The rumors of Coach Walt Harris to Stanford continue. By all appearances, it looks like Stanford wants either Harris or USC Offensive Coordinator Norm Chow.

Stanford will talk to Southern California offensive coordinator Norm Chow and Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris this week about the Cardinal’s head coaching vacancy.

Chow told reporters in Los Angeles on Monday that he would go to Stanford on Wednesday, where he will meet with athletic director Ted Leland.

“We’ll see when we find out the specifics,” Chow said when asked if he was interested in the job. “I’m sure they’ll interview a whole bunch of other folk.”

A Stanford source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Leland would also discuss the job with Harris.

It isn’t the fact that Harris might be wooed by another school that surprises people. It’s that Pitt would appear to be willing to let him walk.

Harris is taking Pitt to a bowl game for a fifth consecutive season, the first time that’s happened at the school since coaches Johnny Majors, Jackie Sherrill and Foge Fazio combined for nine consecutive bowls from 1975-83.

Still, despite leading one of Pitt’s youngest teams ever to a major bowl, there is no certainty Harris will return to coach largely the same team again next season.

Harris is signed through the 2006 season, but many major college coaches with his portfolio of success — three consecutive seasons of eight or more victories among them — have much longer deals. Harris’ agent questioned earlier this season why a new deal wasn’t in place, but athletic director Jeff Long said only that Harris’ status would be reviewed after the season ends.

Now, by not moving to offer Harris an extended deal at more money than the estimated $600,000 a season he currently makes, Pitt may have significantly improved Harris’ bargaining position should the two part ways.
…
Palko has already lobbied for Harris’ return, calling on Long and chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg to extend his contract. Pitt’s administration now must decide if a promising team that returns nine offensive starters in 2005 can be entrusted to another coach and another system, despite prior criticism of Harris for his game management skills.

Matt Hayes has an amusing piece looking at the unrealistic coaching expectations at East Carolina University. He uses it to point out that the absurdity of ridiculous expectations are not limited to the Notre Dames and Floridas. Perhaps someone else will be paying attention.

Of course, there is a very uninformed snippet from Hayes regarding Palko and Harris:

Pittsburgh QB Tyler Palko is making coach Walt Harris look better each week. Harris was criticized earlier this season for not benching Palko when he was playing badly. Now, Palko has led the Panthers to six wins in seven games. In those games, Palko has thrown for 1,892 yards, 17 touchdowns and two interceptions and has the Panthers in a BCS bowl for the first time.

Say what? Where? Somehow managed to elude my fairly compulsive searching for all things Pitt. Palko wasn’t good at the start of the season to be sure, but considering that back-up Joe Flacco has even less experience benching Palko was never an option. The closest, may have been to have him come out at times for his own safety, when the offensive line was getting him killed.

Joe Bendel has a Big East Notebook wrap-up (regular season) up on ESPN.com (subscription):

They took care of business down the home stretch, winning six of seven games and upsetting BC, Notre Dame and West Virginia along the way. Coach Walt Harris, who’s been on the hot seat all season, looked on as sophomore QB Tyler Palko put the Panthers on his shoulders and rallied them from a 2-2 start. Palko has been particularly dominating in the past five games, throwing for 1,570 yards with 16 TDs and two interceptions.

“We always expected this,” Palko said of the BCS berth. “Now, we have it.” The Panthers feature 16 underclassmen in the starting lineup, 13 of whom (including Palko) are first-year starters. They appeared to be free-falling in the early season with losses to Nebraska and UConn — and near-losses to Division I-AA Furman and Temple — but Harris kept pushing his young team.

“I knew they had what it took,” he said. “It just takes time.” The signature play of the season occurred in Week 5 against Boston College. Palko ducked his shoulder and ran over BC CB Peter Shean, who crashed to the ground with his helmet off his head. Palko established himself as a leader at the point and the Panthers established themselves as the team to beat in the Big East.

MVP: Not only is Palko the MVP of the Panthers, he’s also the MVP of the league. He is 208-of-369 for 2,816 yards with 23 TDs and nine interceptions, yet he can’t be judged by statistics alone. “It’s all the other stuff, the leadership, the ability to make everybody play better,” said sophomore Greg Lee, Pitt’s sophomore 1,000-yard receiver. “He got us here because of all the things he does.”

