris said. “They are physical up front, and they have a couple of other guys that spell that outstanding runner.”

Considering the parody on Pitt’s run defense this season, Hall could be in for a big day or a tough afternoon on Saturday.

Against West Virginia, the Panthers allowed 213 yards on the ground, two weeks after allowing Syracuse to run for 239 yards. Before that, however, they limited Boston College and Rutgers to 56 yards rushing apiece in two victories.

Hall has six 100-yard games this season and has gone for more than 200 twice, including a school-record 275 against the University of Alabama-Birmingham earlier this month. The junior has also found the end zone a school-record-tying 12 times this season.

The Bulls as a team average 192 yards rushing per contest, but as of late, they have added a deep threat in the aerial game in the form of a freshman receiver.

True freshman Johnny Peyton has come into his own the past seven games for South Florida. His 430 yards in that span are a Bulls’ freshman record. Most of his 19 catches — two of which have been for touchdowns — have gone for long yardage as well, as he averages 22.6 yards per reception.

“They can throw caution to the wind,” Harris said of the Bulls’ big-play capability. “They have players, some of which we tried to recruit. They have a good offensive system.”

South Florida’s run defense is also a concern for Harris. Under defensive-minded head coach Jim Leavitt, who built Kansas State’s defense into a national power in his six years, the Bulls yield an average of only 160.2 yards per game on the ground.

“The strength of their defense is that they overload against the run, and they put the heat on you trying to throw the ball,” Harris said. “They bring their safeties and make you try to defeat their corners, which has been difficult for a lot of teams.”

Pitt’s best chance at a win might come through the air, however, as the Bulls surrender more than 230 yards through the air each game, only 10 yards less than what Panther sophomore quarterback Tyler Palko averages per outing.

Regardless of how the job gets done, Harris feels that if his team focuses and looks at the task at hand, it will get done.

“We just need to relax and play our game and not worry about all that other stuff,” he said. “We’ll take care of business if we’re not too wired up or over-focused.”

The game will be nationally televised by ESPN2 and will kick off at 11 a.m.