I’m watching the Harris press conference, finally. Harris is hardly a sparkling speaker, but from the get go, he sounded and looked defeated. Not angry or defensive. Just subdued and defeated. Like he realized, that the way Pitt lost, was all on him and he was going down for it.

Even as he spent, well over 5 minutes answering questions over the sequence leading to “slide right.” It wasn’t angry over having to keep defending it. It came off as more pleading, “Come on guys, you understand, or you should.”

At around 13 minutes, he all but begged to have questions about Temple, not the UConn game.

After watching the press conference, I almost feel sorry for Walt. Of course, then I think about the slide, and the feeling goes away.

Let me state a clear bias on my part. I prefer a guy who is a head coach at another school over most assistants. Just because they are a top assistant at a hot program does not make them necessarily head coach material. Some coaches are not meant to be the head man (see, Paul Hackett).

I also don’t care if they may have their eye on getting a better job — bigger program or the NFL — someday. Getting someone ambitious is not a bad thing. That means they will be looking to win. So what if they initially view Pitt as a stepping stone. Right now, it is. Until Pitt is winning and in the top-25 consistently, how can it be anything but?

Presently College head coaches:

Fantasy Picks, Probably Overreaching
Urban Meyer, Utah — Won at Bowling Green and now at Utah. Clearly doesn’t need to recruit from one specific location to get kids. Likely, though, to be one of the biggest targets by a lot of schools looking for a new coach (UNC, Syracuse, Washington, Illinois, BYU and Texas if Mack Brown gets blown out again this weekend by Oklahoma). He would cost a lot, and you still have to wonder if Pitt will pony up for his salary and assistants.

Jeff Tedford, Cal — Another hot pick, with a really low buyout if Cal can’t get financing in place for a new stadium and facilities by December. Already rumored to be a guy the NFL is eyeing. Considering he made Cal relevant as something other than the highlight with the Stanford band, that is saying something about the job he has been doing.

The Next Level
Dan Hawkins, Boise St. — The fact that this team is now known for something other than that blue field, should tell you what kind of job he has done with a program no one ever heard of a few years ago.

Pat Hill, Fresno St. — He is pretty comfortable there, or he already would have a better job. The guy knows how to coach and can recruit. Think Palko wouldn’t mind playing for a guy that made David Carr the #1 pick?
MAC Attack
Speaking of ambitious coaches, the MAC may be where it is at. These are guys that have to coach, and scrounge for real diamonds in the rough players if they want to succeed.

Tom Amstutz, Toledo — We all know the job he did to Pitt last year. The guy has found talent and coached it. I think he could do a great job at Pitt. He’s 27-11 in his 4 years at Toledo. The one con in trying to hire him, is that he is actually a Toledo alum, so he might feel some loyalty to the school. Would suck to be turned down by a guy in the MAC.

Terry Hoeppner, Miami (Ohio) — A “cradle of coaches.” Red Blaik, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian and Bo Schembechler all were coaches at Miami. People in Pittsburgh, of course, know Miami right now for producing Ben Roethlisberger. Miami won the MAC last year and actually finished #10 in the AP poll at the end of the year. Hoeppner has been there 5 years with a 40-20 record.

Joe Novak, Northern Illinois — An early mid-major darling of the pollsters from last year after beating Maryland and Alabama. Novak has been there 8 years building a program from nothing. Lost by 3 to Maryland this year. May not be a perfect fit, since Pitt doesn’t need to rebuild so much as take another step.

Greg Brandon, Bowling Green — This is only his second year as head coach, so this might be something of a reach. Still, he didn’t let the team falter at all when Meyer left for Utah. This year, they went into Oklahoma and lost by only 16. And of course they just hung 70 on Temple.

Assistant Coaches with Juice:
Not a lot to go on at this point. These are guys that get the job either with mid-majors first, or they are hot picks and ace the interviews. Back in August (and noted here in September), Scouts, Inc., via ESPN.com listed a bunch of potential guys. Only 2 guys from the list, do I think could be good hires for Pitt.

Randy Shannon, defense, Miami Hurricanes
Shannon has the unenviable task of replacing six members of his 2003 defense who were drafted into the NFL, but he did a pretty good job with last season’s group that had lost five members to the NFL draft from the previous season. If Shannon can reload rather than rebuild once again in 2004, he will be one of the hottest head-coaching candidates in the land.

Chuck Long, offense, Oklahoma Sooners
Head coach Bob Stoops is the front man for the Sooner offense, but Long has been his coordinator for four of the five years that Stoops has been in Norman, and the experience has been invaluable. With each passing season Long gets more control of the offense. Soon enough, another school will swoop in.