Biggest disappointment: A double-overtime loss at Syracuse in November. The Panthers had a number of chances to win the game, including a 51-yard field goal attempt in the waning seconds, but could not cash in. Had they beaten the Orange, they would have captured the league title outright and been on the cusp of the top-10. Also, there would be fewer questions about their validity as a BCS bowl team.

Looking ahead: With 15 starters and both specialists returning, the Panthers should be a preseason top-15 team and the favorite to win the Big East next season. The only question is: Will Harris be there to coach them. He could leave on his own volition or be fired after the BCS bowl game.

Well, there still would have been questions, but the record wouldn’t have looked as bad. As for a favorite, it depends on whether Bobby Petrtino will still be the head coach at Louisville next year.

And in a move that doesn’t really surprise me, Syracuse will bring back Coach Paul Pasqualoni for at least one more season. That makes sense. The long time AD Jake Crouthamel, is loyal to Pasqualoni and retires this summer. You can’t have the outgoing AD foist a new coach on an incoming AD. Give the new AD a chance to find his own guy.

From Andy Katz’s Daily Word for December 6,

Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon finally gets to display his team in a marquee game Tuesday — in the Jimmy V Classic in New York. The Panthers will play Memphis, the first team on their schedule this season that was ranked, or even likely will be ranked. Dixon gets defensive about a schedule that has included Howard, Robert Morris, Loyola (Md.), St. Francis (Pa.) and Duquesne, thus far. Dixon is playing three freshmen quite a bit, so building confidence for them isn’t odd. He’s also a bit hamstrung by the fact he has to play a bad Duquesne and a struggling Penn State (on the road Dec. 11), since both schools are in-state. Getting Richmond at home is a good game, as is South Carolina. Dixon wouldn’t mind playing a ranked team, but says he really struggles to get true home-and-home series.

A few points. Yeah, it is actually good and necessary this year to play some of the non-starters, freshmen and sophomores more, to see what they can do. But they don’t need virtually all of the non-con to do so. Of course he gets defensive, he’s lying. Well, maybe not lying so much as spinning. He’s being the good company man about this. From what I understand, Pitt is in a situation where it needs as many home games as possible to help pay down some of the astronomical cost overruns that were incurred in completing the Petersen Event Center. This severely limits the number of away games it can do in the non-con portion of the season. Given Pitt’s relatively recent ascension into regular top-20 rankings, I would expect a lot of schools would do the home-and-home but expect Pitt to come to them first.

This, hopefully, will be the last year they try to schedule such a weak non-con and will go on some more road games. They have to. The novelty for the Pete has worn off. Last year, they were not getting near the crowds for the non-con games because they were so bad. This year, they are struggling with attendance. So much so, that they were offering package deals for the non-con schedule — all 9 games plus the 2 exhibitions — for around $100 (Is that right, Pat?). Sure they may have been in the cheap seats, but the fact that they were resorting to that can’t be encouraging.

Well, Seth Davis and I have been blasting Pitt for it’s hideous non-con for 2 straight years, and they haven’t listened to us.

Sorry, had to vent. This was supposed to be about tomorrow. Well, in a minute. First, a positive. Chevon Troutman was named Big East Co-Player of the Week. He shares the honor with Hakim Warrick of Syracuse (PDF). Pitt moved up 2 spots in both polls. Now #12 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll and #11 in the AP Writers. That’s the one problem with railing against the weak non-con — hard to argue with the successful results so far.

The press releases are out for the Pitt-Memphis game in the Jimmy V Classic. As are the game notes (PDF). The good news is it is on ESPN at 7pm. The bad news, Dick Vitale will be involved. Here’s what Vitale has to say about the game.

Jimmy V would also be proud to see some of his coaching buddies hooking up on the court. In the first game, Memphis takes on Pittsburgh. The Panthers are underrated, because people talking about the Big East this season usually mention Syracuse and Connecticut but don’t include coach Jamie Dixon’s squad.

The Panthers have an outstanding inside-outside duo with Carl Krauser at the point and Chris Taft inside. They can create an unbelievable dilemma for most clubs defensively. Chevon Troutman is a force on the boards, and Pitt plays tremendous defense.

