First day of practice, and the first Walt Harris press conference (PDF version). As expected, no answers on the starting QB position, other than Harris hopes to have a starter named a week or so before the USF game on September 6. No new injuries to report, but there are casualties — starting from the end of Harris’ opening statement:

“…We have a few things that we need to clean up. First of all, we had some young men that didn’t make it. We had Craig Bokor- he’ll be attending prep school. We have two other guys that were in the process; they’re in the clearing house right now, and our challenge will be to try and figure out their eligibility. We have Jawan Walker, who didn’t practice, and was not there today. He’s working on his eligibility and Josh Lay still has some academic work. He did not practice today. Any questions?”

Q: What does Jawan Walker need to do to become eligible?
A: “He just has some academic work to do… I’m not able to tell you exactly what he has to do. He’s got academic work to finish.”

Q: Do you expect Walker and Lay to eventually be eligible?
A: “I don’t know. That’s up in the air.”

With Jawan Walker now even questionable to be on the team this year, it looks like Kirkley at RB by default. At a minimum it is his job to lose. Marcus Furman will be his main competition.

The loss of Lay at the cornerback position will be huge if he doesn’t get qualified in time. He was the most experienced returning corner (even if he was a bit inconsistent) depth is looking like a big, big issue right now.

Bokor is a defensive lineman. Again, it is a depth thing.

There was also this howler of coachspeak:

Q: Is it fair to label this a rebuilding year for Pitt?

A: “We don’t think that we rebuild, we’re all about reloading. We do have some guys, like I mentioned, that graduated, but that’s the fun of it. We’ve got guys that have played in a backup role and now’s there a chance for them to play.”

I dream of the day when I hear pundits say “Pitt doesn’t rebuild, it reloads.” I mean, with a straight face.

Football practice officially began this morning. And a Panther Nation turns its curious eyes to the quarterback position. Or at least they will try. Coach Walt Harris has declared that he has no clue who will be the starter, and that he will be shielding Getsy and Palko from media scrutiny. I’m sure this will be frustrating to some extent as we and everyone else will try to analyze every throw, every rep, and every facial tic of Harris to see who is the leading candidate.

I’m not sure it is a bad thing, though. We know Harris is very hard on his QBs as he tries to get the most out of them. Keeping them from speaking to the media after every practice and talk of how they think they did and whether they think they will be the starter would get old after a few days. Imagine it for almost 4 weeks straight.

Of course who will be the QB starter may be the hot topic, but it isn’t the only position battle. You have the O-line, D-line, Running Back, Cornerback and Kicker position battles. Not to mention a new Punter, new coaches, new TE. So many questions, and according to Post-Gazette beat writer Paul Zeise, these are the top 5.

Coach Harris sees the glass as half-full despite last year’s turmoil and the loss of talent. Not that I’d expect him to be saying otherwise. At the end of the story, Joe Bendel makes this comment:

Harris will need to have his team ready for a treacherous stretch that has the Panthers opening on Labor Day and playing five games in 25 days. That relatively short period could go a long way in determining how the 2004 season unfolds.

Hmmm. I noted before that this isn’t the toughest schedule, but there isn’t an easy patch in here. The first half of the schedule has one difficult opponent (Nebraska) , two expected gimmees (Ohio and Furman), and two that I just don’t know how good or bad they will be (USF and UConn). That short time frame for the games could make a difference, at least with regards to the UConn game.

Then there is the Temple game, and then the remaining 5 games are all question marks. Each game looks like a toss-up at this point.

Final note, the WVU-Pitt game on Thanksgiving day has now been moved from 7:30 to an 8:00 kickoff.

A big recruit for Pitt’s 2005 class is in academic trouble. Mike Davis appears to be on the verge of getting kicked out of Xaverian High School in Brooklyn. Apparently he didn’t show up much or test well during summer school. Important to emphasize that he did not get in any other kind of trouble. It looks more like a case of laziness.

The questions are now: how quickly can he get into another school, and will it delay his graduation and qualifying academically (will he have to go to a prep school for a year); and what does Pitt do?

As to the latter question, Davis has given a verbal, but NLI day isn’t until November. Will Pitt revoke the offer? I would guess no, but he may not be wearing blue and gold until 2006.