UCF Football: 3 takeaways from disappointing loss to Pitt in Week 4

1. Pitt doesn’t have a large margin for error

The Panthers have been in close games all season. Their offense sputter in a second half loss to Virginia. They beat the Ohio Bobcats by a mere two possessions. They keep Penn State in their hip pocket, but came up just short, and this week the “Pittsburgh Special” gives them the close win at home.

Pittsburgh might have a playoff caliber defense, but they have a, “I hope we can win six games and get to a bowl game” offense. The Panthers don’t have any dynamic playmakers on offense. In order to win games and score points they are going to have to grind. They scored 35 points this afternoon, and they ground out those points.

There weren’t had some chunk plays (plays between 15-30 yards), but no explosive plays. They were committed to the run game; it isn’t dynamic. They grind you down with the run game. In 37 carries they have three runs of over 10 yards. Their offense has to be efficient and rely on the defense to give them a short field to score points.

The positive about Pitt you see from this game is it’s going to be hard to win going away against Pitt; that defense is going to keep them in a lot of games, however, since they aren’t dynamic on offense, they aren’t going to blow a lot of people out either.