Well, it obviously didn’t make it into Coach Wannstedt’s press conference yesterday, but there was some extra activity.
Yesterday, things came to a head when the offense squared off against the defense and got in a brouhaha. The two sides had to be separated.
The hit that set things in motion came when linebacker J.J. Horne laid out running back Rashad Jennings after Jennings caught a short pass over the middle. Offensive tackle Mike McGlynn protested the hit and was shouted down by members of the defense.
The next play, wide receiver Joe DelSardo caught a pass and was hammered by safety Sam Bryant. DelSardo was on the ground for a few minutes, but he got up and walked off on his own.
Before DelSardo hit the ground, quarterback Tyler Palko led the charge of offensive players into the pile in protest of the hits in what was supposed to be a two-minute drill. No punches were thrown, but there was plenty of shoving and trash talking. Cooler heads prevailed and practice quickly resumed at an even higher intensity level.
DelSardo himself, was the one after practice, downplaying it as no big thing. Clearly the Junior is doing what he can to assume a leadership role on the team. It is a bit of a natural role for DelSardo. He earned his teammates respect last year when the former walk-on was given a scholarship and stepped up to be a solid #2 receiver for Pitt.
The major issue is, of course, who will earn the starting running back position.
Since the Pitt Panthers added shoulder pads to their practice uniforms Saturday, the running backs appeared to get a little more work than they did the first couple days, and now players can begin to separate from a huge pack of candidates.
Pitt has a baker’s dozen players listed as either running back or fullback on its roster, and freshman Irvan Brown already moved to cornerback after a couple practice days.
Freshman Rashad Jennings, an early enrollee, ended the spring as the No. 1 tailback, but senior Tim Murphy did not practice after having off-season surgery. And frosh LaRod Stephens-Howling had not yet enrolled in school.
“Right now, Murphy is working at fullback and tailback,” Wannstedt said. “I think we’ve got to give him a day or two of full pad work, tackling work, when we’re doing live inside drills. And then we’ll make a determination about whether we’ll leave him at fullback or not.
“Rashad Jennings has really picked up where he left off in the spring. There’s nothing negative there, but it’s just the addition of Murphy and LaRod Stephens has changed the picture of that position a little bit.
“And (freshman) Conredge Collins probably is in a similar boat to Murphy,” Wannstedt added. “We have to determine if he has a better chance to play and help the team at tailback or is it at fullback.”
(Now, if you are like me, you might have been distracted by the question of “where the hell did the Stephens-Howling hyphenated last name come from?” Or maybe you just glossed over it. As far as I can tell, Stephens is his mother’s maiden/kept name. His father is Rodney Howling. As a guess, I’d say there has been something of a reconciliation, resulting in him hyphenating his last name to honor both as of late. But I digress.)
The one hope, of course, is that injuries don’t determine the job. The logjam at RB is interesting, because, despite my hope of seeing Stephens-Howling (we’ll see how long that lasts) as a good change of pace back, Wannstedt and Cavanaugh have a noticeable history of favoring just one back for the entire season. Whether Pitt has a back that can handle that kind of load remains to be seen. My personal view is that it would be a mistake. It may require more work and expecting a lot more out of the offensive line, but the idea of using at least 2 backs right now that offer such different running styles seems more appealing and likely to cause more problems for defenses. Not to mention, reducing dissatisfaction among the corps and transfers.
Conredge Collins is doing his best to earn the starting role. Seems to be missing chances to see the fair city. The piece, though, is one of the few to indicate that Furman and Kirkley are getting more than a fair chance to get the starter’s role.
