ESPN has a “Bowl Mania” game. Pick the winners of all 28 bowls. It is a confidence game. Meaning:

Instructions: Pick the winner of each game and predict the final team scores of the Sugar Bowl. The higher the confidence you assign to a bowl game, the more points you will earn if you have selected the winning team. Confidence value must be between 1 and 28 and unique for each game. You can change picks until kickoff of the first selectable bowl listed.

Pitt Sports Blather has a public group. Hopefully the other members of PSB will be playing. Find out how Lee will do with 28 games within a 3 week period. Learn just how confident we are about Pitt. We get to learn if we have any readers.

The contest is open until the first bowl game on December 16, 7 pm EST.

The first lines that I’ve seen on the Continental Tire Bowl favor the Virginia Cavaliers over our Pitt Panthers by 2.5 points. Given how well the Cavaliers dominated Virginia Tech in the trenches, I’m not sure that I won’t give those points. But let me think about it a little more…

In other news, Oklahoma is favored by six over LSU (I’ll definitely take the Sooners there), Kansas State is favored by seven over Ohio State (as I’ve always said, nobody gets overrated like the Wildcats), USC is favored by 6.5 over Michigan (I don’t know where to go on that one), and Maryland is favored by 3.5 over the Hoopies (I’ll probably take the Hoopies over the Terrapins again, even though that pick burned me earlier this year).

I’ll make my official picks later. These are just my first musings.

Switching over to Pitt Basketball, if you’re the type of sick bastard who takes pleasure in the suffering and self-flagellation of others (and don’t we all?), check out the Centre Daily Times‘s coverage of Pitt’s hanging a 64-37 ass-kicking on Penn State this past Saturday.

Hail to Happy Valley Misery

It took a while, but I am finally here to post on Pitt and their wins over former Eastern Eight conference rivals Duquesne and Penn State.

I hit the Duquesne game at the Palumbo Center on Wednesday. A nice facility – that was the first time I was ever in the place.

VERY sloppy on both sides. Duquesne hung tough considering how many white guys they have.

Duquesne’s cheerleaders are extremely fat, and there are a lot of them. Lots of bleach blond Italian girls (no doubt some from Montour – John will get this one).
Their dance team, The Dukettes, was awful. They look like some kind of jass fusion ensemble, and like the cheerleaders, they are quite fat – but in tights. The high point for them was when they were leading the students in spelling “D-U-K-E-S” while holding up cards with the letters on them. Naturally, they spelled DUKES wrong. Very amusing.

As for the game, Pitt didn’t look too good. Torre Morris is awful, and Mark McCarroll continues to NOT impress. Pitt was down at halftime, and was saved by their usual early 2nd half run. It took that long for Page to get his shot going. Taft is going to be good, but he’s not their yet. Troutman and Brown need to step it up (Brown did in the 2nd half, at least). Pitt will be good this year, but they have a lot of room for improvement. The refs had no interest in calling travellling, as evidenced by Duquesne’s Uruguayan point guard clearly walking, switching pivot foot and generally running with the basket ball often. I guess you don’t have to dribble in Uruguay.

I also hit the Peterson Center Saturday afternoon for the Penn State game. My buddy Steve, a season ticket holder, called be Saturday morning to see if I wanted to hit the game. From reading Lee’s posts, I thought the game was in State College!

Steve and I bought two seats closer to the court (Steve’s seats are high in the rafters – not bad in the grand scheme of things, considering how great The Pete is, but they could be better). We were right behind the band, and right on top of the action. Our cheerleaders looked pert, and our dance team was acceptable (especially when compared to the Dukettes).

I noticed Rod Rutherford right away, sitting behind the basket while sporting a do-rag. As I scanned the crowd, I noticed a kid in a red HS letter jacket, with a hairstyle similar to Tom Cruise in “The Color of Money” – very much the Italian American. It then dawned on me that it was Anthony Morelli wearing a Penn Hills jacket (they are Florida State colors). Sitting near him was Andrew Johnson, and a bunch of other recruits, right behind the basket. That was probably a good move – get the kids into the college experience (especially when our b-ball team is kicking the crap out of Penn State).

