Deslin Alexandre, Carter Warren Preach Consistency for Pitt Football
PITTSBURGH -- There are two televisions that flank the entrances to the Pitt Panthers' team meeting room at their practice facility on Pittsburgh's South Side. Synchronized, they rotate through a series of images - schedules, team rules, countdowns until the beginning of the season. One of the slides sticks out for its specificity.
Every couple of minutes, a picture of the Heinz Field jumbotron with the final score from last year's loss to Western Michigan - an embarrassing chapter of the otherwise outstanding season - flashes on the screen. It is an agonizing reminder of what Pitt left on the table during one of its best seasons in modern history. Despite the 11 wins, conference title and New Year's Six bowl game appearance, the Panthers think they were capable of more and are determined not to let a similar opportunity slip through their fingers again.
That loss still stings a bit, according to sixth-year defensive lineman Deslin Alexandre. That 44-41 loss was more than just embarrassing - it held the Panthers back from greater heights.
"When you look at the grand scheme of things, we won the ACC championship but a game like Western Michigan where we weren’t dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s shows up, even if you win a championship," Alexandre said. So you want to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.”
To that end, he and fellow sixth-year senior Carter Warren, who has started at offensive tackle for the past two seasons, both claimed to have a simple, maybe even obvious, but still meaningful goal for this coming year. They want to win every game. Not just a lot, but all of them, because they know what it feels like to sit for a whole season while an ugly loss blemishes a stellar record.
“I’d say the biggest thing for us is winning all of our games," Warren said. "Coming out every day, working hard and giving it everything we’ve got, that’s what we need this season to come out on top. I believe this team is going to be doing great things this season.”
That's part of why they chose to exercise their "Covid year" and stick around in college for another season. They have some personal reasons for delaying a run at professional football (Warren was told he has to run block better and Alexandre thinks he needs to improve his pass-rushing technique), but they also believe they will have another shot at winning big.
Warren and Alexandre think that maintaining the necessary focus week in and week out is partially the responsibility of the team's leaders. And as some of the older players on both sides of the ball, that means it's on themselves.
“It comes with a lot of responsibility to do everything right, to show the rest of the guys how to do it," Alexandre said. "This being my sixth year, I've gone from being one of the old guys now so it comes with a lot of responsibility.”
So they've helped their coaches harp on the details and emphasize how the little things make all the difference for a good team.
"We talk about the minute details all day, every day," Alexandre said. "And that’s just the difference between something big and something small — the little details.”
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