How Pitt could maybe – emphasis on maybe – shock Clemson again

Nobody in major college football does upsets like Pitt does upsets. The Panthers narrowly missed pulling one off earlier this year at Notre Dame, but their recent history is loaded with them beating teams they shouldn’t.

When Pitt’s played a top-three opponent while unranked, the Panthers have won four in a row going back to 2002. They’ve beaten three New Year’s Six teams in the last two years and haven’t themselves finished ranked since 2009.

In the ACC Championship, the Panthers are going for a redux against Clemson, a team they beat in 2016, when nobody else did. S&P+ gives Pitt a 7 percent chance this time, and Vegas has Clemson as a 26.5-point favorite.

Pitt probably shouldn’t have won, based on how the bulk of the game’s plays went. Clemson out-gained Pitt by 166 yards, had an eight-minute advantage in time of possession, got 10 more first downs, and went 11 yards farther on its average drive. The Tigers had several chances to salt the game away, including a fourth-and-1 at Pitt’s 35 with a minute left, when they were leading 42-40, and Wayne Gallman got stuffed to give Pitt the ball back.

Enough things went right for Pitt, though. For one thing, the Panthers averaged 5.3 yards on their non-sack rushes. (For another, Clemson only sacked Nathan Peterman twice, costing just 7 yards.) Clemson had particular trouble dealing with one play Pitt offensive coordinator Matt Canada called over and over again.

The play was an option with both a sweep run option and a shovel pass to a trailing tight end or H-back, and Pitt used it to pick on Clemson’s outside linebackers ...

... and defensive ends:

These are basically run plays, and James Conner did ring up 132 ground yards of his own. But if you’ve watched the NFL the last two years and are wondering how The Peter Man threw for 308 yards against a Clemson defense, these shovel passes are your answer.

On other side of the ball, Deshaun Watson threw three picks — all intercepted deep in Pitt territory, two in the end zone, with one returned 70 yards to set up a quick touchdown. Watson had INT issues that year, but Pitt still benefited from about 8 points of Turnover Luck, given where those plays happened.

Pitt had no problem finishing its own drives. When the Panthers got inside the Clemson 40, they averaged 6.4 points per trip. Clemson’s figure was 5.3.

Clemson has the best defense in the country, per S&P+. That D is amazing against both the run and the pass. Since 2016 Pitt, nobody except Alabama has had a running day like that against Clemson.

Pitt’s 12th in Rushing S&P+ and 87th in Passing S&P+, so it’s a good guess that Clemson DC Brent Venables will try to force QB Kenny Pickett to win, rather than Pitt’s two really good running backs, Qadree Ollison and Darrin Hall.

The Tigers are so good that trying to simply run over them, like Pitt has done at times this year, probably will not work. It’s a safe assumption that Clemson’s staff will drill its defensive front on how to not get conned by 2016’s toss read.

So Pitt’s current coordinator, Shawn Watson, needs to come up with some other ploy that can have Clemson scrambling for a while. He makes more money than me and can figure that out on his own.

This was another part of the recipe last time. Pitt threw heavy boxes at Clemson and clamped down on the pass read in Tiger RPOs. Pitt used a perimeter defender to spy on receivers before attacking the run.

Here’s one example, before the play ...

... and during:

Ian Boyd wrote at the time:

He plays at depth, and he attacks when he sees Watson put the ball in the RB’s belly, rather than when he sees the OL run block.

It’s a subtle difference, but punishing it would require Watson to pull the ball out of the RB’s belly, turn, and throw, all actions that would give Pitt time to recover. Indeed, Clemson had mixed results throwing the bubble screen in this game and frequently just saw the corner beat the block and make the tackle for a loss or the free safety fly down and deliver a savage hit on one of their slot receivers.

Clemson’s running game is great, and Pitt’s run defense is decidedly not. Travis Etienne will run all over the Panthers if they let themselves get stretched out and can’t play with numbers in the box. The best approach is to make Lawrence throw and hope he has a clunky game like Watson did two years ago, as unlikely as that sounds.

Clemson is terrible at kicking field goals, punting, and returning punts. All together, the Tigers are 88th in Special Teams S&P+, compared to sixth on offense and first on defense. Their bad special teams are why they’re merely a good but not amazing field-position team, with their offense 30th in average starting spot and their defense 13th.

Pitt’s had bad field position all year, to go with hit-or-miss special teams itself. (The field goals usually hit, and the punts usually miss.)

But if there’s one phase of the game where Clemson’s likely to mess up, this is the one. The Tigers nearly lost to Syracuse because of special teams in Week 5.

Or maybe Pitt can get away with shoving someone into a punt returner while he’s trying to catch the ball, as Boston College did to Clemson a few weeks back. Whatever works.

It would defy reason for Pitt to win. But that’s far from the first time somebody’s said that about Pitt.