As for the game, Pitt looked great. Morris actually played well, displaying some strong ass-work in backing into the paint on the dribble. Aaron Gray, the next Baby Huey, actually scored. He remined me of Nervous Nate Bailey, a big white guy in the late 80’s early 90’s – totally uninterested in actually touching the ball on offense, and when he does, being terrified in not having a single clue as to what to do with the ball. He is huge, though, and should eat up some minutes and fouls.

PSU’s best player is a huge white guy named Jan Jagla. Pitt fans just called him Nowitzki all night, much to my amusement. He absolutely sucked ass the first half, but picked it up a little in the second half. Still, it was too little too late. PSU played worse than the EA Sports Allstars. The game was such a blowout there weren’t many “Penn State Sucks” chants – it almost would have been piling on. I did like the guy in the gorilla suit holding the “Joe Pa Sucks” sign under the basket during free throws. That was special.

Pitt looked good, but most of our conference opponents are not going to be as accomidating as Penn State. The Peterson Center is a great facility, though. You should really get to Pittsburgh to take in a game.

A good article on the struggles of the lines of Pitt. Complete with observations from former Pitt coach Foge Fazio and player Tony Siragusa.

Foge Fazio found himself cringing this season while watching the line play of the Pitt football team. Ditto for Tony Siragusa and countless other alumni.

They looked on in disbelief, as Miami, West Virginia and Notre Dame owned the Panthers in the trenches. It was ugly at times.

“You’re kind of like disappointed,” said Fazio, a former player and head coach at Pitt. “I’d sit there with guys I played ball with in the ’50s, and it would be hard to watch. Pitt always had rough, tough guys on the offensive and defensive lines and the theory always was, ‘You might beat us, but you better go over the top to beat us, because we’re going to control you up front.’ We didn’t see enough of that this year.”

They cringed? Every Pitt fan cringed.

Meanwhile, after last week’s debacle against Miami, it was widely assumed that Larry Fitzgerald would lose the Heisman to Jason White, the Oklahoma QB. To quote Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend.” White layed an egg in the Big 12 championship, and Sports Illustrated named Fitzgerald its player of the year. The final result next Saturday will be interesting. Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated explained why he voted for Fitzgerald.

Might actually waste part of my Saturday evening watching the presentation now.

Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with a pathetic piece on jumping on the Pitt basketball bandwagon.

There might be hope yet for the long, hard winter.

It comes in the form of the Pitt men’s basketball team. Heaven knows we need it after watching the underachieving Pitt football team lose too many games at home and seeing the exasperating Steelers lose too many games, period, and hearing of the inconsequential Penguins and their depressing financial plight day after day.

Maybe it’s unfair to put a city’s sports hopes on one college team, but these Panthers seem up for the challenge. If their ridiculously easy 64-37 win against Penn State is any indication, they have everything they need to take another run at the Big East Conference championship and have a long stay in the NCAA tournament.

Nice.

Get realistic. Pitt is likely the 3rd best team in the Big East, behind Syracuse and UConn (and it is a very close #3 with Notre Dame right there). Expectations for Pitt are hopeful but modest. New coach, key players gone, and no clue about this team until conference play starts.

Yes the win over Penn St. was impressive, even if Penn St. really sucks. Still, let’s not put expectations too high right now. I still have some qualms.

I’m very worried about the backup point guard — Antonio Graves. Carl Krauser, the starting PG, played 33 minutes. Graves, a freshman, played 14 minutes. He had no assists, 1 turnover and was scoreless on 0-4 shooting. In the 6 games this year, logged a total of 53 minutes, 4 assists, 3 turnovers, and 13 points (5-16 shooting, 3-8 on 3 pointers). Graves needs a lot of work. An injury to Krauser and the season could be toast.

Really, is there any other way to describe what has happened with the BCS? When Syracuse beat Notre Dame so handily yesterday, I knew the possibility was there for USC to get screwed out of being number 2 in the BCS, despite their win. That would be something of an outrage to some, but it wouldn’t be that much worse than what happened to Miami in 2000 when it was edged out of the BCS by Florida State (a team Miami had beaten head-to-head) to play Oklahoma. Both happened because of the drop in their strength of schedule by the end of the season.

