Man.

I’m alternatively flattered and disturbed.

The ego appreciates the e-mails and comments expressing concern and wondering if everything is alright.

It’s a little scary to realize how much this blog has come to mean to some of you.

Anyways, it was a long trip home from Portland with flight delays, cancellations and sitting on the tarmac for a while.

If I’m lucky, I’ll be back later today. If not, tomorrow for sure.

One of the stranger new rules passed by the NCAA:

…the NCAA Board of Directors voted April 28 to limit Division I media guides in all sports to 208 pages, in the interest of cost savings and leveling the playing field. The 2004 Pitt football guide ran 326 pages.

The 2004-05 Basketball Media Guide was about 295 pages.

This strikes me as a really stupid thing. This means the useful stuff like history and records may be struck from the media guides. Hopefully, they will just shift that sort of thing to being online, as a special supplement to get around the rule.

Over at ESPN.com, they have a poll on which team will win the Big East (hat tip, Chris).

Athlon Sports is releasing its pre-season top-25 one-by-one. Pitt is in at #23. They circle the November 7 game at Louisville as the deciding game for the Big East.

While not on their site yet, they also give some love to Pitt on their all-Big East team and more.

Individually, junior receiver Greg Lee (Tampa, Fla./Chamberlain) was named to AthlonÂ’s All-America Team. A second-team selection, Lee led the Big East and ranked fifth nationally with 1,297 receiving yards last year. He had 68 total receptions (19.1 avg.) and 10 TD catches.

Lee also was one of seven Pitt players named first team All-Big East by the magazine. He is joined by junior quarterback Tyler Palko (Imperial, Pa./West Allegheny), senior offensive lineman Charles Spencer (Poughkeepsie, N.Y./Trinity-Pawling School), junior linebacker H.B. Blades (Plantation, Fla./Plantation), senior cornerback Josh Lay (Aliquippa, Pa./Aliquippa), senior placekicker Josh Cummings (Newhall, Calif./College of the Canyons) and junior punter Adam Graessle (Dublin, Ohio/Dublin Coffman).

Additionally, the Panthers’ quarterbacks and receivers are rated No. 1 in the Big East.

Palko is one of the featured players on Athlon’s Eastern edition cover. The magazine includes an article on new Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt and will hit newsstands June 7.

On the subject of the Big East and ACC settling things. There’s a reason why there have been no press releases from Pitt or the schools:

Under the agreement, the Big East and ACC agreed not to “alert the media of this settlement” or hold a “press conference or briefing.”

Pitt athletic director Jeff Long declined comment and referred all queries to the public affairs office. Public affairs spokesperson Robert Hill could not be reached for comment.

Mike Parsons, West Virginia’s deputy athletic director, said, “We’re glad we’ve been able to resolve it and we look forward to moving on.”

Pitt, Rutgers, WVU and UConn also get some key non-con games.

Home-and-home series with appearance fees of $150,000 between Florida State and West Virginia, Rutgers and North Carolina, Connecticut and Virginia, and North Carolina State and Pittsburgh are scheduled to be played between 2008 and 2012. A single game sends Miami (Fla.) to Pitt on Sept. 11, 2010. Miami will be paid $225,000.

Other than the Miami game, there are no dates actually set. It was noted that FSU has never traveled to Morgantown under Bobby Bowden. Who’s to say Bowden will even be alive by the time they do.

Finally, a sort of Q&A piece from Matt Hayes explaining the new BCS system:

OK, let’s get this one out of the way: When will a playoff happen?

Never. Say it with me now: Never.

N-e-v-e-r.

Deal with it.

What is the main issue at the meetings?

Replacing the Associated Press poll because AP decided after last season not to be part of this lovely process. There were a handful of ideas of how to do it, but the winner is a new human poll from the National Football Foundation that will include votes from former players, coaches and administrators.

Believe me when I say this idea was the best of the lot. Among the other gems: a selection committee (read: smoked-filled room, secret deals) that would render polls useless; having the coaches and computer polls stand on their own (read: the wizard behind the curtain). Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione suggested having all 117 coaches vote, then having a computer randomly pick a set number of votes every week that would count toward the poll. He called it a “Supreme Court” formula. Supply your own Supreme punch line here.

What makes this new poll more legitimate than the AP poll?

It’s not, but look at the alternatives. The BCS fathers want to eliminate “integrity” issues that cropped up last year with some strange happenings in the AP poll (see: Texas media voters jumping the Longhorns over Cal in the last poll of the season). The new poll will use a set number of voters from each region.

Then again, is someone going to try to tell me Tom Osborne wouldn’t have voted Auburn over Oklahoma last year because, well, he never liked that Switzer guy anyway?
…

What about automatic qualification for the BCS?

This is tricky. In previous years, the automatic qualification for the BCS conferences was based on their champions having an average ranking of at least 12 over a four-year period. Now, that stance is softening a bit.

Weiberg says any BCS conference champion (read: the Big East) that doesn’t reach the average ranking can appeal. The appeal can be based on numerous factors, including — ta-da! — television market value. In other words, the Big East-firmly planted in the Northeast-isn’t going anywhere, no matter how pathetic it becomes.

Bottom line: The appeal process was instituted so the BCS didn’t have to eat one of its own and look even worse than it already does.

All that matters is that Pitt and the Big East isn’t going anywhere in the BCS.

Joining the Big East has apparently done something to the powers-that-be at Marquette. Either that or they have a twisted joke working right about now. According to Marquette Hoops, they will not be the Golden Eagles or go back to the Warriors. They are the Gold. They have a copy of the new logo.

