Sure the local Pittsburgh press was all over Pitt playing like they have all year, and how the game was a “microcosm of a season filled with wouldas, couldas and shouldas.”

I failed to mention how utterly sick I was by the end of the game with the talking about Larry Fitzgerald. Mainly because I was trying to pay attention to the game as it was happening. Not the prescripted, preplanned storylines the people at ESPN had to push.

Still, this piece from the Charlotte Observer really gives it to Pitt Coach Walt Harris (registration req’d, so use: pittsb email address; password: pittsb).

The results are in, and the award for “Worst Coaching Job in Ericsson Stadium in 2003” has been won in a landslide. Come on down, Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris! You messed up Saturday’s Continental Tire Bowl game so badly that no one can believe your record as a head coach is 55-64, because no one can believe you actually won 55 games.

Harris did the near-impossible Saturday in Charlotte in a 23-16 bowl-game loss to Virginia. The Pittsburgh coach made the best player on the field — Pittsburgh receiver Larry Fitzgerald — look mediocre.
…
Harris took Fitzgerald out at the Virginia 1 in the first quarter. After four straight running plays got snuffed and Virginia went on a 97-yard touchdown drive, Harris decided that not using Fitzgerald had worked so well he’d stick with that plan for the rest of the game.

Of course, Walt’s an offensive genius. He doesn’t need to rely on Fitzgerald.

Harris tried to use an old cliché in his postgame news conference, but said: “Hindsight is 50/50.”

He meant to say “hindsight is 20/20,” but since the Pittsburgh coach’s vision of beating Virginia included throwing the ball only three times toward Fitzgerald in the final three quarters, let’s give Harris a break on this one.

The coach had his own vision pegged exactly right.

I no longer feel like I’m being quite so hypercritical of Walt.