But this. This has been amazing. No one thought Oklahoma would lose to Kansas State, especially so badly. Oklahoma was playing for history, and K-State never beats a team that is clearly better than them. That changed everything. Oklahoma was so far ahead in the BCS rankings that even though it lost the Big 12 championship and dropped to #3 in both the coaches and AP polls, it still remained the #1 BCS team.

Then Louisiana St. beat the snot out of Georgia, which moved them up in the computers and with the pollsters.

The results: USC, the #1 team in the coaches and writers polls won’t play for the BCS championship. The first time this has happened. This also means, that if USC wins in the Rose Bowl against Michigan, there will be a split championship — despite the best laid plans of the BCS.

This will not be the end of the BCS, despite my wishes — and the wishes of many others, and the number of sportswriters wishing for it will be legion — but it has once again exposed it for a complete fraud and joke. There is no spinning this away. There is no way to “tweak” the system. The system failed.

It’s funny. I know a lot of sports pundits have been waiting for it. But, in a way, no one actually wanted to see it, because then it meant actually having a real team screwed over. Not just some construct or hypothetical. I think Jim Rome will be rather ranting filled tomorrow.

Man, you know it was a disappointing football season, when the AP wire story on the Pitt-Penn St. basketball game starts out taking a shot the football team.

Pitt football coach Walt Harris only wishes he had a defense like this.
…
Harris, who watched with a group of prospective football recruits, no doubt admired Pitt’s excellent defense. His own team had one of the nation’s best offenses, but was troubled all season by a leaky defense.

You think the AP guy might have covered a few of Pitt’s football games this year?

Glad Lee was able to see the game on TV, because up until yesterday, he didn’t even know that the game was being played in Pittsburgh.

Well, so much for sluggish starts…

This afternoon, Pitt came out of the gates with a fast start for the first time this season. We scored the first six points of the game against admittedly pathetic Penn State, and our offense didn’t let up until the second half. In the first half, we shot 57% from the field versus Penn State’s 15%. Of course, the Nittany Lions’s slow-to-react defense should get some of the credit for this success, as they rarely got in anybody’s face. On offense, the Lions went nine minutes without scoring a point — their half of the scoreboard seemed to be stuck on 7 forever. Plus, they turned the ball over ten times (versus our five) before the break.

In the second half (we were up 39-11 at halftime), Penn State’s offense improved remarkably. Plus, they spread out more on defense, and that seemed to slow us down a little. Still, on the day, we held a substantial advantage in field goal percentage (47% to 28%), turnovers (16 to 12), and rebounds (42 to 30).

To be honest, this was the first time that I actually got to sit down and watch Pitt Men’s Basketball this season. And I know that we were only playing Penn State. Still, I was impressed — especially with Jaron Brown (14 points, 4 rebounds). Sure, we’re probably not going to win the Big East again. But we should surprise at least a few teams.

Incidentally, I agree with Chas’s position that we should continue to play Penn State in basketball despite the fact that they won’t play us in football. Refusing the play them wouldn’t really hurt them (their men’s hoops program is already too low). Plus, we would abandon the moral high ground… Yeah I know… moral high grounds are overrated (just ask any Red Sox fan). But still, it’s something I can rub in my wife’s face.

Incidentally, Chas and I disagree about a lot more stuff in real life than we typically do on this blog.

It’s 6:50 PM and Army currently trails Navy by 14. Hail to a Black Knights comeback.

In sports there is an old maxim that the fans will overestimate the talent their team gave up versus what they acquired (this does not apply when it comes to salary dumping trades like what the Pittsburgh Pirates did this past summer).

I mention this because it applies to the beginning of this article on the Pitt-Penn St. Basketball game today:

The Pitt basketball team will do something this afternoon that it shouldn’t do again any time soon unless the current athletic climate in the Commonwealth changes dramatically.

The Panthers will play host to Penn State, which they should not do until the football rivalry is restored. The same goes for Pitt visiting Happy Valley for a little roundball.

No sense doing Penn State any favors when a favor won’t be returned.

The rest of the article is actually devoted to the subject of Pitt’s play so far, but this opening bothered me.

Now, everyone here at PSB wants the football rivalry restored. The lack of a football game with Penn St. is one more of Joe Paterno’s sins. Pitt has been ready, willing, and able to play the annual game (though not on Paterno’s self-serving terms of 2 games in State College for 1 game in Pittsburgh). Really, both sides want the rivalry restored. The only one against it, is a vindictive, bitter old man out in Happy Valley.

