We Can Win, But Will We?

We march into Pittsburgh this Saturday facing a must win situation against a good team. Panthers are favored by 7 in the latest line. Pitt is in the top ten but I think they are a bit over-rated given their opponents. However they do feature a good defense and a balanced offense, two things the Irish desperately miss. The Pitt QB has Clausen-quality stats and the team features an outstanding freshman RB. Games against the Irish, West Virginia and Connecticut will tell the tale for them in the coming month. Biggest crowd ever in Heinz Field history is expected and we will be there to watch what will either be chapter 10 of Charlie's swan song or his first real signature win.

There are absolutely no historical precedents or recent signs that the Irish can win this game except maybe that they have played to the level of the competition this year. I won't state the statistics, but under Weis the Irish are absolutely dismal against top 10 teams and all teams with winning records for that matter. We are 2-7 against the spread this year. Charlie seems to be in denial that changes are needed and I think the general malaise this week has to have an effect on the team. Hopefully that effect with be the "us against the world" mentality that seemed to propel the Irish to a big victory in the Hawaii Bowl. We shall see.

I am really struggling with a prediction on this one. I cannot bring myself to pick the Panthers but I cannot get excited about the Irish bouncing back either. I am leaning toward the Irish for one simple illogical reason: they always seem to do just enough for Charlie to stay employed. In this case that means a must win. Here's hoping they use last week's loss as motivation to play their best and somehow put it all together. Rudolph is out but Armando Allen returns. With very little conviction or confidence, I will predict the Irish in a high scoring squeaker. I think it is the only way we can win. ND 38, Pitt 35. Let's hope it is a classic, not a clunker.

Go Irish!