A couple articles in the Tribune-Review regarding Pitt. Fall practice kicks off on August 12, and this is the first thing from either of the dailies in a week (if you include the press release news that Fralic joins the broadcasting booth). I’m hoping this means both papers are planning some supplement section for Friday and Saturday with lots of articles about Pitt.

The first is a glance backward to say that this year the attitude is different. I love the opening to the story, though,

The terms “smashmouth” and “Pitt football” were oxymoronic last season, as the
Panthers lacked physicality on both sides of the ball.

Physicality as a descriptive term has now jumped the shark.

There were some still-defensive comments from Walt Harris about how there were more injuries and losses of key players than the team disclosed last year to account for the poor line play on offense. Defensive line play, though, was just an “aberration” — for the entire year.

Otherwise, there was some fairly optimistic talk about how the lines will play this year in a brief article.

Now on the more depressing news, the WR position keeps getting thinner. First Terrell Allen went down for the season after a wrist injury in spring practices. Now starter Princell Brockenbrough may be out with a knee injury.

Now I’ve said some less than kind things about Brockenbrough’s propensity to drop passes because he is trying to run before securing the ball, but he was still the only returning starter at WR. Greg Lee, who I think will be a stud, was still only the 3rd WR last year and may take a little time.

The two players likely to take over for Brockenbrough are Joe Stephens, a junior who had one catch last year, and Jason Gaffney, a JUCO who missed all of last year with his own knee injury.

Hard to imagine a Walt Harris/Pitt team worried about depth and productivity at WR.