A few things to pass along.
Kicker David Abdul, who had to be extremely grateful for the end of 2003 — with the drunken death of his roommate and best friend Billy Gaines, his apartment going up in flames, a horrible year kicking. Hardly gets 2004 off to a good start. He fell asleep behind the wheel of his sister’s car, crossed the median and collided with another vehicle. He suffered 3 breaks in his kicking leg.
Abdul broke the tibia and femur in two places on his right leg and had lacerations on his right hand and right knee, his father said. He also will require skin grafts later this week to replace “a chunk of meat” between the calf and ankle on his right leg, his father said.
His father believes Abdul will be ready to kick at the start of the 2004 season.
Recruiting analyst, Tom Lemming speaks about signing day. Pitt headlined “surprises” and “losers.”
The biggest Signing Day surprise for me did not involve one specific school or player. It was all the decommitments. In fact, more prospects made last-minute changes this year than in any other in the 24 years I’ve been covering recruiting.
Just look at Pittsburgh for an example. The Panthers lost QB Anthony Morelli to Penn State and RB Andrew Johnson to Miami on Wednesday. There had been rumors about Morelli, but the surprising thing about his switch was that he waited right until Signing Day before letting anyone know.
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Pittsburgh lost four top players on Wednesday and suffered through a devastating Signing Day. The Panthers were on their way to a top 20 year before things fell apart. In addition to losing QB Anthony Morelli (Penn State) and RB Anthony Johnson (Miami), Pitt lost receiver Johnny Peyton (South Florida) and cornerback Alphonso Smith (Wake Forest).The Big East Conference was another loser. In losing Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College to the ACC, the conference also lost the prestige those schools bring. This fact ultimately hurt recruiting for Syracuse, West Virginia and Rutgers. Not one of these teams will finish in the top 30 recruiting classes for 2004.
I’m starting to really believe that Smizik is skimming our site for his columns. Last week it was the recruiting arguments we were having.
Now in today’s column on Harris.
It has been as bad a 10-month period — beginning in May with the news Big East was in big trouble — as might be possible for Pitt football, and Harris has been at the middle of it. In August, he excited the masses by proclaiming the national championship as a goal. By December, that dream was a sick joke.
The expected progress for the overall program, just like the aspirations for last season, hasn’t been there. There’s a widely held belief that Harris is not the man to take Pitt to the next level. He did a remarkable job in upgrading the program, but once it reached the point of a flirtation with national ranking it stalled.
Here’s what I wrote.
2003-2004 has to be one of Harris’ worst years. Pitt had high expectations that crashed. His in game coaching was exposed all season — again. His supposed real strength — recruiting — took a major blow. And I think it is safe to say that most of the local media has just about had it with him and his constant position of “Not my fault.”
A lot of the themes we have been talking about with Harris and the Pitt football team are in this column. SO, either Smizik is skimming for material, or it is so blatantly obvious that he is seeing it too.
