Those of you who are used to reading my weekly Good, Bad and Ugly wrap-up of the game that just passed -- in this case, Rutgers 54-34 win over Pitt -- you can now find that feature each week in our college football blog known as the Redshirt Diaries, which can be found here.

Ok, let's get started on this week's Q&A ...

Q: Correct me if I am wrong, as I most often am according to my wife, but didn't we read a lot last week about Rutgers' best offensive weapons being their receivers? If so, what would have made the coaches think that Rutgers would come out running? But yet still, even if there was a legitimate reason to believe Rutgers would try running, how long should it have taken Pitt to figure out that the pass seemed to be working pretty well and maybe some adjustments should/could have been made before halftime?

Kerry Bowser, Pittsburgh

ZEISE: Well, big guy, you can at least hold your head high today and tell your wife "honey, I was not wrong on this point ..." because you are 100 percent right. The only two players on that offense who could and should scare anybody were the two receivers. The quarterback doesn't scare anyone, the running backs don't scare anyone --- seven teams had played Rutgers prior to Pitt and every one of them figured this out -- if you keep the receivers in front of you by playing some sort of a deep zone, if you force Mike Teel to throw precision passes underneath -- you can stop the run game without needing much help for your front four and then use your back seven to cover. I hate to say it like this - but it seemed almost as if Pitt didn't watch a single game tape of Rutgers from this year and instead put together a game plan to shut down Rutgers featuring Ray Rice -- who plays for the Ravens by the way. And to your point -- even after it was clear Rutgers was going to throw over the top -- I guess the first clue should have been the 60-yard touchdown pass and the second clue should have been the one that went for 79-yards. There was no adjustment made to it until after the half and by that time Rutgers had 34 points on the board. It was one of the most confusing things I've ever watched. And what makes it more confounding is this -- Dave Wannstedt today said that he warned everyone last week about how dangerous the passing game was -- yet after the game he said he didn't expect Rutgers to come out passing, he expected them to come out running. The defensive game plan clearly seems to indicate that Pitt thought Rutgers was coming out running the ball, which they didn't -- and has a stud like Ray Rice in the backfield, which they don't -- as does the fact that your entire team bit on every play-action play-fake Mike Teel made -- even though the Scarlet Knights run game was non-existent. In the past, when Pitt would get lit up and people would blame Paul Rhoads, I'd usually defend him because there was a period that Pitt really didn't have enough good players to do a lot of things that people wanted to see them do. That's not the case now and there is no defense (literally and figuratively)-- there is no way this team should have given up 54 points to that offense given its limitations. Remember, Rutgers scored 12 points against Connecticut the week before, 10 points against Cincinnati the week before that and 17 against West Virginia. Heck, Navy's defense -- which we all saw first hand and know isn't very good -- held Rutgers to 21 points.

Q: What is the obsession at Pitt with playing slow safeties who can't cover? From Tez Morris to Sam Bryant to Eric Thatcher, it's painful to watch these guys try to make plays against receivers. This staff has failed miserably at recruiting players who can actually cover.

Todd Reilly, Encinatas, Calif.

ZEISE: At least all of those guys KNOW where they are supposed to be and they don't miss assignments, so they automatically have to play because when the tape is graded, they all grade out very high in terms of missed assignments and mental mistakes, because they don't make them. Of course, forget for a minute the fact that knowing your assignments is only one-half (and I'd say maybe less) of the equation -- the ability to actually be able to get to where you are supposed to be and make a play once you get there is a the other half . If you ask me, give me a kid with a lot of athleticism and speed and size and all the measurables and some idea of what he is doing over a kid who knows the defense and knows his assignments like the back of his hand, but is a little too slow, a little too short or a little too small to make most of the plays you are asking him to make. There is a reason that Princeton, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Duke and Stanford aren't the five best teams on the planet. Yes, I'm sure those kids, as smart as they are and as "blue collar" as they are, they don't ever or they rarely miss assignments and get graded highly after games by their coaches. But when they play against kids who are bigger, faster and stronger, they usually get clobbered. Which begs this question -- How Elijah Fields cannot get on the field is beyond me, particularly when you watch this secondary week after week struggle so much. I don't know if Fields knows his assignments or not (we're told he doesn't) and I don't care how many "missed assignments" he might have in a game. The kid can run and he can cover and he is athletic enough to make up for some of his mental mistakes with his physical skills. He CAN'T be worse than what we've seen, at least in covering receivers, which can't take that much knowledge, thus far. When he's played, he's been good, and while he is not the superstar-level player we thought he'd be, if you can't figure out how to get an athlete like that on the field, I'm not sure if you are giving your team the best chance to win.

Q: Why would Pitt ever run a bootleg left on third-and-1 inside the red zone with Pat Bostick in at QB? That was a terrible play call in that situation, no doubt.

Tom Tupa, Pittsburgh

ZEISE: Because that's what NFL football has become these days. Oh I am sorry, I forgot, this is college football we are talking about ... But did you happen to watch the Giants-Steelers game yesterday? The Giants probably should have won that game 31-14 but instead squeaked out a 21-14 win and needed a bad punt snap in order to do it. But the only reason it was so close -- and make no mistake, the Giants physically dominated the Steelers -- was that Kevin Gilbride, the Giants offensive coordinator and a guy who was run out of this town for this reason, seems to have an obsession with throwing passes that travel less than 3-yards - even on third-and-more than 3, even when he's got one of the best quarterbacks in the league and receivers capable of making big plays and even when he's got a stable of powerful running backs and thus their trips into the redzone turned into field goals instead of touchdowns???But that's the NFL in the post-Bill Walsh era: "Llet's throw 3-yard passes". Oh, wait, I forgot again. We're talking about a college team with a great running back and a slow-footed back-up quarterback in the game, so I can't imagine that play would ever be drawn up to be used in a critical situation given the personnel, strengths and weaknesses of the team??????. I have no idea, none at all. I know offensive coordinators like to be tricky but when you have LeSean McCoy in your backfield and he is by far your best player on the field, it probably isn't ever going to be a bad thing to just hand it to him and tell him "get us a yard" Pat Bostick is what he is, he can be effective but he has limitations -- it is up to the coaching staff to coach around his limitations and put him in position to succeed. They did this well last year. Let's hope that Saturday's debacle was a reminder as to why they had to do that last year???..