Sep 20, 2005 3 min read

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Here’s how quickly the state of Pitt football has declined since the Panthers opened the season ranked No. 23: Now, even a game against Division I-AA Youngstown State isn’t a guaranteed victory. With the Panthers off to their first 0-3 start since 1984, when they were 0-4 and went on to go 3-7-1, coach Dave Wannstedt roused his players bright and early Monday morning to watch game tape of their 7-6 loss Saturday to Nebraska.

And, too, to issue a warning: Don’t overlook Youngstown State, which is 3-0 despite playing relatively lightweight competition.

“We can’t look past anybody,” Wannstedt said Monday. “I mean obviously we’d be fools to even think of it. We had the team in here this morning at 6 o’clock, we cleaned up the tape and I think we got their attention about playing better and winning the game.”

Wannstedt wasn’t around when it occurred, but Pitt almost lost to a similar opponent last season. Those Panthers, coached by Walt Harris, fell behind Division I-AA Furman 31-14 before rallying to win 41-38 in overtime.

The difference between then and now is that Tyler Palko was playing well a year ago en route to one of the best seasons ever by a Pitt quarterback. He went 30-of-36 for 380 yards and three touchdowns against Furman and went on to throw for 3,067 yards and 24 touchdowns, with seven interceptions.

Now, Palko doesn’t begin to resemble the quarterback he was then, as evidenced by his statistics. He is 44-of-86 for 530 yards, an average of only 176.7 yards per game, with one touchdown pass and four interceptions.

No longer running Harris’ pass-heavy offense, Palko has never been able to find a rhythm or look comfortable in the run-based offense mandated by Wannstedt and drawn up by offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh.

Often, Palko and his receivers don’t look to be running the same play, and the inability to get anything going in the passing game has put an extra burden on the running game and a relatively inexperienced offensive line.

Clearly, that’s not happening. Pitt was held without a touchdown on offense in each of its last two games, including the 16-10 overtime loss at Ohio University on Sept. 9. Such a falloff in production couldn’t have been predicted going into a season when Palko looked to be one of the nation’s best quarterbacks and Greg Lee was coming off one of the best seasons by any collegiate wide receiver.

“I’m disappointed but not discouraged,” Wannstedt said.

Trying to figure out how to get the passing game going, Wannstedt sat down Sunday and watched tapes of each of Palko’s completions of 20 yards or longer last season. The idea was to see if most of the completions came when he threw out of the pocket, as he is mostly being asked to do now, or when he rolled out and threw on the run.

“There was just one of them that he actually made a throw, to Joe DelSardo, where he actually did scramble and hit it,” Wannstedt said. “Now he has scrambled and there were some short passes, but not any big plays. But he’s capable of doing that, and we’ve got plays in there” to do that.

NOTES: Pitt and Youngstown State have never met. … With freshman RB Rashad Jennings (shoulder) injured, Raymond Kirkley will start but freshman LaRod Stephens-Howling, who ran for 98 yards against Nebraska, will play a lot, according to Wannstedt. Jennings did not play against Nebraska and has not been ruled out for this week … Pitt is 0-3 for only the third time in 34 seasons.