I guessed Palko without much explanation, because I really don’t have one other than the fact that he was a big recruit. Matt Hayes seems to think so, but with a smidge more explanation.

Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris likely won’t name a starting quarterback until after fall camp, but look for Tyler Palko to win the job over Luke Getsy because Palko is more mobile and the line is unsettled. Harris started QB Rod Rutherford early in his career when the line was in a similar state….

Also, Akron Head Coach, and former Pitt offensive coordinator, J.D. Brookhart got a gift in an Ohio St. cast-off Running Back.

Last August Pitt Sports Blather was launched. Last year, we had the high expectations for the Pitt football team, along with the national media. The football season crashed and burned, and frustrations got higher; but the basketball season, despite an unhappy end exceeded expectations.

This year we don’t expect a lot from the football team as far as contending for a BCS bowl; but the basketball team can be expected to be top-15 this year.

We’ve stuck to our mission statement as, A bunch of Pitt fans/alumni writing and ranting about the University of Pittsburgh Panthers and anything sports and entertainment related. We made it through the off-seasons with some posting, and it looks as though we’re not going to fade away.

Personally, I’ve loved this. This is still a lot of fun for me, and hopefully the rest of the crew feels the same. As hit counts are the coin of the realm in blogging, it has been gratifying to see that our hits grew steadily during football and basketball season. Even over the late spring and summer, we have remained remarkably steady with the hit counts (that can’t be totally attributed to the group). It has also been nice to see us continually be a top search hit for things related to the Pitt Panther.

Here’s to another year of Pitt wins, little in-jokes, bad puns, some gratuitous Penn State and Hoopie bashing, useless pop-culture references and plenty of sarcastic comments. And every now and again, some useful commentary.

Seems Pitt sports is lacking in its private donations.

Here’s the deal at Pitt: In the fiscal year 2002-03, private donors contributed $3.2 million (a number that increased slightly, to $3.8 million, in the fiscal year that just ended).

Remember that figure: $3.2 million.

Now, here is what other selected schools garnered in private donations in 2002-03: Penn State, $13 million; UConn, $10 million; Ohio State, $8.8 million; Louisville, $6 million; West Virginia, $5.5 million; South Florida, $4 million; Rutgers, $3.8 million; Cincinnati, $3.7 million.

Translation, Pitt either hasn’t worked hard at wringing more money soliciting more donations from fans and alumni or the fans and alumni of Pitt are really cheap.

Money builds a program real fast.

Meanwhile, Pitt isn’t even able to fund all of its athletic scholarships. The baseball team, for example, is four scholarships shy of a full complement in a conference where it competes with the likes of Notre Dame.

Besides that, the track and soccer teams don’t have their own facilities.

Don’t care about those sports? Consider this: If Team Pittsburgh — the university’s fund-raising arm — doesn’t improve dramatically under Pratapas’ watch, Pitt’s success in football and men’s basketball could be compromised.

There are expensive facilities to be maintained, rents to meet, coaches to pay.

Can you say alarmist? I”m not saying this isn’t a legit concern for Pitt athletics, but this almost seems like a planted story from the Pitt athletic department to start laying the groundwork for some serious increases in mandatory donations. Consider it the collegiate level threat of a pro team threatening to leave if it doesn’t get a new stadium.

Bottom line: Sold-out stadiums aren’t enough to sustain athletic excellence anymore. [Mike] Pratapas[, the senior associate athletic director,] said that even powerhouse schools such as Michigan have begun to move toward more donor-based seating, which means you have to be donor to be eligible for a seat.

At Heinz Field, only 10 percent of the seats (all club seats) are donor-based. At Petersen Events Center, it’s 18 percent.

Pratapas said most schools shoot for 30 percent in football, higher in basketball.

Excuse me, I’m going to go hide my wallet.

Next, the issue of Pitt’s lack of, er, endowment.

He also said that many of the more successful schools have massive endowments to dip into. Stanford’s is $251 million. Pitt’s is less than $10 million, Pratapas said.

