Saturday, after Pitt's spectacular rout of Boston College behind Mason "Classical Gas" Heintschel, this here undersigned wrote of a beguiling, common phenomenon: "...oftentimes when a football team, college or pro, makes a change at quarterback to a guy who the opposing coach has no book on, has never seen film of, because it doesn't exist, they get astonished. Bill O'Brien is a helluva coach, but he had no way of knowing what Mason Heintschel's tendencies were. ...the next opposing coach is going to have film on Mason.
The next opposing coach is Mike Norvell, Florida State. In Tallahassee. FSU's starting quarterback, Thomas Castellanos, was Boston College's starting QB last season when the Pigeons beat the Holes. And, for what it is worth, FSU has lost two straight.
This evening I read a column in a Pittsburgh daily on the difference between Pitt, coming off two straight losses and desperate, and PSU, now with two straight losses:
...the team on the other sideline [UCLA] had two days to learn its game plan after changing offensive coordinators in the wake of firing its head coach the previous week. ...
I saved in a text message to myself with this postscript:
"That could have been the difference! psu's O put up enough points to win."
...
The sports pencil repeats it:
...an opponent that just got its game plan installed 48 hours earlier...
...
And then, not seeing the parallels--as indeed I did not:
...we’ll see how it goes for Narduzzi this weekend when Florida State knows what’s coming at quarterback.
Postscript: "exactly what i wrote after the BC game!"
Tim Benz Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
My anti-PSU credentials have been repeatedly validated for 60 years. I am not carrying water for that school which should not exist, nor for its head tackle football coach. I am applying the same standard of evaluation to them as I did to my Beloved Pitt "Panthers". UCLA's players carried their two-day old O-coordinator off the fucking the field!
At least the Uclans had two days to prepare. PSU? zero days. Just like Bill O'Brien. It was PSU's defense that lost that game. Now fair is only fair. If I, or Tim Benz, are going to acknowledge the advantage of surprise in Pitt's game, we have to acknowledge the disadvantage of surprise that PSU had in its. Before anybody books me into the lunatic asylum, I don't say, and I did not write on Saturday, that surprise is the exclusive explanation for the Mason Heintschel Phenomenon. Nor is it for the PSU Debacle. What I wrote was, "Now, tackle football is not USMLE. I don't know how the endocrine system works but I damn well know how a quarterback works. O'Brien knows what a QB does, fresh-faced or not." O'Brien should have had some answer for Mason. James Franklin should have had some answer for Jerry Neuheisel's game plan. Magic dust was not sprinkled on a lonely field beyond Fort Pitt, nor in the Rose Bowl. The element of surprise is a factor, it was a factor in both games. Pitt beat BC 48-7. Beyond a reasonable doubt the "Panthers" would still have won their game. UCLA beat PSU 42-37. To answer the question that everybody who has read this far knows is coming: No. No and hell no, neither I nor anyone else, can say beyond a reasonable doubt that UCLA would still have beaten PSU if they hadn't had 1) a new interim HC 2) a new interim D-coordinator 3) a new O-coordinator?
I expect Florida State to beat Pitt Saturday. I expect PSU to beat Northwestern Saturday.