NFL Guys:
After the success of Al Groh (Virginia), but especially Pete Carroll (USC), there is a minor groundswell of interest in trying to find the next guy who wasn’t cut out to be a pro coach, but was meant for college. I have a bad feeling about this. In part because there have been two straight successes. Seems like one is due to fail. Still these 3 are likely to be names tossed about, because they are Pitt alumni.

Dave Wannstedt, Miami Dolphins — Everyone and their dog knows that this is Wannstedt’s last year coaching the Dolphins. The team has gotten worse every year under his control (like Pete Carroll at New England). This is his second failed head coaching gig (like Pete Carroll — Jets and Patriots). Wannstedt is well liked by people and gets along well with them. The thing that makes me most nervous about Wannstedt is that he has had significant input and say in the Dolphin personnel — he’s shopped for some of the groceries. His talent evaluation skills are a huge concern for me.

There are already rumors that when the Dolphins fire him, he’ll all but have an offer waiting from Pitt. Assuming Pitt doesn’t make a bowl game, the season ends on December 3. The Dolphins season is over on January 2. If Pitt fires Harris and nothing seems to happen for the first couple weeks, then you have to assume this could be the way it goes.

Russ Grimm, Assistant head coach, Pittsburgh Steelers — A finalist for the Bears job that went to Lovie Smith this past year. Hard to say at this point. I really don’t know anything about his coaching skills or personality. I wonder if this is just wishful thinking from local alumni.

Matt Cavanaugh, Offensive Coordinator, Baltimore Ravens — I know, Baltimore has an offense? He was at one point, their QB coach. Given the failures at QB for Baltimore to date, that is hardly a ringing endorsement.

Hire Any of These, And I Cancel My Season Tickets:
Do I really need to explain what I mean by that?

Mike Ditka, Pitt alum and legend, Levitra spokesman, former head coach Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints — NO! NO!NO! NO! I’m sure some drunk at Brewski’s may think this would be a great decision, but there is no way.

Norm Chow, Offensive Coordinator USC — I don’t think I could handle another QB guru/offensive genius at Pitt for a while.

Paul Rhoads, Defensive Coordinator/Secondary Coach, Pitt — Sunk as a hot assistant last year. Isn’t getting any better this year. If he even interviews for the job, it is panic button time. It means Pitt is looking to go cheap or Rhoads has incriminating pictures of Chancellor Nordenberg.

The Walt Harris press conference from Monday is now available as streaming video (Windows Media). I probably won’t be able to watch it until later this afternoon. Anyone who has the time is welcome to post their thoughts in the comments.

Actual Pitt information is limited to the notebook columns today. Imagine this, Pitt will try to improve its pass protection. Good plan. In Pitt’s practices to get ready for Temple, they are preparing to face the athletic Washington and the more traditional McGann at the QB position. And that’s it.

The Trib. today, focuses on the Big East as a whole. No question, it’s a bad year for the Big East. We all knew that, but we didn’t know it would be this bad. Joe Bendel focuses on the right now, and how bad it is. Joe Starkey, by contrast, looks longer term and sees reason for optimism. Mainly in the fact that Mike Tranghese, the Big East Commissioner, has kept the Big East in the BCS. There is no small truth to the fact that it was a lot of Tranghese’s personal efforts and connections with the other conference commissioners that kept the Big East in the BCS for now. Starkey feels that having Tranghese at the helm is a good thing for the future as well. I’m not so optimistic. Unless the Big East has a big turnaround in the next 2 years, we will either find ourselves sharing the bid with the MWC or on the outside. The money will only be bigger and the pressure on the other conferences greater.

Finally, we have a Bob Smizik column to state the obvious: Pitt needs to get the hire of its next coach right. Wow. That’s insight. To be fair, he does make a point I totally agree: the next head coach does not need to be one with a lot of Pitt connections.

I recall the hand-wringing and insane desire to find a Pitt basketball coach with Pitt or Pittsburgh roots after Howland left for UCLA in basketball. This led to a very poorly executed search that really only interviewed Skip Prosser and Jamie Dixon. After a very public pursuit of Prosser, Prosser stayed at Wake Forest and Pitt looked stupid and like it was forced to “settle” on Jamie Dixon. They never even interviewed Bobby Gonzalez of Manhattan, and the only other names raised were other coaches with Pittsburgh roots — John”one-step-ahead-of-the-NCAA” Calipari and Herb Sendek. All because Pitt had a good coach and he left.

It happens. If it isn’t for a bigger college job. Then, eventually the pros start sniffing about. Butch Davis left Miami for the Browns. Oklahoma and LSU are sweating every year that this could be the time that Stoops and Saban will go to the NFL. That’s just the way it is. If Pitt hires a guy and a bigger program or the pros come sniffing around, then the positive is that means Pitt is doing well. Continuity is nice, but I prefer winning.

Smizik has a partial list of candidates with their pros and cons. I’m going to try to get a list of my own out later.