Okay. Stop. Hold it. That is a meaningless comparison. You cannot compare Pitt’s endowment fund to one of the most prestigious private university in the country. You are talking a vastly different base of alumni and kind of endowment. That is like comparing Salma Hayek to Gwyneth Paltrow. Both good actresses, but it really isn’t close…

Clearly, we can expect our “voluntary” contribution to Team Pittsburgh for our football tickets to be rising in the next year.

Now for some good news. The NCAA has approved new recruitment rules. Here’s what is one that helps Pitt and hurts the more rural schools.

But no more private planes will tilt the proverbial level playing field. Recruits must travel to campus solely by commercial aircraft. That’s fine when you are USC or Texas or LSU or Syracuse. But what happens to Kansas State? Iowa State? Penn State? If there are any commercial flights close to these campuses, there are only a handful, with long waits for connecting flights.

In a 48-hour recruiting visit, private planes afforded a recruit the chance to spend more time on campus. It’s the difference between a Purdue recruit landing in West Lafayette, Ind., at 9 a.m. Saturday morning, or flying to O’Hare, connecting to Indianapolis, and arriving on campus via car around, oh, 12:30 p.m.

The rural schools had asked that they be allowed to use private planes from the largest nearby commercial airport. In the end, by a vote of 11-3, the Division I Board of Directors decided to adopt the broad ban in order to establish, as Dr. Robert Hemenway, the Kansas chancellor put it, “a baseline. Maybe sometime in the future we can come back to it, if there is a serious disadvantage.”

The only bad thing for a recruit coming from Pittsburgh International Airport to the campus, South Side practice facilities and Heinz Field — dealing with the Parkway. Can you imagine the boredom recruits will face driving to Penn State after flying in to Harrisburg?

The Preseason Wooden Award All-American Team – Top 50 Candidates was announced. Pitt’s Carl Krauser has been named to the list.

A national poll was conducted by the John R. Wooden Award Preseason Committee to determine the Top 50 Preseason Candidates for the 2004-2005 Wooden Award All-American Team. The top 50 candidates have been selected based on last year’s individual performance and team records. The student-athletes selected are all returning players. Incoming freshman and transfer students are not included. These athletes and other players who excel throughout the season will be eligible for the Midseason Top 30 list and the National Ballot.

Hell of an honor. Don’t know what the Vegas odds are on him winning it, but after glancing over the list, he wouldn’t be considered a lock. Hopefully he won’t have the injuries and off-year that plagued the Knight in 02-03 and Page in 03-04. If so, then I have to start considering it a bit of a jinx.

Also, on the subject of basketball, the new schedule is not yet out. The 2004-05 Preseason Prospectus (58 pages, PDF) is. Bios on the players and coaches. Plenty of stats. Box scores from all of the games from last year. The cover image, below.

Cover of the 2004-05 Preseason Prospectus 

I tried. I wanted to let it go by, but it gnawed at me all afternoon after reading this.

The problem with today’s college football players?

Too much motherly love and not enough discipline from daddy, according to Florida State coach Bobby Bowden.

“[A player] needs discipline from a male. Not a mama. They all want to wear earrings like their mama. They all want to look like their mama. Because their mama is raising them,” the outspoken Bowden said Monday at the Florida Sportswriters Association Media Days event.

Read it again. Read slowly the name of the person saying it. Repeat.

Bobby-freakin’-Bowden talking about the need for discipline? The man who’s idea of punishment when his players are arrested is to have them run stadium steps?

Well, maybe it was taken out of context? It did come from a wire report. Let’s see:

Coach Bobby Bowden often responds with a lenient hand in FSU disciplinary matters. In the most recent incident, lineman Bobby Meeks was charged with violently resisting arrest and with battery against a police officer after a bar fight. He pleaded guilty after the charges were reduced to misdemeanors and can now play.

Discussing the landscape last week, Bowden recounted a conversation with a former member of his West Virginia staff, Chuck Klausing, who concluded that kids haven’t changed much, but parents have. Bowden agreed.

