PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – 'The eyes are the window to… stopping good quarterbacks'.
It's the football version of the famous William Shakespeare quote.
Pitt football working on their vision as they prepare for seeing double Saturday in Atlanta. Georgia Tech likely to use both quarterbacks Jeff Sims and Jordan Yates in the Panthers' ACC opener.
Sims, 6'3", 210-pound, four-star freshman, started the season. He suffered a shoulder injury in the opening game loss against Northern Illinois.
Jordan Yates, 6', 196-pound freshman, came in and threw for 613 yards, five touchdowns with only one pick, and ran for 128 yards. As Sims got healthy, the plan was to use him at some point against 20th ranked North Carolina and then went off against the Tar Heels in a blowout win.
Sims accounted for 240 total yards and four touchdowns in a little more than a half. He was on numerous quarterback weekly honor lists including the Davey O'Brien and Manning Awards.
Pitt likely to see both QBs unless the starter is rolling. Narduzzi said each are good and can use their feet, but Sims is the better runner. Tennessee's Hendon Hooker used RPOs to rush for 49 yards and threw for a pair of touchdowns. Sims runs the RPO really well. They have designed runs for him, yet he can hurt you with his arm.
"Very talented, both those guys," said Pitt fourth year safeties coach Cory Sanders. "You see similar things out of Sims and out of Yates. They do a good job. Sims came in last week and gave a good spark and plugged those guys forward."
"You have to be disciplined. With those guys that can move and extend plays outside the pocket. Scramble to throw, not scramble to run you got to be disciplined with your eyes. You have to lock on. You can't get lazy or lackadaisical for a second or it could be a big play on you."
"You have to have good eye discipline. The rest should take care of itself."
Since Sanders arrival in 2018 and even before with Pat Narduzzi. They have preached to make sure you know where your eyes are. They keep stats of it in every practice.
"Coach Sanders is harping on us on our eyes and getting better," said Pitt safety Brandon Hill. "Once your eyes get to the QB, you tend to drift away from your target, your receiver."
"You want your eyes to be on your man looking at where you are going. You want to see your target. You don't want to run blind out there. You want to know your target. Know where you are going and read your keys."
"You better have eye control on the back end," Narduzzi said. "We coach it every single day where they run a RPO, but they want to peak back to see if it's a run."
"Your eyes are so important in the game of football. You mind is important. Your eyes are important. Everyone has to have their eyes on something."
"At this level. It's the details. Every position got them. You get tired. You get lazy. It's important"
"Once a quarterback scrambles you often times want to stay in coverage and lock on just in case those short routes turn into long routes and long routes come back to short ones," Hill said. "Staying locked on, reading our keys and keeping our eyes downfield while our front seven goes after the quarterback."
"Every single week you have to focus on yourself and your approach," Sanders said. "This is going to be a tough battle. They are going to have a great home crowd down there. They just got after North Carolina pretty good. They are going to be fired up."
"We need to make sure we are locked in and control what we can control. Take care of our business. Our approach is always the same. It's the first ACC game, naturally the intensity rises up. No matter the opponent, we are going to be locked in to what we want to do."
Narduzzi said they have two defenses, capture and kill. He said if they sit back and try to capture, THEY will get killed.
