This is just some afterthoughts to Chas’s four posts on Pitt-BC.
ESPN’s College Gameday Final — which airs either late, late Saturday night or at 7:30 AM Sunday morning, depending on whether you’re a night owl or a morning person like me — didn’t really offer a recap of Pitt-BC. Not an important enough game, I guess. However, Palko’s blasting Boston College cornerback Pete Shean out of bounds in the third quarter did make their top plays list. Mark May — who really is a great analyst, even if you’re not a Pitt fan — used that opportunity to quickly remark that Walt Harris had been under some heat from a lot of people, including himself. But then May said that this win shouldn’t change anything, and suggested that Harris really needed to win all of his remaining games except maybe (and then May repeated the word “MAYBE”) West Virginia to keep his job.
And you know, I kind of agree. Beating an absolutely terribly coached BC team doesn’t erase the facts that (1) this program is not progressing (especially along the lines), (2) our teams underachieve far too often, (3) Harris is a terrible and cowardly playcaller, and most importantly, (4) Harris has burned too many bridges in the WPIAL and throughout the Commonwealth. Really, we beat Boston College because, as Chas pointed out, we pulled our linebackers into the box to help our weak defensive line and Tom O’Brien was too stubborn or all-fired stupid to realize that the middle of the field was wide-assed open on every play. I’ll give our embattled defensive coordinator, Paul Rhoads, credit for coming up with that cute little card trick. But do you think that it will really fool Syracuse, let alone West Virginia? Rasheed Marshall will chuck it over the middle to Chris Henry all day long without any linebackers there.
Besides, as Chas pointed out, Walt did have another “slide right” moment when he wussed out and kicked a field goal from the two-foot line in the fourth quarter (this time, fortunately, it didn’t wind up costing us). And as if that wasn’t enough to piss me off, he actually chastised Palko for that big hit on Shean that got Pitt on College Gameday Final.
Coach Walt Harris was pleased with Palko’s effort, but was obviously not as
enthused as the players about the fact that his quarterback lowered his
shoulder. “He has a bit of hard-headness,” Harris said. “He really should avoid
the guy, give him a little dip and head back inside.”
Yeah, I know, it’s risky to let your quarterback take a hit. Tell that to Ben Roethlisberger. Look, football is a game a naked aggression, especially in Western Pennsylvania. People (including myself in high school) get hurt. Now either deal with it or go coach soccer. Either way, take off the dress, Walt.
Now to be fair, I’m only one Panther fan. A lot of fellow Panther fans who called into “Panther Hotline” on 970 AM while I was driving back home to Altoona said that this game totally vindicated Walt and that its time for fans like myself to get off him. Of course, I lost 970’s signal at freakin’ Murraysville because they apparently use a toaster oven to power their transmitter. So the show’s character admittedly could have changed after I disappeared into the wilderness of Central Westmoreland County.
As far as the yellow fliers asking our students to watch their mouths, what a laugh. As I approached our gate, I saw four ushers with reams of those things. They didn’t give me one (I apparently don’t look enough like a student anymore), so I just moved on and started up the ramp behind them. I was immediately confronted with the sight of thousands, perhaps millions, of those little yellow pieces of paper scattered across the floor of the ramp so densely that it was hard to see the concrete beneath. Way to kill a few trees for nothing, alma mater.
But seriously, the student section isn’t nearly as vulgar as the regular section next door in which the PSB crew resides. Really, all the kids do is chant “WE’RE GONNA BEAT THE F*CK OUGHTA YOU” at the end of each stanza of “Rock and Roll, Part II,” just like every other student body in the country has been doing since the mid-1990s (at least that’s when I first heard it at Ohio State). You hear a lot more obscenities screamed — generally in conjunction with the word “WALT” and some implication of sodomy — out of our section… and more precisely, out of me… than out of any student. Really, those four ushers should have just thrown the whole stack of fliers at my fat ass.
Seriously though, the kids are there to have fun. If you can’t take a few comments about Walt fornicating with his mother, go sit in the cheap seats in the second deck or just stay home, sip some lemonade, and watch The O’Reilly Factor with the rest of your Sunday School class.
On second thought, don’t watch The O’Reilly Factor…
Of course, on the other hand, what obscenity could possibly be as fun as chanting “A-C-C!” at Boston College as they very slowly walked off the field. Sometimes f-bombs truly are useless accessories…
Hail to all’s being well in John’s family.
