W2WF: Pittsburgh

In a parallel universe, through a looking glass, a bizarro world exists for Boston College and Pittsburgh. Two teams from the former Big East are playing in a football game, and the new links and new game plans are changing the identities of the two programs. In many ways, they're exactly the same teams. In other ways, the familiarity blurs the lines of the small world of college football.

This weekend, that coaching pool will draw a new line of demarcation across Alumni Stadium between the two coaching staffs. Former Pitt assistant coaches Jeff Hafley and Frank Cignetti will command a team quarterbacked by a Pittsburgh-area high school legend, and BC will play Pittsburgh in the team's second meeting in as many years.

"I was there for five years," Hafley said of Pittsburgh. "That's really where I got started and had my first opportunity thanks to Dave Wannstedt, a guy who really changed my life. I know Pat Narduzzi pretty well, I have a ton of respect for him."

"I've known Jeff for a while," Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said of his counterpart. "I know he's a former Pitt coach along with Frank Cignetti, two guys with Pittsburgh ties, so it'll be personal to them. It'll be personal for us."

It's a game where lines run deep on both sidelines. Hafley and Cignetti coached at Pitt, but Narduzzi has New England ties both personally and on staff. The former Rhode Island linebacker coached the Rams defense during the 1990s, a time during which he faced off several times against Mark Whipple.

Whipple was a New England legend with a championship resume from his stops at Brown and UMass. He won the 1998 Division I-AA national championship with the Minutemen in his first season after laying the groundwork for the Bears' 1999 Ivy League championship, and he continued his run in Amherst before moving onto the NFL. In the mid-2000s, after serving as the quarterbacks coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, he was in the coaching carousel rumor mill as a name for the Boston College job.

He later returned to UMass for a second stint as head coach and saw the Eagles multiple times as FBS opponents. Last year, Narduzzi hired him as his team's offensive coordinator.

It's a way to revive old, dormant relationships in a rivalry that once defined eastern football. BC and Pitt met annually in the 1970s as Eastern Independents before forming the early Big East footprint in the 1980s. A decade later, they helped charter the conference's football league and blazed an evenly-played path forward until the Eagles defected in 2005.

It wasn't either team's biggest rivalry, but BC-Pitt was one of the league's toughest rivalries. In their last meeting in the Big East in 2004, the Panthers won a game that eventually earned them the league's Fiesta Bowl bid after Syracuse defeated BC in the last game of the season. It ended the matchup for a full decade before the Panthers joined the ACC, but the realignment into the Coastal Division ensured they wouldn't play annually.

This year marks the first consecutive meeting between Boston College and Pitt in 16 years. None of the players were old enough to remember it, but it does nothing to damper the personal personnel connections between the two schools. There is a familiarity, and on Saturday, the intensity of the BC-Pitt rivalry will once again link cities joined by a mutual sports history.

"Coach Cignetti and Coach Hafley were coaches at Pitt," Jurkovec said. "I am a Pitt fan. I am a fan, and I have respect for them. I hope Western Pennsylvania kids at Pitt have success."

Here's what to watch for when the Big East revives at Alumni Stadium:

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Weekly Storylines (The Princess Bride Edition)

Inigo Montoya: I don't suppose you could speed things up.
Wesley: If you're in such a hurry, you could lower a rope or a tree branch or find something useful to do.
Inigo Montoya: I could do that. I have some rope up here, but I do not think you would accept my help, since I am only waiting around to kill you.
Wesley: That does put a damper on our relationship.

Mark Whipple's first season at Pitt overhauled the offense with balance. He dumped the run-heavy scheme from 2018 and built around his quarterback, and Kenny Pickett responded with more than 3,000 yards passing. It seamlessly transitioned the team out of the Qadree Ollison and Darrin Hall era, and it turned receivers Taysir Mack and Maurice Ffrench into favored targets.

It led a transition for the Panthers, and the offense scored 30 points across four separate victories, the highlight of which was a 35-34 upset against No. 15 Central Florida. It now arrives in Chestnut Hill dealing with its first loss after breaking earlier this season into the national rankings.