Memphis is an athletic team, but early in the season the Tigers have had to search for their identity. They’ve had a difficult time playing five-on-five basketball. But they do an outstanding job in transition and on the offensive boards.

For coach John Calipari’s team to be successful, Sean Banks has to be a star, living up to his billing by playing to the level he’s capable of. Memphis has been a Dow Jones team — up and down, baby! Rodney Carney is happy to be back at the mecca of college basketball, Madison Square Garden. He was so impressive in the Coaches vs. Classic event.

So it’s the athleticism of Memphis against the defensive ability of Pittsburgh.

At least the phrase “diaper dandy” wasn’t used (yet).

Storylines you can expect regarding Pitt during the game (mostly culled from the game notes): The NYC connections for Pitt (Krauser, Taft, Ramon, McCarroll, Milligan, DeGroat and Benjamin); Pitt is 11-3 at MSG since 2002; 20 straight wins against non-con opponents (obviously excluding the NCAA Tournament); defense, defense, defense; John Calipari was an assistant at Pitt under Coach Paul Evans in the 80s.

I’m a bit rusty on game notes for basketball, so the first try may not be the best.

You know it won’t be easy to post today, when your daughter sits bolt upright the minute she hears the door close behind the wife. Kid’s been up from the get go. PBS is mixing pledge drives into sesame Street to disrupt any chance for a real break — the kid is properly bothered by this, especially the one guy with (I swear this is true) a frozen gelled mullet cajoling membership pledges.

Plenty of stories, though. You can order individual tickets or get a travel package.

I have to conclude that the sportswriters in Pittsburgh have a lot personally invested in having Coach Harris leave Pitt.

Pitt’s football turnaround this season has been remarkable, but it only sets up another strange chapter in the tenure of Walt Harris. Insiders still don’t believe the Big East Coach of the Year will be back. The late-season run and BCS bowl berth still hasn’t gotten him a vote of confidence from the university and by most accounts, it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t seem happy to stay anyway.

Had the Panthers finished 5-6, this would be normal. But now, it’s like a married couple that hasn’t been getting along, heading toward divorce, and suddenly they find out they are pregnant. What to do now, what to do?

Again, see Tommy Tuberville and Auburn. The divorce was even further along. Now? Winning tends to cure a lot of the problems. I have no doubt that all could be worked out with sufficient coin.

In fact, with all the extra time before the bowl, there will be plenty of time to speculate, listen to rumors and ruminate.

Despite the fact that Pitt is the Big East co-champion, the Panthers are going to a lucrative bowl and Harris was voted Big East coach of the year by his colleagues in the conference, Harris’ future with the team remains unclear.

He has been pushing for a contract extension and a raise since before the season but has still not been offered one. Earlier this season, Harris’ agent, Bob LaMonte, publicly called out the administration and said the school needs to either extend his contract and offer him a raise or let him go. So far, the school has not addressed the situation and, as a result, speculation that the two sides will soon part ways has reached a fever pitch.

But unlike before the season — when his job was in jeopardy — Harris is negotiating from a position of strength and he has suddenly become a hot candidate for other vacancies around the country.

He is considered the top candidate for the vacant job as Stanford’s head coach and, according to the San Jose Mercury News, is expected to meet with Stanford athletic director Ted Leland this week to discuss it. Leland was formerly the athletic director at Pacific and hired Harris to be the head coach in 1989.

Harris also will likely have opportunities to become an offensive coordinator in the NFL, should he choose, as he has a number of ties to current head coaches and is widely regarded as a brilliant offensive coach.

Harris, who has two years remaining on a contract that pays him about $500,000 per year, denied last week that he has been contacted by Stanford and the school has not yet contacted Pitt for permission to talk to him, which is standard for school’s seeking to interview coaches still under contract. Now that the Panthers’ regular season is over, however, the talks should heat up.
…
Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko said Harris, who has been the subject of much criticism and has been under intense scrutiny this year, has proven his mettle and should take a bow for a job well done. He also said the administration should do whatever it takes to retain Harris.

“I’m happy for him, I’m proud of what he’s accomplished and how much he’s been a rock throughout this whole season,” Palko said. “He’s done a tremendous job and the administration would do a grave injustice in having him be anything less than our head football coach. They expect perfection, they want to have their cake and eat it to, but they should recognize he’s done a tremendous job.”

