Walt Harris defending his record in this piece.
“We did go to a bowl for a fourth time, you know?” Harris said. “And we did win eight games, and we had a guy (Larry Fitzgerald) who came in second in the Heisman. We came into a program that hadn’t gone to a bowl in (eight) years. You couldn’t find anything ‘Pitt’ in the stores. You’d never see a Pitt football player advertised on college football. We’ve done a good job in graduating our players, and we’ve done a representative job of keeping our guys in line.
“So, I would have been shocked (to be fired), but, like I said, my first reaction is that if they don’t think it’s good enough, I’m sure somebody else will.”
All of which is not in dispute. The fact is, though, that it isn’t good enough anymore to win most of the weak games and still not win big games.
Harris believes his team was overrated going into last season, though he concedes there were good reasons for such high expectations.
“People logically put it together and came up with a higher rating than probably, player for player, our talent level was — especially to be rated in the top 10,” he said. “Last year was very disappointing to me. I don’t think we played like we know we can play. We obviously didn’t coach good in certain areas. The fact is, we lost an outstanding running back (Brandon Miree) for seven games. That was a big hit. And our defense (ranked 79th in NCAA Division I) completely shocked us.”
This is when having archives are a good thing, so feel free to take a look back at the PSB archives from last August. You won’t find much in the way of Coach Harris looking to dampen expectations. Even if Pitt shouldn’t have been a top-10 team, they very much underachieved to finish the season unranked. And despite the loss of Miree, which I will be first to admit was a big blow to Pitt. But let’s be clear, the problems with the running game arguably only cost us the Notre Dame game. Just about every other loss could be pinned on a defense that couldn’t stop the run even if half the offensive linemen took a seat on the sideline.
Looking back at some old posts led me to this, and an article on the growth of Walt Harris. Have a laugh
Expectations are higher than they’ve ever been for a Harris-led Pitt team, with 16 starters returning from a squad that finished 9-4 last season. Most preseason polls rank the Panthers in the top 12, while some have called them a darkhorse to win a national championship.
“It’s another challenge in the growth process,” said Harris, who rebuilt the program from scratch after taking over for Johnny Majors following the 1996 season. “It’s up to us to make it happen.”
Harris enters training camp transformed. He decided in the offseason that he must ease up slightly on his offensive players, particularly his quarterbacks.
He said he intends to “quit” being a quarterbacks/offensive coach and dedicate more time to overseeing the entire operation. It is a major step for a man who’s spent his career at Pitt micro-managing his quarterbacks, something for which he’s been frequently criticized.
“I need to be more of a head coach,” said Harris, who still plans to work closely with the quarterbacks and the offense. “I need to be the overseer of this whole team. It’s something I thought a lot about and it’s the best way.”
As you may recall, Harris has now decided to be the offensive coordinator for this year, following Brookhart taking the Akron head coaching gig.
The rest of this article is just as discomforting.
Back to the present article.
Harris pointed out that Pitt played a winner-take-all, regular-season finale against Miami last year, with a BCS bowl bid at stake. The Panthers lost, 28-14.
“I would hope we could play the last game of the year every year for a Bowl Championship Series bid,” he said, “and one of these days (a victory) is going to happen for us.”
Summer practice begins Aug. 12.
Hey, on my birthday.
You know, I don’t mind spin. Everyone does it. It’s just that Walt is so bad at it. Pitt backed into playing for the BCS bid after collapsing against West Virginia 2 weeks prior. Except for the first quarter, Pitt looked abyssmal at home, in the cold of late November against Miami. The “look at how far we’ve come” spin is pathetic. 2003 and 2001 were years where Pitt failed to meet expectations — fans, media, team. No matter how Walt wants to spin it, he has to actually achieve at some point.