"Coach Whipple has a pro-style attack," Jeff Hafley said. "I know Coach Whipple from the NFL. He's done an incredible job with that quarterback, who I think is a really good player. The offensive line is really well-coached (and) probably plays together better than any O-line we've played all year. Combination blocks, pass protection, they work really well together. You can tell they are a very well-coached team."

Pro-style offenses are tough to pin down because they colloquially refer to traditional two-back formations with one or multiple tight ends. They are built around the run and use drop-back passing to challenge defenses with two receivers. They draw defenses into the box in order to open things up deep, and the augmented balance wears down opponents. The formations themselves vary and use different groupings than spreads or shotguns, but they aren't as unorthodox as a full-blown option.

"What does pro-style even mean anymore?" Hafley said with a laugh. "Obviously you see a lot of pro elements in some of the stuff that (Whipple's) done. It jumps off tape, some of the concepts, some of the run game. I smile and say that I haven't seen that in a while. I think he's got a really good scheme (and) great experience. You'll see him lineup in lots of personnel groups. He might get really big with multiple tight ends or get in 10 personnel and do some unbalanced formations."

Max: Beat it or I'll call the Brute Squad!
Fezzik: I'm on the Brute Squad.
Max: You are the Brute Squad.

Pro style offenses are well-known in Chestnut Hill because the offense spent the last decade routinely surging the running game to weaken defenses. A plowing offensive line dealt blows for horsepower running backs, and the cumulative effect took a toll on a player's ability to tackle. As games wore on, the sliding tectonic plates created exploitable fault lines.

Every week is a constant reminder of what Boston College used to look like because this year's unit looks so much different. The run-heavy Eagles are almost completely unrecognizable to last year's team, and the running game only has a three-game net total of 211 yards.

"I actually had a great conversation with (David Bailey)," Jeff Hafley said. "He's a team guy, and I told him that his time is going to come. I know we threw the ball about 90 times last week, but there's going to be a time when he's going to get it 30 times, and we're going to need him."

Bailey rushed for 844 yards on 148 carries last year and scored seven touchdowns as an understudy to AJ Dillon, but the rushing attack was so prevalent that those numbers would have led a team like Pittsburgh in every category. Dillon subsequently departed as the school's all-time leading rusher and handed the keys to Bailey, and the new bruising back entered 2020 with elevated expectations.

A dip in production led to levied criticism at the offense's former bell cow over the past two weeks as Bailey only garnered 15 carries. The offensive line, meanwhile, drew its own brand of criticism because the running game's downfield explosiveness no longer appeared central to the team's success.

"It was part of our game plan to throw the ball against (North Carolina)," Ben Petrula said. "It changes week to week into what we think will work against any defense. We haven't had a great chance to get the offensive line moving yet. It'll keep happening like last year, but we have to let time work it out right now."

Zion Johnson and Tyler Vrabel flipped sides on the line this year in order to move Petrula back to guard, and Christian Mahogany emerged to play all 67 snaps against Duke. The only constant, it seemed, was center Alec Lindstrom, and the lack of rushing yards created a cloudy perception that the line struggled against all three opponents.

That wasn't necessarily the case, though. The line knows the run game is there if it needs to shift into an old-fashioned, horsepower scheme, and it rolled early in the third quarter against North Carolina. The offense is just drastically different from what people understood about the last decade, and that new lens made it difficult to understand the effectiveness at establishing the run within a new, pass-first offense.

"The best thing I saw in that (UNC) game was the run (by Bailey)," Hafley said. "He looked violent, he looked fast, he looked downhill, and I was fired up. I saw the look in his eye in the huddle that I loved. His time is going to come. I told him to keep being patient, and his time is going to come. I love coaching him."

"I think our chemistry is still pretty good," Petrula said. "It's still the same four guys that returned from last year. Christian is a young guy and is going to be really good. He's playing really well for us. That part of it, he needs a little bit of work, but our chemistry is really good. We're only going to get better."

Inigo Montoya: Is very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life.
Wesley: Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.

That said, facing different defenses changes the way an offense plays any given game day, and this week, BC draws Pittsburgh's No. 2 unit in the bowl subdivision in total defense. It does a great job of getting home against any brand of offense and enters Saturday ranked No. 2 against the run, No. 4 in interceptions and No. 5 in both third down defense and team sacks.

