Man, we really could have used Mike Williams...
Then again who know what kind of defense it would have made. The Panthers (8-1) officially carved up the vaunted Syracuse (3-6) run defense as Dion Lewis ran for 114 yards and a touchdown as Pitt owned the Orange 37-10 (Boxscore). Pitt's D also sacked Syracuse QB's eleven times on the day, never allowing the offense to find much of a rhythm. Not that Paulus & Nassib were helping much in that department.
Drive-killing INTs, a non-existent passing game, big plays given up on defense...it was a lot of "business as usual" for the Orange. While not entirely their faults, Nassib and Paulus combined for three interceptions, one of which was an embarassing, tipped screen-pass returned for a TD.
Syracuse did look frisky...with three minutes left with the game compluetely out of reach. A late Averin Collier-TD and onside-kick recovery at least speak to the never-say-die attitude of the team. Of course, we've been hearing about that for weeks now. They played hard. Again. Got it. Understood.
More discussion to come but in the meantime leave your pleasant thoughts below as we await Doug Marrone's next cry-fest to defend Paulus (who actually wasn't as terrible as the stats might make it out to be).
The Quest for Toronto isn't dead...but it's receiving it's last rites.