One of the things I was struck by in Friday's win over Pittsburgh was how well Chandler Whitmer threw the ball on third down including the key completion to Shakim Phillips that allowed the Huskies to run out the clock.

So I did some checking. In the second half of the Temple game, the entire Syracuse game and in the first half against South Florida the Huskies converted just 6 of 29 times on third down. The Huskies were 5 of 7 in the second half against USF and were 7 of 14 against the Panthers.


"I think a big part of that was the guys up front did a better job holding these guys off," Whitmer said. "They have a good defensive front and they did a good job up front protecting me. Lyle had a great job rushing as well so that kept up balanced. That is what I have been talking about all year that we needed to do to be successful and we did a good job of that."