"They're very aggressive," Jeff Hafley said. "They get a lot of people down in the box. They have a really good front seven, and they rely on their corners and safeties in coverage. They have a ton of sacks. I know Charlie Partridge well, their (defensive line) coach. I think he's one of the best coaches in the entire country. I think he might be the best recruiter in the country, truthfully when he was the head coach at (Florida Atlantic), and they're still playing off that talent that he recruited there. That will be a challenge on defense for us."

Pitt combines great individual efforts within a team game, and the Panthers drive solid numbers into opposing offenses. Defensive backs Paris Ford and Damar Hamlin, for example, are both approaching 20 tackles on the season, but both defended enough passes and interceptions to remind Phil Jurkovec of high school battles in the Steel City.

Linebacker SirVocea Dennis, meanwhile, is one of the team's leading tackles even though he's not an official starter, and strong side linebacker Cam Bridge is capable of neutralizing additional receivers at the line of scrimmage. They take away options in the middle tier and further enable linemen like Patrick Jones and Rashad Weaver to get around the edge and into the backfield.

"It's all technique (against edge rushers)," Ben Petrula said. "(Offensive line) Coach (Matt) Applebaum helps tackles out a lot. We have something in our slide that allows for help from the guard, and it's good for the tackle. We also have things to deal with chips to help in the backfield, which is really nice to have. It all comes down to technique, though, and playing within ourselves."

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Countdown to Kickoff

10…BC receivers have at least one catch through the team's first three games.
9…interceptions thrown by Kenny Pickett last season. He threw six picks in 2018.
8…game winning streak is the longest in the series, held by Pitt between 1972-1981
7…receptions by Jeff Smith in the New York Jets' Thursday Night Football loss to Denver.
6…touchdown passes by Kenny Pickett this year, which is one more than Phil Jurkovec with one more game played.
5…Pennsylvania natives on the Boston College roster. There is one Massachusetts native on the Pitt roster.
4…rushing touchdowns scored by Phil Jurkovec in the 2017 Pennsylvania 6A state championship game for Pine-Richland High School.
3…Pitt is the third "Coastal Division" team played by BC this year. BC is the third "Atlantic Division" team played by Pitt this year. Both teams continue next week against Virginia Tech and NC State, respectively.
2...previous meetings as ACC teams between these two teams (2014, 2019)
1…one of the five ACC ranked teams is not ranked in the Top Ten.

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BC-Pittsburgh X Factor

BC's Offensive Line

I texted back and forth this week with a friend of mine who went to Syracuse, and he offered the most blistering comment in any game against Pittsburgh. He still talks to a number of guys who he knew from his time around the Orange's football program, and he told me that he couldn't count the number of times someone said, "Don't sleep on Pitt."

Context hurts Pitt's overall defensive numbers because of the lopsided win over Austin Peay. The Governors threw an interception on the first drive, and a good bulk of the starters were out of the game by the end of the first half after the Panthers built a 42-0 lead. Austin Peay only had one yard of rushing and finished the overall game with less than 150 total yards. That's going to skew the numbers even after the team's three other games accumulated other numbers.

"I try to look at stats that we believe determine winning and losing because that's the one stat that matters," Jeff Hafley said. "As an assistant coach, as a defensive backs coach, you look up at the scoreboard and you hope Drew Brees doesn't have 400 yards. You look up and think, 'Gosh, here we go.' As a coordinator, you look at all the yards and think about rush and pass yards. As a head coach, you think about winning the game."

Pitt concerns me because it adds another layer into the unknowns already swirling through this matchup. BC rolled Pittsburgh's defense for 264 yards last year, but AJ Dillon carried the ball 32 times. Dennis Grosel had more carries than completions even though he had a 25-yard touchdown pass to Hunter Long, and BC chugged its way to bowl eligibility by blowing the front seven off the line of scrimmage.

Pitt's defense didn't change that much from last year, but a step forward in development this year is going to be a nightmare for a team struggling with the run. BC, for what it's worth, hasn't needed the run to set a game's tempo, but it's still vital to the team's success. Knowing the Eagles advanced their passing game with the addition of Frank Cignetti and Phil Jurkovec, adding the running game would ensure Pickett and Whipple don't touch the ball enough to put points on the board.

