Great win, and I bet it feels even better for the players.
Defense played phenomenally well for all but about 4 minutes of the game. Especially good to see that in the first half with Thomas sitting as that has been an issue when he has gone out. Also, him coming in fresh in the second half was a silver lining as his energy, and play making, picked up the defense when it had been getting worn down in the past. The defense has been for the most part has been much improved this year, barring the Ole Miss game, but has gotten worn down and put in some bad situations. UGA will probably be ugly against their D but for the rest of the games we can hope the offense looks more like it did against UCF but hopefully converting the opportunities.
Speaking of that, having the ability to make FGS makes such a difference. Last week we missed two FGs in the first half, the first a 32 yard FG and then a 37 yard one. Because of that we were down 6 at the half instead of tied. Because of that when we had 4th and 3 from the 5 in the second half down 9 we probably went for it believing both we couldn't trust the kicker but also it being a two score game mean we probably felt that we needed 7 there if we wanted to win. So we went for it and failed. So that is 9 points at that point related to the kicking game. Later, we had 4th and 9 from the 15 and went for it down two scores halfway through the 4th. Had we scored those other 9 points and it's a 5 point game, we likely go for 3 there as well. All in all we can't blame everything on the kicker, and we need to get better at redzone TD% for sure, but the knock on effect of not being able to make the easy kicks really hurt us.
Yesterday was the opposite. Between the defense and the FGs we were able to maintain a lead for most of the game and put the pressure on Pitt. Had we missed the first two FGs, from 37 and 33, we may very well have approached the third FG drive differently, although 4th and 16 means we likely go for 3 regardless, and if we're down 7-0 having missed two FGs then we for sure go for it on 4th and 3 at the 13. Stewart getting us those reliable points was absolutely crucial and if we can have that along with the defense we've seen for ~70% of the year then we can have shots to win games going forward.
My question is how was Key able to fix the kicking game and innumerable mental errors in one week? Is he actually a better coach than we realized?
For kicking, he switched to Stewart instead of Kelly, which I think was likely to happen after last week's game regardless. None of the kicks were overly long (long was 40) so Kelly has the ability to hit those, but at this point it's probably mental with him. Punting it looked like we rana different formation but also it looked like the punter just got the ball out quicker, which helped with not getting block but did give Pitt some return opportunities. Fortunately our coverage was pretty good and Pitt liked to block in the back. Otherwise we still had plenty of mental errors, but I think the biggest difference was just pressure being off the players. Both from the cloud hanging over head but also in the game since we were playing from ahead instead of behind.
I wouldn't read too much into this game in regards to Key. He had 5 days so not a whole lot will be accomplished in terms of actual coaching and a lot of what we saw against Pitt we saw before. We played good D against Clemson for the most part and got worn down. Good D against UCF and got worn down. We played good D against Pitt but instead of getting worn down, we had a fresh Thomas come in and make some energizing plays. Then we got worn down. Offense still had a lot of issues, and issues in the redzone. I'd argue offensively we did better against UCF than Pitt on the whole but FGs make all the difference in regards to score but the pitt D is also a lot better. Kicking game difference was a different kicker, and while the punt blocking was embarrassing, I wouldn't have expected to give up a punt block every game regardless of who was HC.
It'll be more interesting to see, in regards to Key, what the team looks like after a couple of weeks, especially for the UVA game, after the bye, and then FSU (First game after a bye on a normal prep week). Remember, it was right at a year ago that we beat a, then, 21st ranked UNC team by 23. Like Pitt, they too lost the turnover battle 0-3 and the rest we all know.
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