Regardless of what happens with Harris, the Fiesta Bowl berth is affirmation that he has successfully rebuilt the program into one of national prominence. That is a far cry from the ashes he inherited when he was hired after the 1996 season. The Panthers were coming off five consecutive losing seasons.

And that is something to take into account. Yes, there has been plenty of things going on that may have conflict with the administration. Yes, the fans (including me) have been impatient at times and ridden Harris. Yes, there are issues with recruiting and local relationships with WPIAL coaches. The fact is Pitt is going to a BCS Bowl under Coach Harris. He runs a clean program that is graduating players. This is everything we have wanted. We have to admit, that anyone looking in at the program would have to assume the people running Pitt are delusional and idiots.

I can’t help but suspect that the players are being, ahem, “coached up” a bit by Pitt’s information department when pushed on the deservedness of Pitt’s BCS bid:

Pitt, ranked No. 19 by The Associated Press and No. 20 by USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll, is the lowest-ranked team to play in the Fiesta Bowl under the BCS format. The Panthers, however, are already defending their presence.

“That’s the way it goes,” Pitt linebacker H.B. Blades said. “When Purdue went to the Rose Bowl, they weren’t even ranked. Nobody said anything about that.” Actually, two unranked teams played in the Rose Bowl under the BCS format: Stanford, which lost to Wisconsin, 17-9, in 1999; and Purdue, which lost to Washington, 34-24, in 2000.

I’ll leave that to Lee to defend that, as that was part of the special deal carved out for the Rose Bowl.

It doesn’t change things that Pitt is going to the Fiesta Bowl against Utah. Some see this as a match-up of underdogs.

The No. 5 Utes (11-0), the Mountain West Conference champions, became the first non-BCS affiliated school to earn an at-large berth by finishing in the top six in BCS standings and are aiming for a perfect finish.

“At Utah, we don’t just to go to bowl games; we go to win them,” said Utah coach Urban Meyer, who will leave for the University of Florida following the game. “There will be some distractions, but we’ll get this thing organized. The focus on this team is great. They want to go 12-0.”

Where Utah wants a perfect ending, Pitt is treating the Fiesta Bowl as a building block. The Panthers are vowing to use their fifth consecutive bowl berth — their third in Arizona, following two Insight Bowl appearances — as a stepping stone to greater things.

“We want to soak all this in,” Pitt sophomore linebacker H.B. Blades said. “Next year, we’re thinking about a national championship, not just the Big East.”

There is an inherent pressure for both teams to show that they are deserving of this opportunity, not that they are willing to succumb to such talk.

“I don’t think we need to add more pressure than there is on this game,” Pitt coach Walt Harris said. “This is our first experience in a BCS bowl. That experience will help us, because we plan on being back.”

But guess what. Utah fans are not happy.

It’s true that I spent Sunday afternoon walking around the University of Florida campus and am seriously considering becoming a permanent Urbanite, leaving everything behind to follow Urban Meyer’s football teams in the tradition of the Deadheads and other committed fans.

Yet you should know that on my way to Gainesville, I stopped Saturday in Tampa to check out the Pittsburgh Panthers, anticipating Utah’s Fiesta Bowl matchup and proving that Urban and I can devote some of our efforts to the Utes’ preparations this month, besides playing golf and assembling the Florida coaching staff.

Certainly, though, this is not the way anyone pictured the Utes’ historic entry into the Bowl Championship Series.

The BCS pairingswere released Sunday, leading me to fantasize about other matchups.

Games I would pay to watch: Utah-USC, Utah-Oklahoma, Utah-Auburn, Utah-Texas, Utah-Cal.

Game I would not pay to watch: Utah-Pittsburgh.

To be fair, this wasn’t the match-up I and I think a lot of Pitt fans wanted. Pitt-VT would have been my choice. Would have tanked in TV ratings, most likely, but you’d get a sellout and I think a fiercely competitive game.