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Dan's Homegrown Tailgate Tip of the Week

Like ESPN's College GameDay, I am using a celebrity guest picker this week for some tailgate advice. That's the fancy way of saying that the conversation came up while I was watching television with my wife, and she delivered a great idea.

Mrs. Rubin, take it away:

"A hot dog bar. If you're not doing a hot dog bar, you're doing it wrong. All of the fixin's. Chopped onions. Sauerkraut. All of the condiments, you can really do anything. I could probably live my life without yellow mustard because I love spicy brown. You can even do a Chicago dog, and I think it's a great idea. Chili? WOO. Chili. Don't forget the chili.

"Let your family choose their own hot dog adventure. There just better not be (natural casing) hot dogs. It has to be a frank. I don't prefer beef, but you do you. Whatever makes your house happy. If we did a hot dog bar, it would be the chicken and pork dogs, but that's because I don't love beef dogs. You could have them, though, just to add some flavor to your bar.

"There really are no rules with a hot dog bar. Grill them up, or boil them. Pan sear them. I would toast the buns with butter, but that's because butter makes everything better."

A quick sidebar here. My wife hates natural casing hot dogs, which is a real problem for me because I love them. I need to throw the disclaimer in here that she is way off on that one, but, like the pizza discussion from last week, is there really a wrong answer if you're enjoying a good, old fashioned dog?

*****
Scoreboard Watching

There's been a buzz around Boston College since the Eagles hired Jeff Hafley, and it helped make last week's game against North Carolina one of the most popularly-televised games in recent BC history. It drew more than two million viewers to ABC, and the broadcast team of Joe Tessitore and Greg McElroy delivered a full treat as the sun set on a picture-perfect fall afternoon in New England.

BC's near-comeback didn't necessarily translate in the polls, though, and the Eagles entered this week with only votes in the Coaches Poll. They remained without any votes in the Associated Press Top 25, though, even as the Tar Heels' moved up four slots to No. 8 nationally.

It was part of a banner week for the ACC, which enters Saturday with four teams ranked inside the Top Ten in both polls. No. 1 Clemson remained atop both polls, and No. 5 Notre Dame remained just outside the virtual tie between Georgia and Florida for No. 3. Miami also moved up even though it didn't play, jumping one spot to No. 7 in both polls.

It sets the tone for an epic clash between Miami and Clemson this week in South Carolina, the first meeting between the two teams since the 2017 ACC Championship Game. That game was nearly a de facto national championship, but the Hurricanes lost to Pittsburgh in Kenny Pickett's first career start in the last game of the regular season. It dropped the team from No. 2 to No. 7 and effectively sent Miami to the Orange Bowl regardless of championship outcomes.

It's one of two games between two nationally-ranked teams in the ACC. In the other, No. 19 Virginia Tech heads to North Carolina for a 12 p.m. start on national television, and the two games will bookend some intense conference games. NC State heads to Virginia, and Duke plays in the Carrier Dome in the early slate of games. BC-Pitt is uncontested at 4 p.m.

Notre Dame plays Florida State opposite that Miami-Clemson game, and I'm going to keep a side-eye on this game because the Seminoles have been straight-up bad this year. They beat Jacksonville State by 17 points last week, but I can't find a single person who actually felt good about that result after FSU was shutout in the first quarter and trailed by a touchdown at halftime.

The national slate will continue to heat up college football with a full docket of SEC games. Florida is at Texas A&M at noon in a game between two ranked teams, and Georgia, the team most closely tied to the Gators, play at 3:30 p.m. against No. 14 Tennessee.

That's opposite a very desperate Red River Rivalry in Dallas. Texas was supposed to be back to form, but the No. 22 Longhorns tumbled down the polls after losing to TCU last week. Oklahoma, meanwhile, is unranked for the first time since 2016, and a third loss - least of all to Texas - would be catastrophic for the Sooners. The game will still be played this year in the Cotton Bowl despite the cancellation of the Texas State Fair, though only 25 percent capacity will be allowed.

