Pitt 35 - Buffalo 16

The Todd Graham Era of Pitt Football began tonight with a 35-16 win over thirty point underdog Buffalo, but it wasn't easy. In fact, the Panthers went into the locker room at halftime with a shaky 7-3 lead. An interception early in the third quarter gave Pitt a short field that led to a TD and a 14-3 lead. After that, they did manage to reel off a couple of nice touchdown drives that gave an indication of what Graham's much talked about High Octane football will be all about. Ray Graham rushed for over 200 yards, and the Panthers pulled away for the nineteen point win.

After watching the first half, my initial smart-ass comment was that you can't run Graham's high octane offense with Dave Wannstadt's low octane players. OK, it's a cheap shot, I'll grant you that, but I do think that the players that Graham inherited are not the types of players that he wants to use to run his wide open spread offense. Let's face it, Tino Sunseri will never be confused with Cam Newton. Still, the first game is in the books, the Panthers are 1-0, and the decidedly weak Big East Conference lies before them. Let's hope that it's going to be a fun season for the Panthers.

You may have noticed that I mentioned that I "watched" the game. You may ask, but the game wasn't televised and you weren't at Heinz Field, so how did you watch it? Well, I took a step into the 21st century and watched the game via video streaming on espn3.com. This was a new, first-time experience for me. The video did not come through on my iPad2 (probably has something to do with bandwith or some such thing), but it did come through on my laptop. At times the picture was quite clear, but often it was jerky, blurred, and not real smooth. It reminded me of days back in the early 1960's when we would try to watch something on Channel 6 in Johnstown or Channel 9 in Steubenville, with a snowy picture and Frank constantly jiggling the antenna wires that came down through the chimney and connected to the back of the black & white TV. It beat listening to Bourbon-Nosed Billy Hillgrove on the radio, but I'll take the sofa and my 47 inch Vizio HD over the office chair and the 16 inch laptop every time.

Broadcasting the game was former Channel 2 sports guy and Pirates announcer John Sanders. Man, was he bland. His color commentator was some former coach named John Bunting. I had never heard of the guy, but he left no cliche unturned, and every player on the field was a "young man." (Aside: college football players are always referred to as "young men" while college basketball players are always referred to as "kids." Why is that?) Sanders always addressed him as "Coach."

I heard the beginning of the game on the radio while driving home from 5:30 Mass, so, in addition to the cheer leading of Bill Hilgrove, I also heard new Pitt color guy Pat Bostick. Didn't hear enough to give an informed opinion, but I heard enough to think that he'll be a big improvement over the droning of Bill Fralic.

Also, radio sponsor Que Dobe Mexican Restaurant jumped on the Graham Bandwagon by advertising their special "high octane burrito." Now, I'm no advertising guy, but I have to think that this is something that is going to misfire big time. There are also about a half-dozen cheap laugh lines that spring immediately to mind, but I am going to take a pass on all of them at the moment.