Pitt vs Michigan State: The First Real Test of the Season

Despite a Michigan State fans comments on a Panther Digest thread regarding Pitt's performance the first two weeks compared to MSU's, the Panthers indeed have a great chance for a marquee win against the Spartans this weekend. Just because Pitt didn't run up the scores and stats in the 2nd half of their first two games doesn't mean that the Panthers didn't easily win both games. The purpose of the game is to beat your opponent. And Pitt did that convincingly the first two games of their young season, despite losing three of their most valuable players going into the season already.

A closer analysis show that Pitt has a much better chance to beat MSU this year. Mainly because of the stronger balance they have on both sides of the ball. On offense, the Panthers are much more balanced with a two prong RB attack. Stephens-Howling is much more dangerous to opposing defenses when they are forced to also focus on LeSean McCoy. The Panthers also has outstanding playmakers at WR and TE. The big question for the offense is the line play. It got a little better against Grambling, but it needs to protect the relatively new QB in Kevan Smith enough and give all of Pitt's playmakers a little bit of room and time to make plays. Fortunately, Pitt's tremdeously talented playmakers will not need as much time as they did last year to make those plays.

On defense, even with losing Mustakas, the Panthers are much faster and stronger on the line. More importantly, the linebackers, as a complete unit, are much better this year. McKillop is faster than Blades and Murray and Gunn are much better tacklers. Dickerson is an X factor playmaker that the Spartans offensive line will have to account for when he's on the field. So I don't expect teams to run roughshod on Pitt this year. Doesn't mean teams won't be successful running against them, but you will probably not see many opposing teams racking up 300+ yards on the ground with regularity as too many did last year. The defensive backs, as a group, are also better this year. Thatcher and Phillips are healthy and Cox will not be picked on as much now that he isn't playing opposite the best CB in the league. Berry and Gary might not be the shut down corners that Revis was yet, but they cover well and are opportunistic when given the chance.

Most importantly, MSU does not run the same offensive style they did last year. If the Panthers have shown anything, they do stack up much better against the pro style offense Dantonio employs than the option offense that MSU and other teams were so effective in running against the Panthers the last few years. Pitt only lost two games last year to a traditional pro style offense (Louisville Rutgers). All the remaining teams used sort of option (MSU, WVU, USF) or spread (UCONN) offense to wear and run the thin defense down. I would suggest that both Louisville and Rutgers last were far superior to MSU this year and Rutgers was still a very close game.

So all in all, I think on paper Pitt has a great chance to win this game. I'm not predicting a win since the game is on the road at a difficult place to play. But I will not be surprised if either Pitt won the game or lost it. It certainly is not the lost course some here might predict it is. I will only be disappointed if Pitt doesn't make the game competitive for four quarters.