Welcome to the Q&A today. The weekly wrap-up of the Notre Dame game called Good, Bad and Ugly can be found in our blog called the Redshirt Diaries ... as for the Q&A, let's get started.

Q: What is Pitt's obsession with throwing the ball on 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1? Pitt has one of the best running backs in the country, why not let him pound the ball ahead for that yard? Or let Collins bust through the line.

Tom Tupa, Pittsburgh

ZEISE: I think we have been through this before -- that is the NFL-mentality in the post-Bill Walsh era, it is using short passes in lieu of running the football and I am not a big fan of it. But there is a difference in some of the third down passes -- on the one third-and-1 when they went play-action and threw it down the field was a great call and used the defense's tendency to try and jump up and stop the run against it as the Irish bit on the play fake and Jonathan Baldwin was wide open for a touchdown. Of course, Pat Bostick overthrew Jonathan Baldwin, but I don't mind vertical passes in that situation. It is the one-yard, sideways, bubble screens -- those throws which often leave you short of the sticks anyway that drive me nuts, especially when you have a guy like LeSean McCoy in the backfield -- though McCoy was stopped on third-and-short in the third overtime Saturday. The thing to me is this -- when you need one yard, put the ball in the hands of your best player.

Q: The defense rebounded nicely from the Rutgers debacle against the Fighting Irish. I noticed Fields played quite a bit and Taglianetti some as well. Do you think both will figure more into the defense going forward? Or was that something specific to that game?

Shawn Kunes, Cranberry

ZEISE: No that is a package we have seen a lot in certain games this year, and surprisingly not very much against Rutgers last week. It is basically a dime package and frankly Pitt has the personnel -- especially up front -- to pull it off and they do it very well. This is a package I think they can do a lot of things with and it gives them more flexibility than their base defense. Why we didn't see it against Rutgers, especially in the first half, was a mystery but Elijah Fields did a great job of covering receivers and he made some plays in run support as well. He is a guy who needs to be on the field, without question.

Q: I notice that Pat Bostick's throwing motion has changed from the quirky, sidearm, slow windup of last season to more of a standard football throwing motion today. However, he seemed to be overthrowing most of his passes over the middle yesterday vs. ND, contributing to 2 of his 3 interceptions. Have you seen this tendency in practice this year, or do you feel the pressure of the game caused it?

Kevin Harkenrider, San Diego, Calif.

ZEISE: Well they have worked on his mechanics since last year and it has gotten better but the thing is he still floats the ball out there because he just doesn't have a strong arm. It is stronger than it was, but you could see a huge difference between the laser beams Jimmy Clausen throws (he has a very strong arm) and Bostick's flutter balls. But Pat made some plays, he made some key throws and he did some good things and that was good to see because he has worked very hard and he's done and said the right things about his situation. So to answer your question, his ball naturally floats some (we've seen it plenty over the past year) and therein lies part of his problem with throwing picks - balls that float often get tipped and that means bad news for a quarterback.