Here’s the actual press release.

The Big East will now have the Orange and the Gold. I am now in fear that St. John’s will shorten themselves to the Red, or that Rutgers will follow by dropping “Knights” and simply be the Scarlet.

We just came out of the wilderness of 8 years of Pitt trying to enforce “Pittsburgh,” Go over and give your sympathies.

So Kevin Pittsnogle is looking at possibly going pro. The way he has personally killed Pitt this past year, we can only hope.

Seth Davis has a good piece about the NCAA politics going into moving the 3-point line back from 19′ 9″ to the International line of 20′ 6″. The lane might also get widened, but I wouldn’t count on it. Interesting to learn that it would cost around $15,000 to strip and paint a new line and wider lane. Make the decision soon. Pitt will already have to strip the surface for the new logo.

Ken Pomeroy has some nifty charts on the way the college game has been played. He notes the every slower pace of the games as teams play more and more defense, and the continuing increase in number of 3-point shots per game.

Well, not regarding Boston College, but maybe some other members of the ACC.

The Big East and Atlantic Coast conferences have settled their legal differences over school defections with an agreement worth about $5 million, a newspaper reported Tuesday night.

Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and West Virginia signed off on the agreement, which drops lawsuits between the conferences, their member schools and officers, The Hartford Courant reported on its Web site.

UConn has already received $1 million as its share of the settlement, the newspaper reported, citing documents released Tuesday by the state attorney general’s office in response to a Freedom of Information request.

These are the BE football schools that fought back. Syracuse was never a part of it, because early on they were going to be one of the bolt-ers not a bolt-ee.

A series of rulings and lawsuits ensued. The lawsuit against Miami and Boston College by the four Big East Schools remained standing and was headed to trial before the parties agreed to mediation.

The settlement was finalized April 27 in Rockville Superior Court. It discharges Boston College’s obligation to pay a withdrawal fee required by the Big East constitution.

The Courant, citing unnamed sources, reported that an additional $1 million of the settlement will essentially serve as Boston College’s exit fee and the four Big East schools named in the agreement will share equally in the settlement.

The settlement document does not specify the total settlement amount or how the payment was split between Miami, Boston College and the ACC.

Here’s the article from the Hartford Courant.

Now all that remains is enforcing an unofficial ban against ever playing Boston College again.

Todd McShay at Scouts, Inc. does “a preseason look ahead at the 2006 NFL draft landscape” (Insider Subs.) by position (meaning juniors and seniors). Two things I noticed, Louisville has a lot of players littered throughout these lists, offering further reasons why Louisville is getting all the early love coming into the BE. How they handle the expectations is something else. The BE has been a killing field for pre-season selections the last few years. The other is that while Pitt may not place a lot in the top-5 part, there are several at least making the “others” portion.

Tyler Palko came in at #11 on QBs.

Wide Receivers
…
4. Greg Lee*, Pittsburgh
Lee had a breakout season as a sophomore in 2004, when he finished sixth in the nation with 1,297 receiving yards. Another season like that and it will be awfully tempting to take off for the NFL.

John Simonitis was listed #6 for Offensive Guards.

Outside Linebackers
…
3. H.B. Blades*, Pittsburgh
Another in the long line of Blades with NFL tools. H.B. led the Panthers with 108 tackles last season and will be back to wreak havoc as a junior in 2005. He lacks ideal height (5-11), but is well-built (245 pounds) and athletic. He also hits like a truck.

Josh Lay made the list at #19 for Cornerbacks.

Also, ESPN the Magazine has a brief article on Coach Wannstedt on the college football page (pg 116, issue dated May 9 with Rashard Lewis and Shawn Marion on the cover). Nothing in there really that hasn’t been covered in various articles: Wanny re-learning the college games and the officiating; changing the offensive philosophy; and speed on defense.

Wow. I think the longest I’ve gone without posting on PSB in a year or so. We are definitely in the dead period.

Now I know we’ve discussed the Pitt changes in name and unis. We aren’t the only ones considering a back to the future in name.

The boys over at the Marquette Hoops blog are wondering what the nickname of their school will be. The announcement is tomorrow.

In Cincinnati, they are “updating” their logo. They weren’t going to reveal it until sometime after they officially joined the Big East, but it got leaked. The students wereren’t impressed.

The old C-Paw was fine and the university’s decisions on the entire process of revitalizing its brand were quite ugly.

The new C-Paw is simply an italicized version of the old one. And the claws on the old one didn’t resemble sixes. The older C-Paw, the one the students have come to know and love, isn’t even that old. It was created only 15 years ago to be exact. So what is the problem with a 15-year-old logo?

Not to mention the money and who did it.

The worst thing about the new paw is that the design was outsourced. Why would the university ask a design firm to invent our new logo when we have one of the best design schools in the nation, DAAP, within our grasp?

What a waste of resources!

To think, that $35,000 went to a company instead of a scholarship for a student or for reward money. Just imagine…

A contest, where students, from all schools in the university could send in their submissions and a panel of students, a student vote or a panel of alumni could have picked the best one. Then that student would win a monetary reward or a scholarship.

It would have been a way to get students involved in some of the decision-making on campus and given the university the image that the administration takes the students and their opinions into consideration.

This outsourcing decision makes it seem as if the like university is acting as a corporation. They spent $35,000, which to most college student sounds like a lot of money, but to corporation University of Cincinnati it is just pennies. It seems inconsiderate to outsource an uninspired new logo when there are thousands of students here with more creativity.

Obviously it’s about stimulating sales. They aren’t abandoning the “C-Paw,” just altering it.