“The parents have got to teach ’em,” Bowden said, “and it’s got to be done when they’re 2, 3, 4 years of age. Kids are not getting that any more because the daddies aren’t home. The daddies are gone. A boy needs discipline. He needs discipline from a father, not a mama. They all want to wear earrings like their mamas. They all want to look like their mama, because their mama raised them.

“People keep saying: ‘Bobby, when are you going to change those kids you’ve got?’ I say: ‘The parents have got ’em 17 years, I got ’em two, and they get in a little trouble.’ But when they are taught right from wrong and they are disciplined, that’s when our problems will cease.”

Oooookayyy.

So I’m guessing that’s what he tells the parents when he goes to a recruit’s house — you people screwed him up and didn’t punish him properly, and I’m not going to start.

It’s part of what I really hate about Bowden. There is some small nugget of truth in there; but you know it is surrounded by his blatant hypocrisy, “aw, shucksism” crap, and his self-serving pious born again junk. What it really comes down to, for Bowden is winning the game. At least Jackie Sherrill and Jimmie Johnson admit that much.

SI.com is ramping up its college football stories. Today, they have a flurry of articles about what it takes to be national champion, five teams that fit the mold, and the ten games on national TV that you must watch this year. Well since they put WVU in the list of five teams that they think could be national champion, the Backyard Brawl makes the list.

Many believe that since Miami and Virginia Tech (and next year, Boston College) left the Big East, the weakened conference’s winner doesn’t deserve an automatic BCS bid. Regardless, the bid still exists, and it’s a safe bet that the Backyard Brawl will decide which team receives it. The Mountaineers have the league’s most talented team and its most explosive trio in quarterback Rasheed Marshall, running back Kay-Jay Harris and wideout Chris Henry. If the Panthers wish to successfully defend their home turf, they’ll have to keep this a low-scoring affair. Pittsburgh’s offense is depleted, returning just three starters.

Next week they preview the Big East, but it looks like they just leaked who they think will be #2 in the Big East. SI.com also has, in conjuction with Athlon a preview of all teams including Pitt.

This will be WVU‘s turn as the darkhorse/sexy sleeper pick to be a major contender. Pitt blew it last year. It will be interesting to see how Rich Rodriguez and WVU handles the pressure.

Short article that states something we all knew:

No matter who ends up starting at quarterback for the Pitt football team this
season, he could end up running for his life.

Still no answer as to whether it will be Palko or Getsy as the starting QB. I’m guessing Palko, though.

Sporting News/Fox Sports’s Matt Hayes always has a great mailbag during college football season, now it looks like I have a favorite mailbag for college basketball Gregg Doyel‘s over at Sportsline. This week:

Regarding your article “Big O called on to be temporary superhero,” you are
way off base regarding the current status of the University of Cincinnati’s
basketball program. The intestinal fortitude of Bob Huggins will only make the
UC basketball program stronger at this juncture. Successful participants in
sports step up and perform better during difficult times and are true winners.
Those that can’t successfully handle adversity are only able to write about
sports.

Ask the inside of Huggins’ car about his “intestinal
fortitude.”
…
Why do you have to bash Bob Knight? How about just praising Mike
Davis? No doubt Davis took over a tough situation, but he took over from a guy
who never cheated.

I’ll take your sentences in order: It’s fun; I could, but I’d also
like to bash Knight; and Knight’s crimes against humanity are as shameful as
some cheaters’ crimes against the NCAA.

There is also a great fill-in-the-blank form for hate mail suggested by one of the readers. For a more serious story, check out his latest about when coaches pull scholarship offers.

Lee’s provided the meat in today’s postings. I’m here for the fluff. Back in February, Pitt filed a lawsuit to get out of a deal with Nike to supply football uniforms and football related merchandise. Here is a comment I made around time of the lawsuit.

Idle thought: wonder whether Addidas, Pitt’s b-ball outfitter, whispered
some numbers in AD Long’s ear.

Looks like I called that one.

One of America’s top collegiate athletic programs will team up with one of the world’s leading sports footwear and apparel companies with the announcement of a new partnership between the University of Pittsburgh and adidas.