So at first blush any advantage Pitt has should be pushed. Pitt is much better than Penn State in basketball, and even though Pitt has had some extended bad runs, they have the historically stronger basketball program and history. This quickly breaks down on a closer look.

1. The annual basketball game is not even close to equal value in terms of money, national attention, alumni pride, and exposure.

2. Pitt is, at present, a top-25 team. It has been a top-25 team for the previous 2 seasons. Prior to that, it had been almost a decade since Pitt had even cracked the top-25 in during a season. Pitt holds no great reputation as a basketball power. Unlike Penn St. football, the mention of Pitt basketball does not cause national sportswriters and tv people to wax poetic about the tradition and history (and yes, these days when they talk of PSU, it tends to be in the past tense and with a little wistful sadness to see Paterno fall so far). Pitt has no historical elite reputation like Duke, UNC, Kansas or Kentucky. It doesn’t even reach perennial contender or top-25 standards like Cinci, Arizona, Syracuse, Temple, Mich. St., or UConn. Pitt is trying to get there, but it isn’t yet.

3. How much would Penn St. basketball be harmed by an end to playing Pitt? Prior to 2000, Pitt and Penn St. played each other 3 times between 1981-1999. Did anyone notice? Not exactly much of a hammer. It’s not like football, where there is a battle for local recruits. There aren’t that many recruits worth fighting over in Western and Central Pennsylvania.

4. It makes more sense to build up a good relationship with the other athletic programs and the athletic department, so that it is easier to resume the football rivalry after Paterno is put out to pasture retires.

So, Pitt should keep playing Penn State in basketball. If for no other reason, it is a good reminder of what a pale shadow it is compared to what the annual football game was.

I was trying to wait for Pat to post, since he was actually at the game. Hopefully he still will, and give us some news on the Pitt players and how they looked. I only saw some score updates on ESPN last night, and nearly fell off the couch when I saw that Duquesne was actually leading Pitt 24-22

There are two ways to look at that game. Scenario One: the glass is half full. Duquesne was gunning for Pitt. They came out hot and caught Pitt off guard in the first half. Then Pitt just asserted itself in the second half, and that was it.

Scenario Two: the glass is half empty. Pitt came out unprepared and not ready to play in the first half. They needed to wake-up during halftime. The reason they won, ultimately, was because the talent level was just too much in the second half.

I’m seeing the glass half empty. Not just because I’m an inherently negative, pessimistic kind of guy. No, it’s because this has been the way Pitt has played from their first game onward.

Just about every game so far this year, Pitt has played a horrible first half, where the game was far closer than it should have been (given the lousy teams they have been playing). Then, they turn it on in the second half.

This can’t continue, and it makes me very nervous about their upcoming game on Saturday. At home against Penn State. Penn State has a new head coach, and the team is 3-1 against mostly cupcakes. Their loss, was a 1 point loss to Georgetown.

Jamie Dixon has to get his team playing better in the first half or the questions will only grow about how good a choice he was to take over as head coach.

If anyone came here a little confused by posts completely unrelated to Pitt and sports in general, my apologies. I meant to post these to my blog, but wasn’t paying attention. It was bound to happen eventually. They have been reposted in the right place.

I was so busy agreeing with Chas that Walt Harris would be a bad fit for the coaching vacancy at Nebraska (Nebraska Football = tough defense + power running + excellent line play) that I completely forgot about the Harvard of the Upper Monongahela (which is like saying I’m rich in Bulgaria). Hoopie Head Coach Rich Rodriguez would be an excellent fit for Nebraska. And the Omaha World-Herald agreed, listing Rodriguez — along with Jim Donnan (why?), Monte Kiffin (who?), Al Saunders (try it at the college level), Mike Bellotti (as always… does that guy ever get sick of being on everybody else’s vacancy list?), Urban Meyer (not enough experience yet), Jeff Tedford (too West Coasty, but an interesting choice), and Steve Spurrier (dream on… why don’t you just list Dick Vermeil and John Gruden while you’re at it?) — on its list of potential replacements for ousted head coach Frank Solich.

