The 5 Most Important Plays of the Pitt Game

I hate rehashing losses, especially ones that were easily preventable. These 5 plays are, in my mind, the 5 chances the Irish had to win the game. There was some football to be played after most of these plays, but the chances of an Irish victory would have drastically changed at a minimum, with Pittsburgh likely having no chance or too little time to recover.

(If you subscribe through email, you may not see clips in your email. Go to VaticanSmoke to view the 5 very short clips).

The 5 plays that would have won the game for the Irish if any had gone differently - with #1 being the 1 play I would change if I could:

Play 5 - The Irish have the ball on our own 45, with 50 seconds and three timeouts remaining. Its 4th and 1, and the Irish use their first timeout to stop the clock. The Irish come set after the timeout, and then have to call another timeout. Credit to Clausen for calling the 2nd timeout, as he obviously saw something that was going to bust the first play up. But the two timeouts in a row were embarassing. So then the Irish go for broke in a typical Weis move, attempting a play action pass to win the game. But after the two timeouts, Pitt was ready and almost no linebackers bit on the play action. If the Irish convert, we still had 1 timeout, and likely could have advanced the ball within range of a Brandon Walker field goal attempt. Who knows if he would have made it, but the chance would have been nice.


Play 4 - 2nd & Goal from the 3 yardline in 1st OT. Quite simply, the Irish have two chances from the 3 yardline to score and win the game. Pitt has already had the ball and kicked a field goal. Two chances, no score. On the 2nd play, notice how the Tight End on the bottom of the screen - #9 Kyle Rudolph, true freshman - gets abused by the defensive end, busting up the play. I bet Jimmy finds #18 Duval Kamara on the top slot position for a TD if Rudolph makes any type of block.


Play 3 - Jimmy's overthrow to Michael Floyd in the 2nd OT. Nothing much to be said - Jimmy overthrew a wide open WR for a sure TD. Score a TD here, and the Irish have a great chance to stop Pitt. Who knows what would have happened, but it would have been nice to see if Pitt could have scored a defense that knew it already had scored a TD.


Play 2 - David Bruton almost intercepted an errant Pitt pass in the 3rd OT. This one might be a stretch, but I thought Bruton had a chance to intercept this pass. It would have been a fantastic play, and likely the Irish would have had a good chance for a game winning field goal.


Play 1 - Pittsburgh has the ball, 4th and 5, on the Irish 10 yard line, with 2:25 to go in the game. The Irish stop this pass, then Pitt only has 1 timeout, and the Irish would be able to run nearly all the time off the clock. Game is over if this pass is better defended, and the game never goes to OT. The coverage wasn't bad, but it wasn't good enough by Rashon McNeil.


Coulda, woulda, shoulda. The only value in watching these 5 plays is that we see how close the Irish were to winning this football game. Maybe you can do this with any loss, and a few plays is all that separates the winner from loser in most games.

Losing is never acceptable. In the context of last season, there is some value in that we are competing. I expect the Irish to break through and win one of these close ones this season. Experiencing success in a close game is the next step for this team. Learning from missed chances is one way to be ready for the next opportunity to take the step.