Beginning this fall, each of the Panthers’ 19 intercollegiate sports teams will wear adidas footwear, uniforms and apparel, Pittsburgh athletic director Jeff Long announced today. The Panthers join an outstanding group of schools that have similar agreements with adidas, including Notre Dame, Tennessee, UCLA and Wisconsin. In addition, adidas has a multi-tiered marketing partnership with Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees.

The Panthers’ uniforms, practice gear and footwear will all be provided by adidas. In the
past, the Panthers have had as many as five different suppliers fill the needs that adidas will now exclusively meet. Whereas past Pittsburgh-adidas associations have focused on football and basketball, this new partnership will benefit the Panthers’ entire athletic program.

It’s a 5-year deal, that includes “sponsorship components, product and cash.” The new gear arrives in stores all this month.

UPDATE: The newspapers have the story now. They have a few extra details. It looks like it will be about $1 million in cash per year plus shoes and apparel for the 19 sports programs.

No real explanation, but apparently the Nike lawsuit was settled out of court. Also, there will be slight changes to the football uniforms. According to AD Long, ” there are some subtle changes and the numbers are easier to read from afar.” We’ll see.

It isn’t every Monday that I find so much blog-worthy material on the web…

Well, like Ron Bracken’s call for the resumption of the Pitt-Penn State series, Eric Moneypenny’s ranking of Five Teams That Will Bother Me by how bad they’re going to be (on FoxSports.com) is required reading… if for no other reason, for this epic blast at Dear Old State (#1 on his list)…

Since Joe Paterno is now practically delusional and incapable of running a major college football program, then at the very least, can somebody please put this school in the now-awful Big East? Penn State is so bad right now that it needs to go back to what put it on the college football map from the 1960s to the 1980s. And that is beating the absolute hell out of Rutgers, Temple, and Boston College. The problem is simple, too. Penn State can not recruit like it used to, and it’s killing the program. The best kids in Pennsylvania aren’t going to Happy Valley, they’re going to Michigan, Virginia, Ohio State, and Virginia Tech. So, JoePa should be canned. Oops, I mean “retire.” And it should happen soon, before he tries to turn everyone around him into a linebacker.

Dude, I don’t even know where to start agreeing with that quote.

Finally, Hail to Larry Fitzgerald for allegedly pulling down the most lucrative contract ever for a rookie. The kid deserves it. Now just don’t forget all of your old fans back in Pittsburgh, Larry. Stop by and see us some Saturday when you have a bye week.

Ron Bracken, the Sports Editor of the Centre Daily Times (State College’s newspaper, for those of you who don’t know), is one of my favorite Penn State sportswriters. He generally makes much more sense than your typical Nittany Lion fan, and he DEFINITELY makes more sense than the Altoona Mirror‘s Neil Rudel.

In this Sunday’s CDT, Bracken makes perhaps the best argument for restarting the Pitt-Penn State series that I’ve ever heard coming out of Centre County. Given that Bracken is one of the most respected Penn State writers, I see this as a solid case of your-own-man-says-so.

However, I think his idea of permanently rotating Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia on Penn State’s schedule is a little half-baked. I don’t think anybody — in State College, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, or Morgantown — holds Penn State-Syracuse or Penn State-West Virginia in the same regard as Pitt-Penn State. Very few high school kids wind up making their final decision on college between Penn State, Syracuse, and West Virginia. But thousands of us, myself and Chas included, made our final decision between Pitt and Penn State. Besides, didn’t WVU only beat PSU just once in the past half century or something?

So hail to just restarting Pitt-Penn State already. Rotate the Mountaineers and Orangemen on Penn State’s schedule on some other Saturday.

Now here’s something for everyone to fight over. Who are the best game callers in sports? SI.com has its various columnists give its best in all the major sports — Baseball, NFL, NBA, College football, College basketball, and sundry others.

Looking at the college football list, I can already hear Lee screaming, “Oh, bull-f***ing-s**t!”

And I’m sure Lee probably hears my voice in his head echoing a similar sentiment when Tim “Shut the f**k up!” McCarver is on the list for baseball.

On the intelligent side, Dick Vitale is nowhere to be seen on the list for college basketball.