But then Rodriguez had to go and turn Nebraska down before they ever asked. Responding to the World-Herald story, Rich said…

“I’m at West Virginia. I’m not looking for any jobs,” Rodriguez said Monday. “Hey, I went through all of that last year. I don’t want to do it again.”

“I don’t know why,” Rodriguez said of his name being mentioned. “There’s never been any contact and I’d be surprised if there was. I have no interest in leaving.”

Damn. Nebraska missed out on a legitimately good coach that fits their traditional style, Rich Rodriguez missed out on an opportunity to coach somewhere where you don’t have to start every recruiting pitch with “Remember, Deliverance was set in Georgia,” and most importantly, we missed out on an opportunity to get rid of the best Harris-beater ever. Why Rich? Could anyone contend that Nebraska wouldn’t be a better job than West Virginia, even an WVU alumnus?

Perhaps he was afraid that his gawdawful hoopie accent would stick out in Lincoln.

Hail to Nebraska’s Keeping Bo Pelini.

I still haven’t heard anything from Walt Harris himself yet (and to protect Pitt’s nationally recognized recruiting class, Walt needs to say something soon). However, I’m hearing more and more people dismiss Harris as a legitimate candidate for the vacant Nebraska head coaching job. Yesterday morning on WBNS (ESPN Radio) Columbus (the flagship station of the Ohio State Buckeyes Radio Network), “Spielman on Sports” host and former OSU linebacker great Chris Spielman said that he thought Walt Harris would go to Nebraska because he had taken Pitt about as high as it could go. However, Spielman had completely changed his stance by this morning. He said that the behind-the-scenes whispers at ESPN (where Spielman calls college games) is that Harris will not be seriously considered. No word yet on whether Spielman has changed his stance on how much higher Pitt can go.

(Incidentally, it surprises many Pitt fans to learn that many Buckeyes are interested in Pitt football because Walt Harris was so popular when he served as quarterbacks coach under John Cooper in the 1990s. That’s why Ohio State briefly looked at Harris before they hired Jim Tressel in 2001. Along those lines, I think that it would be funny if Pitt denied Nebraska AD Steve Pederson permission to even talk to Walt Harris. Pederson certainly deserves that.)

Also, note Cornhusker great Trev Alberts opinion on Harris as expressed in an ESPN chat session yesterday.

Colson – Pittsburgh, PA: Any chance Nebraska will take Walt Harris away from Pittsburgh?

Trev Alberts: I don’t think that will happen. I know you can make the connection and he is a great coach.. but I don’t envision him being our next coach.

I would have to assume that Alberts would have some knowledge of what’s going through his friend Pederson’s mind. On a side note, Scott landed the shot of the day on the Ohio State-loathing Alberts.

Scott (Leawood, KS): Trev, being a Cornhusker, how does it feel to have a couple of Buckeyes running the football program in Lincoln?

Go Bo Pelini, go. Of course, PSB favorite Matt Hayes still has a story up reporting that Harris is the top candidate in Lincoln. Whatever. I won’t get too worried unless people start turning Nebraska down. As the Cornhuskers work their way down their list, Walt’s name will inevitably come up.

Hey, Chas put together a must-read post yesterday about what needs to fixed with Pitt football that I almost entirely agree with (I would at least consider going the extra step and firing Rhoads, but I do have to give Rhoads some credit for his successes last year). All I would add is that Harris also needs to spend some more time recruiting the less glamorous line positions. Yes our lines are poorly coached. But they aren’t always all that talented to begin with.

And I recognized the Josh Crockett rip off right away. I had read his blog right away Monday morning to get his reaction to that tough loss to UVA. Oh well. At least Virginia Tech beat the crap out of Miami. That’s a lot more than we could manage.

Finally, does anybody out there really think that TCU turned down the GMAC bowl because it conflicted with final exams? Right. We’re not exactly talking about the Harvard of Texas here (we aren’t talking about the Harvard of the Upper Monongahela either, John). I’ve never seen such sour grapes over losing the opportunity for a BCS bowl bid.

Hail to Blogger actually adding the word “blog” to its spellchecker dictionary. I mean seriously, shouldn’t you really recognize that word?

