There were a lot of good articles today, but I couldn’t get to them. Visiting family meant coping with dial-up and Windows 98 instability. Not conducive to getting a post out with lots of links.
Anyways, this is late, so I’ll dispense with my usual attempts to weave the various articles into a semi-coherent narrative. I’ll just give you the gist and you can go read it if it interests you (if you haven’t already).
Horse’s mouth — Official quotes from Walt Harris after Saturday practice (PDF version). Highlights: Kirkley is looking best at RB; Furman has talent, but not believed to be able to handle the ball 20-25 times in a game.
Always Look on the Bright Side — Sure, this year’s team has less star talent — and talent period — but they are more unified. Yes, that’s right, last year’s team underachieved because of a lack of… leadership. See the title to this book, for my thoughts.
Player Puff Piece, Part 1 — Big things on defense are expected from Clint Session, and not just because he shaved the dreads. Don’t worry, he still has the gold teeth, “The bling-bling in my mouth had to stay, though, because I always have to represent south Florida. ” A very polite gloss over his legal issues.
Player Puff Piece, Part 2 — Actually an interesting backstory behind WR Jason Gaffney, the JUCO transfer and cousin to former Florida star WR Jabar Gaffney. He contacted Pitt when Fitzgerald turned pro because he figured they could use the help at WR.
Beat Columns — The short bits, both beat writers lead with Marcus Furman trying to win a running back role in the offense. Both noted that CB, Josh Lay is still practicing away from the team and WR Brockenbrough didn’t practice on Saturday. Additional notes suggest Palko had another good practice, and that the offense is actually making progress.
Not Directly Related, but a Good Read — What walk-ons go through. It’s not easy, in fact it’s harder than I thought. Can’t even eat at the training table? Geez.
Rebuilding Defense — One bad year for the defense after several good years does not make the defensive coordinator an idiot. It does, however, tarnish his rising star status. Paul Rhoads gets a puff piece via Chuck Finder. Turns out Rhoads wasn’t doing a lot of teaching last year. He’s back to the basics this year, and that includes actually teaching the players to tackle. I will now bang my head against a wall.
That’s 2 Lined Up in the Anti-Walt Camp — Smizik was first out of the box. Now Goose Goslin takes his whack. A little more fire and populist in tone. His issue, Harris is too preoccupied with the QB when he should be paying more attention to the line play on both sides of the ball. Looks like it could be a long year for Coach Harris with the media.
