Know your foe Pittsburgh: With Panthers could give Notre Dame problems

More than a few familiar faces the Irish will line up against on Saturday

There is going to be a somewhat familiar feel for a few [autotag]Pittsburgh[/autotag] players as they are set to face off against [autotag]Notre Dame football[/autotag] this weekend.

Why you ask? Well, a few of them were once members of the Irish football team, the most recognizable is quarterback, err tight end [autotag]Phil Jurkovec[/autotag], although we most likely won’t see him this weekend except for maybe special teams after he lost the starting job earlier this season. So, we won’t touch on him here anymore.

However, there are others on the Panther team that will be easily recognized by Irish fans. Let’s take a look at which Pittsburgh players could give Notre Dame problems this Saturday afternoon.

Pittsburgh statistical leaders through seven games

You might recognize a couple of these names.

Notre Dame fans will see a couple of familiar faces when their team battles Pittsburgh. That’s because the Panthers’ top quarterback and running back both once donned the blue and gold. In fact, a lot of the Panthers’ best players are transfers, either because they didn’t get the opportunities they sought at other programs or they wanted to use up college eligibility elsewhere. Either way, many of these Panthers didn’t start as Panthers.

Is that part of the reason the Panthers’ offense isn’t as strong as their defense? Perhaps, but either way, most of this season has not gone well for the Steel City program. The fact that they handled Louisville and the Irish didn’t is not a good look for [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] and his staff. Alas, nothing can be done to change that now.

Assuming the Panthers can make this a game, here are the players most likely to do that: