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.