In retrospect I think two very important things came out of that game Sat. First, I think the team was tight. Really tight, been there and it can make you lose focus. Hines said it best, people weren’t finishing (blocks, tackling, catching the ball, ect.) Quite simply they were afraid of losing.
I’m not sure what DD said in that locker room but it probably went something like this, “you guys have come too far, not only this year but the past 3 years, to let this game get away. If you just go out there and do the job you’ve been trained to do and give it your absolute best then you’ll walk off the field winners. If you don’t you’ll be kicking yourself in the rear forever. This team is better than that team. This team is the best team this school has seen in a long time. It’s the team the fans have been waiting on for years. That blue collar, hands in the dirt team that refuses to lose. That’s the team that you are and that’s the team I expect to see when we go back out there.”
Then came the second. They responded, They responded with the best second half of a game I’ve seen from this team under DD. We’ve all read multitudes of comments about the team not doing well in the third quarter. Well that didn’t happen Saturday. And by the end of that third quarter Pitt knew they were going to lose. You could see it in the way they executed. They became the tight team. When they punted that second time in a row they knew they were beat.
Smarter than the average bear