*****
Around the Sports World

I intended to talk about either the MLB postseason this week because the late-night battle between Brusdar Graterol and Manny Machado made me stay up way later than I anticipated the other night. I also thought I'd drop in a couple of remarks about my golf game since the season is ending, and I played one of my most solid nine-hole rounds of the season this week. I even debated touching upon Everton's wild start in the Premier League strictly so I could throw dirt on Aston Villa's romp over Liverpool before the Merseyside Derby this week. All of that went out the window, though, when Phil Jurkovec touched one of my nerves during Wednesday's media availability.

Phil was always going to draw attention this week from Pittsburgh-area media, and a large contingent asked some really interesting questions about his background. I don't know much about the region, so to talk to those guys off-line about the city and hear them ask about the high school culture down there was great.

Then someone asked to compare Boston to Pittsburgh as professional sports markets. Phil smiled when he talked about his home city, and he called out Boston because Pittsburgh is the "City of Champions." Everyone on the Zoom smiled, including Phil, because they all knew the Boston contingent would take umbrage at it.

Someone needed to defend the honor of the city of Boston. That someone, it turned out, was me.

Look, I've never been to Pittsburgh, but I respect the city. My older brother loved going to a Pirates game, and I know coaches from the area. BC women's basketball assistant coach AJ Cohen proudly explained yinzer culture to me, and Jeff Hafley softened this week when he talked about his win over West Virginia. After last week's pizza discussion before UNC, I thought about food, and I can't say anything bad about pierogies.

The "City of Champions," though?

Yes, the Steelers have six Super Bowl championships, but so do the Patriots. In fact, all six of those titles came over the last 20 years, which means Tom Brady and Bill Belichick won one for each state in New England, even though Western Connecticut is New York Yankees and New York Giants country. Nothing takes that away, not even Brady's decision to go to Tampa Bay this year (I'm not mad or bitter over it, I promise). Let's not even discuss the head-to-head between the Steelers and Patriots, ok?

I'm old enough to remember Jim Leyland's three consecutive trips to the National League Championship Series, and my dad told me about Steve Blass' complete game win in Game 7 in 1971 (even though Blass later became better known for his inexplicable inability to throw strikes). There are just four World Series banners that hang on Jersey Street. Hey, even this year, the Red Sox actually finished with a better record than the Pirates, which is maybe, well, not something either of us can talk about.

I will, albeit begrudgingly, give you the Penguins, Phil. Sidney Crosby's three Stanley Cups are more than what the Bruins accomplished thanks to the worst 17 seconds of my hockey life in 2013 and Game Seven against the Blues. At least you can't compete with the Celtics at all, though the majority of those banners came before I was born, and I'm not old enough to remember 1986.

At least we can share two things. One is the future championship we both want for Boston College. If you can achieve that, we can find common ground with a claim to the greatest title shared by both cities.

The other is Jaromir Jagr's mullet. That thing is timeless, no matter what city he played in.

*****
Pregame Quote and Prediction

I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall. -Serena Williams

Last week's loss to North Carolina revealed a couple of major thorns for Boston College. It was an easily-winnable game, but third down defense and penalties ultimately cost the Eagles a chance for a program-changing upset. Those were evident from the start, and the coaching staff and players owned the mistakes in the emotional, immediate aftermath.

Learning to correct those mistakes is then the biggest step for this week's game against Pittsburgh. BC admits its focus on inner development every week, and this season is a stand-up effort to get the new era off the ground. Fixing those mistakes is an adamant part of that process, and Pittsburgh, unintimidated and tough, is the perfect opponent to execute those changes against.

Boston College and Pittsburgh will kick off on Saturday at 4 p.m. from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The game can be seen on ACC Network with streaming availability on WatchESPN.com for cable subscribers with access to the channel. Radio broadcast is available on the BC Learfield IMG Sports Network, locally in Boston on WEEI 93.7 FM. It can also be heard via Sirius channel 137, XM channel 193, and Online channel 955.

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Players Mentioned

David Bailey

AJ Dillon

Dennis Grosel

Zion Johnson

Phil Jurkovec

Alec Lindstrom

Hunter Long

Christian Mahogany

Ben Petrula

Jeff Smith

Tyler Vrabel