Since this season is almost over, I am looking back on the 16 years of Pitt football that I witnessed first hand with season tickets – as an undergrad on the 4-and-a-half year plan, a law student and a proud alum. Home games were at Pitt Stadium (1988-99), Three Rivers (2000) and Heinz Field (2001-).

The breakdown:
YEAR TICKETS W-L-T COACH
1988 Student (CAS) 6-5 Gottfried
1989 Student (CAS) 8-3-1 Gottfried (Hackett coached final win in John Hancock Bowl)
1990 Student (CAS) 3-7-1 Hackett
1991 Student (CAS) 6-5 Hackett
1992 Student (CAS) 3-9 Hackett (Sunseri coached final loss)
1993 Student (law) 3-8 Majors
1994 Student (law) 3-8 Majors
1995 Student (law) 2-9 Majors
1996 alumni 4-7 Majors
1997 alumni 6-6 Harris
1998 alumni 2-9 Harris
1999 alumni 5-6 Harris
2000 alumni 7-5 Harris
2001 alumni 7-5 Harris
2002 alumni 9-4 Harris
2003 alumni 7-4* Harris

Coaching: W-L-T (pct) seasons Bowl Games (W-L-T)
Gottfried 13-8-1 (.591) 2 0
Hackett 13-20-1 (.383) 3 1 1-0
Sunseri 0-1-0 (.000) 1(part) 0
Majors (II) 12-32-0 (.273) 4 0
Harris 43-39-0 (.524) 7 5* 2-2

The combined Hackett-Majors era (7 seasons): 25-53-1 (.316), with one bowl game (inherited from Gottfried’s last season in 1989).

Sure, Harris is no Jock Sutherland, Pop Warner or Jackie Sherrill, but he is decent. He coached Pitt to its only 9 win season since I’ve had season tickets, and has a shot at only the third with at least 8 wins (one under Gottfried).
Considering how far Pitt had fallen before his arrival, Harris isn’t doing that badly. Not great, but not badly either. There certainly is room for improvement, so let’s hope that happens.

Consider the following:

Our playcalling, both offensively and defensively, is predictable, and our refusal to make halftime adjustments has repeatedly burned us. The coaching staff views changes at halftime as a sign of weakness; darn straight! But I’d rather see us fix those weaknesses than ignore their existence. The same thing can now be said about our football program as a whole. I’m not calling for Coach Harris’s head, but as a contributor to Pitt athletics, I want to see the leadership of the football program acknowledge the obvious problems therein and work to change them.

Okay, I changed two words in this paragraph and deleted a parenthetical. This was really written by a die-hard Hokie fan about his football team.

Here’s the real statement.

Our playcalling, both offensively and defensively, is predictable, and our refusal to make halftime adjustments has repeatedly burned us. The coaching staff views changes at halftime as a sign of weakness; darn straight! But I’d rather see us fix those weaknesses (for example, our failure to cover Heath Miller) than ignore their existence. The same thing can now be said about our football program as a whole. I’m not calling for Coach Beamer’s head, but as a contributor to Virginia Tech athletics, I want to see the leadership of the football program acknowledge the obvious problems therein and work to change them.

No one here at PSB is calling for Walt Harris’s head. We have longstanding criticisms, that haven’t changed.

In light of the pathetic loss on Saturday night there are predictable pieces saying Harris can’t win the big one (but Ron Cook wouldn’t want to lay any blame on his boy Paul Rhoads, now would he?). And of course, there is the rekindled question of whether Harris should stay.

Here’s just a short list of things that have to change under Walt Harris:

— Re-teach the fundamentals on defense. You know, tackling instead of just hitting. You don’t have to fire Rhoads, who, it must be conceded, did seem to have the defense doing well the previous two years; but something changed, and it wasn’t that the talent dropped that greatly for the defense to plummet so far this year.

— Re-educate the offensive line on how to block. The line didn’t seem to have a lot of holding penalties this year, but they sure didn’t do much for the running game. Nor could they provide much protection for Rutherford if the defense chose to blitz.

— The game plan is not written in stone. You need to show some flexibility with the plan at halftime. If things aren’t working to this point, acknowledge the problem and adjust. Also, if things are working, be prepared to still make some variations because the odds are that the other side might try to adjust.

— What else?