The Salt Lake Tribune headline writer even busted out with a “Pitt” play on words. Fine, they’ve never faced Pitt, to them it’s original. Will be interesting to see how Pitt is fairing on ticket sales. Utah seems to be doing quite well:

Utah fans who want to make the trip to Tempe, Ariz., will have to get creative to land tickets if they haven’t already requested them. As of Sunday afternoon, Utah was allotted 19,000 tickets, but had already taken 26,000 orders, according to Dave Copier, Utah’s director of athletic ticket sales.

Copier said his office was still taking orders with the hopes that the Fiesta Bowl gives Utah more tickets, or ones Pittsburgh can’t sell.

The difference at this point, though, is that they have pretty much known where they were going for a week. It was still up in the air for Pitt with an outside shot of ending up at the Sugar Bowl.

Utah is installed as like a 15 point favorite. Everyone is expecting a wild offensive game, as the QBs seem to compare well:

Alex Smith versus Tyler Palko.

This year’s Heisman Trophy candidate versus next year’s Heisman Trophy candidate.

When Utah and Pittsburgh collide in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1, Smith and Palko could trigger the biggest offensive explosion of the BCS season.

Utah fans know all about Smith, the junior who has directed an offense that averaged 46 points per game.

But Palko?

“He’s a tough one,” Ute coach Urban Meyer said.

A sophomore, Palko has completed 56 percent of his passes and thrown for 23 touchdowns this season.

His numbers are Smith-like, for good reason.

He is Smith-like.

Well, now we know more about Alex Smith. Utah fans shouldn’t be that confident. You have the head coach trying to be in 2 different parts of the country at once, looking to the future and probably taking a few of his present coaches with him to Florida. The offensive coordinator is going to take the UNLV job. The defensive coordinator could be getting the BYU job. And who knows who will be in charge of Utah after January 1? In some ways, Pitt’s coaching situation seems more stable.

Utah fans are trying to learn more about Pitt and are getting crash courses so far.
Plenty more to come to be sure.

Finally, Pitt will play a real opponent. Not too many of these on Pitt’s pathetic non-con schedule. Have I mentioned how much I hate the non-con?

Part of it is purely selfish. I don’t live in the Pittsburgh media market. I have to rely on national games, and Pitt has scheduled itself any real national attention until the first week in December.

The other part is playing a pathetic non-con (only ND has a worse non-con in the Big East) , is that Pitt will get itself screwed come the NCAA Tourney in seeding. They were punished last year, and publicly called out by the committee, for all intents, to schedule a better non-con. Instead it is just as soft.

Okay, I’m done venting. Looks like the local media and Pitt players are eager for a challenge, as well:

“I feel it’s a disadvantage for them,” Pitt point guard Carl Krauser said. “They’ve already had their pie. We didn’t have any of that pie yet, and we’re real hungry. We want a slice of pie. We want the whole pie, as a matter of fact.”

Somewhere in that food metaphor Krauser is saying the Panthers crave a tough opponent.

Memphis, coached by Pittsburgh native John Calipari, provides that first litmus test of the season for the Panthers. Pitt and Memphis square off in the first game of the Jimmy V Classic at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Madison Square Garden in New York. Syracuse and Oklahoma State play in the second game. Both games will be televised by ESPN.

“We’re all hungry for a good game, a good team,” Pitt sophomore center Chris Taft said. “No disrespect to Duquesne or these other teams we’ve been playing. We want to play against all the real good teams out there, and Memphis is one of them. It’s going to be a real good game.”

Yes, the John Calipari is from the Pittsburgh area (Moon Township) connection will be played up prominently in the Pittsburgh papers. That also means that his questionable moments leading to the NCAA watching him a little closer than some won’t get mentioned by them.

While Memphis is no longer in the top-25, they are a good team and the first one Pitt faces. Of course, while the game is technically a “neutral” site, with Pitt’s NYC pipeline and the Big East Tournament played there, it is a familiar place for Pitt.

Memphis has some good inside players in Banks and Carney, plus a freshman point guard, Darius Finch, who prefers to shoot and play offense then concentrate on defense. From what I saw, he seemed to be showing his speed on the defense against Purdue last week, so it seems he is coming around. Should be interesting to see how he handles Pitt’s defense.

This will also be Pitt’s first foe that can bang a bit inside with them. I expect that will have them offbalance for at least part of the first half. Perhaps even some foul trouble for Taft or Troutman.