Pittsburgh Defense Is Feast Or Famine
Pat Narduzzi is a well-respected defensive mind who usually has his defenses ready to play. They blitz a lot and depend on getting teams behind the chains.
This number is likely influenced because they have played a lot of bad teams, but they already have 47 tackles for a loss.
However, they have also allowed 57 plays of 10+ yards and 16 plays of 20+ yards. FSU, on the contrary, has allowed 43 plays of 10+ yards.
FSU faced an aggressive Miami defense last week, and that should have been great preparation for an aggressive Pittsburgh defense. The plays were there all night for FSU’s offense, but they failed to start capitalizing until the fourth quarter.
This could be an instance of FSU continuing to do what worked late against Miami in that fourth quarter. It was simple: Thomas Castellanos stopped playing so much hero ball and hit his checkdowns, and stopped being greedy.
FSU executed and made better decisions, and that’s the name of the game for Thomas Castellanos. He must remember FSU has playmakers everywhere, and they don’t have to get it all on two or three plays. Some explosive opportunities will be there, because Pittsburgh likes to blitz, but they need to allow those opportunities to come to them.
If we see a more patient Castellanos and a Gus Malzahn who doesn’t get away from the run game too early? That will bode well for the FSU offense, and they’ll eventually pull away from an offense that probably struggles against the most talented team they’ve faced to date.