Pitt shows UB next step is big
Better Temple a tough test
PITTSBURGH — By now the folks at the University at Buffalo have plenty of evidence that there’s a big, big difference between competitive and elite.
As remarkable as it is to have gone from hopeless to a conference division co-championship almost overnight, it’s even more difficult to take a football program that next step, to the point where it is able to consistently threaten, and even beat, opponents from the BCS.
If the Bulls can take anything from their 27-16 loss at Pittsburgh on Saturday night it is that they are ready to be competitive against BCS foes, just not ready to win. Coach Turner Gill worked a minor miracle to get the Bulls to 5-7 last year, to win a share of the Mid-American Conference East Division title and retool UB’s frail recruiting network. But that doesn’t mean they’re ready to beat Pitt or the warp-speed teams like Missouri on the road. Not yet.
“I felt every opportunity was there for us to win, but Pittsburgh made more plays than us,” Gill said. “We have to learn from this game and become a better football team.”
At least the pregame talk wasn’t about how much UB would lose by. It was about whether the Bulls could be competitive, whether they could make it interesting, whether they could win.
UB’s defense scrambled and held Pitt to 10 first-half points and 17 through three quarters. Penalties hurt the Bulls (six for 60 yards) but not as much as the defense’s inability to get off the field on third down as Pitt converted 8 of 13 chances.
Anyone who watches UB with a critical eye could see this wasn’t a mismatch. The game never got out of hand but the Bulls made too many mistakes to win. There are plenty of indications that Gill is doing the only thing he can to remedy this; he’s recruiting faster, bigger, stronger players, ones coveted by more prominent programs. Last year’s freshman class included all-league safety Davonte Shannon, but this year’s group is more athletic and has more speed. Instead of one Shannon on defense, Gill has several.
As for the season, there’s still plenty of football remaining. On deck is Temple (1-1), a game critical to the Bulls’ postseason hopes because it’s within the conference. The Bulls have beaten the Owls in their last two meetings, the first was Gill’s first win as a head coach in the 2006 season opener before last season’s 42-7 romp in Philadelphia in Temple’s first game as a member of the MAC. But like Buffalo, Temple has made strides in improvement.
There’s no time for crying over the Pitt loss because there’s serious work that can still be done this season that can help in the big picture of catching the Pitts of the world. Losing to the Panthers didn’t do the Bulls any irreparable damage; it just serves as a sobering reminder that last year’s giddy season was an incremental step to respectability, not a quantum leap.
“The biggest thing is learning from this and maybe next time we’ll finish the job,” Gill said.
