Pitt Football: Panthers off to Shaky 2-0 Start, Reaction and Anaylsis

It's a good thing they played Buffalo and Maine.

Otherwise the Pitt Panthers wouldn't be sitting as a 2-0 football team today.

Well, if anything, we did learn a lot about the Panthers after the first two weeks of the college football season.

For one, Ray Graham is a stud running back and is going to be fun to watch in 2011 after another solid performance in which he ran for 121 yards and three touchdowns.

Yet, he is likely the only one that should be drawing praise at the moment.

The list of question marks surrounding the Panthers is endless as Pitt prepares for its first real test of the season when it heads to Iowa next Saturday.

Offensively, the offensive line was much worse in Week 2 than it was in the opening week of the season. Allowing seven sacks against Maine is not a good sign. Yet four or five of those sacks can be put directly on quarterback Tino Sunseri who showed a knack for holding the ball way too long.

In Todd Graham's offense the ball must come out very quick. It's not designed to look around the field.

That and his inability to throw the ball downfield could make it a long season with Sunseri under center for the Panthers.

That's just minor problems compared to the Panthers defense though.

The Pitt pass defense has been very bad, to be kind, over the season's first two weeks. If the offense is billed as high-octane, this defense at the moment should be labelled no-octane.

There are way too many receivers running wide open.

The linebackers and defensive backs are missing way too many tackles.

You can't blame this on a new scheme. In the end, tackling and coverage are part of every scheme.

The Panthers have one week to iron a lot out before the schedule gets much tougher .

Looking back, 2-0 is much better than 0-2, but it's a very shaky 2-0.