Before every football game this year, The Blue Zone will sit down with a football writer from the opposing school’s student newspaper to get the scoop on their team and season.
This week, The Chronicle’s Nick Martin spoke to the The Pitt News' Sports Editor Chris Puzia about this weekend’s ACC Coastal clash between Duke and Pittsburgh.
TC: Okay, so let's start things off—how would you introduce this Pittsburgh team to any unknowing Duke fans?
PN: It's been a pretty inconsistent team this season. The team started out 3-0 with big wins over Delaware and Boston College, but as of late they've struggled offensively, losing four of the last five. It's kind of surprised a lot of fans. A lot of people kind of thought the offense would carry the team and the defense would be the one struggling, but it's kind of been the other way around so far.
TC: Everybody remembers the shootout that happened in Durham. Take me through what's different about this year's team—I know Tom Savage is gone—but what's changed for this Pittsburgh team?
PN: The big difference is quarterback play—I know you mentioned Tom Savage—but you're not going to see Chad Voytik throw the ball more than 40 times in a game this year. It's just not really his style of play. He's trying to become more of a dual threat guy, just short passes spread the ball around a little bit. And the team really relies on their running back James Conner to shorten games and keep it close.... You're not going to see Pitt put up 50, 60 points.
TC: Speaking of Conner—he is a massive running back weighing in at 250 pounds—what about him makes him the threat that he is?
PN: You mentioned with his sheer size. It's really difficult to bring him down. Usually you see two or three guys trying to take him down. But one thing that's really big with Conner this year that I know he's worked on is falling forward on tackles. Even when he's about to go down, he'll get an extra three-four yards on each run just because of how he finishes his runs. And all that adds up to make him a much more productive runner. He's really done a good job of reading his runs, following his blockers and bouncing outside when he needs to.... He's really become the workhorse of this team.
TC: Duke comes into this game as leaders of the Coastal. Do you get the sense that—though Pittsburgh may not be talking about it—this game does weight a little bit more for them?
PN: I definitely agree with that. I don't know if you'd get the coaches to admit it, but I'm sure some of the players and coaches are looking at this as one of the most important games of the season at this point. The team is .500, has two of the next three games on the road after this against pretty good North Carolina and Miami teams. At the beginning of the season, they looked at it as a pretty soft schedule. Now they're just trying to stay competitive in the Coastal and make a bowl game. I'm sure coaches would agree that the game is pretty important.
TC: I couldn't go through this without asking about Tyler Boyd. He's obviously a playmaker. How much would you say he's stepped up and been the guy everybody thought he would be at the beginning of the year?
PN: He set a few freshman ACC records last year, so obviously there were a lot of high expectations coming into this season. He's really stepped. One thing I would say [he has improved] is his route running. He's become a lot more specific as far as preparation and planing goes. Other than the ground game, the only passing game Pitt really has goes through Boyd.... Lately, they've been trying to feed him the ball whether it's through running options, short screen passes just to try and get the ball in his hands.
TC: And last question: what do you think the final score of tomorrow's game will be?
PN: I think it'll be close, but I'll go 27-24 Duke.
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