USF Falls to Pitt 44 to 17

B.J. Daniels and the offense had a frustrating night but not as bad as the defense. (Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

What an ugly game for USF. Pitt came out and hit USF hard and fast with their offense. The high octane offense just wore out the defense, keeping them back. Pitt attacked and the USF defense that stayed back and waited for the Panthers to come to them, 10 yards later down the field. There was no pass rush, awful arm tackling that failed, and Pitt simply just out hustled and got USF out of position all night. The offense couldn't get anything going as receivers ran wrong routes, Daniels got pressured all night, and mental mistakes cost the team huge in this very bad loss.

Daniels was 18 for 36 for 223 yards, being sacked twice. He couldn't get the offense moving late in the game, coming up short on drives as the team continues to struggle to finish in redzone situations and get the ball in when it counts. He also ran the ball 14 times for 43 yards and a touchdown.

Scott has 12 carries for 76, making some nice physical runs through the Pitt defense (a fumble late did hurt though). Murray had 10 carries for 67 yards, showing a nice burst through the line. Lamar had 2 carries for 16 yards.

Griffin had 5 receptions for 109 yards, showing great ability to catch the ball and turn it up field to get a lot of great yards. Ruben Gonzalez had 2 receptions for 22 yards (nice to see the freshman get on the field). Victor Marc had 2 for 18, Landi had 3 for 17, Scott had 2 for 15, Miller, Love, Welch, and Bravo-Brown all had a reception as well.

The defense was the real story on the night as they looked spent after just the first drive. Giving up over 200 yards to Ray Graham and allowing Tino Sunseri to get big runs up the gut and breaking out to the outside were just bad. We will get more into this later today.

The team now enters next week for the bye week and has a lot of searching and studying to do. They have a lot of mistakes to correct and have to figure out how to execute and finish more. They are now 4-1 (0-1) and have to figure it out in the next two weeks before they go on the road again to face UCONN.