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Notre Dame vs Pitt
11/14/09
It seemed like the stars were aligned perfectly this year for this Notre Dame
football team. They looked to have a very good football team and their schedule
was very favorable, so people started to wonder if this was the year that Notre
Dame began to get back to national prominence. Notre Dame opened the season with
a 35-0 victory over a solid Nevada football team, so it really started to look
like the Fighting Irish were for real. Then everything started to go downhill.
In their next game they lost to a very average Michigan football team. After
that game they squeeked out three straight wins against Michigan State, Purdue,
and Washington before falling at home to USC. After following that loss up with
two wins over Boston College and Washington State this Notre Dame football team
suffered their worst loss of the season in a 23-21 loss to Navy. Not only did
Navy beat them, but this was the 2nd loss to Navy in three years. Charlie Weis
seat has never been hotter as the Notre Dame football coach and he really needs
to get a win this weekend. It will be far from easy against to take down the
Pittsburgh Panthers.
Pittsburgh is 8-1 on the year and is right in the thick of things in the Big
East title race. They have a brutal final three games to finish out the season
with games against West Virginia and Cincinnati after this week's game, so it is
very important for the Panthers to come out and play good football and get some
momentum going to end the year, because they are going to be tested the rest of
the year.
THE PRIMETIME MATCHUP
At first look it seemed like the key matchup was going to be Notre Dame's rush
defense against Pittsburgh rushing attack led by RB Dion Lewis. Notre Dame is
coming into this game off their loss to Navy where they gave up 348 yards
rushing. This Notre Dame defense has been struggling, and thats not good news
since one of the nation's best Running Backs in Dion Lewis is on the opposing
sideline this weekend. That matchup is going to play a big role in this game,
but we believe the #1 matchup is going to be Notre Dame's running game vs
Pittsburgh's rush defense. It is no secret that Notre Dame wants to throw the
ball around. Against Navy they ran the ball just 20 times all game and threw the
ball 51 times. Notre Dame has to be much more balanced on offense to get the win
this Saturday. Make no mistake the Fighting Irish are a passing team, but they
cannot expect to throw the ball 51 times without a running game and win. When
you have 512 yards of total offense with 452 of those yards coming through the
air and can only put up 21 points you have problems. This Notre Dame offense has
become way to predictable and it seems like Charlie Weis knows it, but still
continues to sling the ball around. Pittsburgh is ranked 2nd in the Big East in
pass defense giving up just over 200 yards per game through the air, so they
have a very good secondary. If Notre Dame abandons the running game and becomes
one dimensional they are going to have problems all day getting the ball in the
endzone.
THE FINAL VERDICT
Pittsburgh RB Dion Lewis is having an amazing freshman season. He has rushed for
1139 yards on the season with 12 TD's. Considering Navy tore through the Notre
Dame defense all game on the ground we expect Dion Lewis to have another big
game on the ground. When he is able to have success he opens things up for his
QB Bill Stull who is having a great year. Notre Dame's defense just isn't
playing good enough to be able to stop this Pittsburgh offense, and once
Pittsburgh opens up an early lead Notre Dame will completely abandon the running
game and become one dimensional, and from what we saw last week against Navy the
Fighting Irish cannot do that and be successful. Things are just not going the
right direction for this Notre Dame football team, and this just might be the
game where the wheels completely come off for Charlie Weis and his Fighting
Irish.