I really wish I had more time. I hope to revisit this some time next week.

A bunch of stories on Walt Harris’ final game and what he accomplished at Pitt. Recommend reading all the stories at some point.

Quotes from Coach Harris at his final press conference before the Fiesta Bowl.

The players want to send Harris off to Stanford with a win. Looking forward, Wannstedt is coming in as the recognition for Pitt is on a definite upswing.

I defy anyone to read this column without having their brain pan feel like it is going to explode.

At his first Fiesta Bowl news conference this week, Walt Harris was asked about the accomplishments in his eight years as Pitt coach. It’s pretty well known that Harris is exceedingly proud of what he has achieved at Pitt, even if others — including his superiors and large segments of the media — do not seem to share that sentiment.

Harris pointed out that when he took the job, Pitt had won 15 games in the previous five years and had not been to a bowl game in nine years. He noted that it has been to six bowls games in his eight years. He talked about the impressive graduation rates of the past two years and how Pitt has had the most players on the Big East Conference all-academic team for four consecutive seasons.

It sounded impressive, and Harris, who leaves Pitt after tonight’s game against Utah to become coach at Stanford, has reason to be proud.

But he didn’t go nearly far enough in presenting his case.
…
And, finally, he could have said, “It’s taken a while, but we have this program where it should be.”

At which point, one of the reporters in attendance might have sprung to his feet and said:

“Coach, with that kind of record, why didn’t Pitt extend your contract?”

For reasons never made public, Pitt was determined not to extend Harris’ contract and thus forced him to look elsewhere. If he hadn’t taken the Stanford job, he would have been fired or, more likely, been brought back to coach out his contract, which had two years remaining.

This is a Smizik column. This much I promise, I will return to this column and Fisk it the way it deserves to be. For those with time, just look back through the PSB archives from this past August to date to get a good idea as to why Smizik suddenly hailing Harris like this is so galling. Hell, just start looking through Smizik’s past columns.

The best and must read of the day, regarding Harris, is Paul Zeise’s piece. Just read it all.