Sure, throw some cold water in my face. Ivan Maisel makes a good point in today’s (Aug 17) “3 point stance,”

All those freshmen who are lighting it up for your team in preseason practice? See if you read their names once classes begin, which is happening as early as this week. Coaches always expect freshmen heads to swim — and performance to suffer — once academics arrive.

This might be where someone like Rashad Jennings might get the advantage over Conredge Collins, LaRod Stephens and Shane Brooks for the starting tailback. He’s been at Pitt taking classes since January.

It’s official. College GameDay is going to be at Pitt for the opening game.

College football’s favorite road show will broadcast from the North Shore beginning at 10:30 a.m. in anticipation of Pitt’s showdown with Notre Dame at Heinz Field that night.

College GameDay features hosts Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso. Additionally, Desmond Howard joins the crew this year as a weekly contributor and analyst. The show runs every Saturday during the season from 10:30 a.m. to noon.

The show last visited Pittsburgh in 2003, when the Panthers defeated Virginia Tech, 31-28.

Details for fans planning on attending this year’s College GameDay broadcast will be forthcoming.

Fire up the VCRs and the TiVOs.

Coach Wannstedt had a press conference after the early practice. Pitt will practice again at 7pm tonight. The night practices will take added importance since 2 of the first 3 games will be under the lights.

He wouldn’t actually say that Bill Stull looks to be ahead of Shane Murray for the backup QB job, but it sure sounds like it in the context of talking about playing freshmen.

On playing freshmen:

I’m nervous about talking about freshmen. It’s like talking about rookies in the NFL. You know you’re going to need them, you know they’re going to have to play for you, but you don’t want to take anything away from the upperclassmen that have paid the price. At this point in camp you want to make sure you give them the first opportunity. I see Tommie Campbell, (John) Pelusi, (LaRod) Stephens, maybe a running back or two. There are probably going to be a half-dozen freshmen. Billy Stull has really made progress every day. I’m really encouraged by where he’s at at this point, so we’re going to have some of the young guys play for us and that’s what’s going to give us a little more depth.

He’s also very happy with how the secondary is looking. On defense, he’s been pleased with the linebackers. The d-line is where he still has concerns.

Apparently Mark May has been preaching the Pitt gospel on ESPN, and someone asked him about it.

On Mark May’s prediction of a fast start for Pitt this year:

[Mark May] is an enthusiastic alum; I love it. It would be nice if he was working for Merrill Lynch and not ESPN, where his comments are heard, but it doesn’t put pressure on us. We’re going to do everything we can to win as many games as we can, but what that number is I have no clue. I think it would be a mistake to look any further than the first one.

Leave the looking ahead to the fans and pundits and pseudo-pundits.

Jason Taylor of the Miami Dolphins became a top defensive player (and very well compensated) under Coach Dave Wannstedt. He is optimistic for Pitt and Wannstedt.

Count Taylor among those who believe former Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt will be successful as the new head coach at the University of Pittsburgh.

“He’s a good football coach,” Taylor said. “The pressures in college will be a little less than they were in the NFL and I think it’ll work out for him. Dave can come into anybody’s home and tell you why you should send your kid to his school. He’ll talk you into it. Dave can convince you to send your kid to his school and he’ll take care of him and try to help him grow up and show him the way. Dave’s a great guy. I love Dave and I always will.”

Meanwhile former Pitt safety Tyrone Gilliard is only one class away from graduating, so he’s coming back to Pittsburgh to take it. In the meantime, he’s been home in West Virginia helping with his old high school team. Obviously written and/or edited by a graduate of WVU’s J-school, the piece keeps referring to Pitt’s defensive coordinator, Paul Rhoads, as “Paul Rose” — at least fact check the easy things, guys. Gilliard does want to keep playing football. He’s also very high on Pitt this year.

Gilliard’s agent is talking to some Arena Football League teams and a few National Football League clubs.

“Even if a deal is put together, I’m going to get my degree before reporting to camp,” Gilliard explained, “because the Arena League doesn’t begin its season until after the first of the year.”
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As he heads back to Pitt, Gilliard believes his old college team will be ready to make waves in the Big East, with the hiring of Dave Wannstedt as the Panthers’ new head coach. Wannstedt was the Miami Dolphins’ head coach last year and had previously served as head coach of the Chicago Bears.

“I’ve met Coach Wannstedt, and he’s a good person and terrific coach,” Gilliard said. “I still have a lot of friends on the team at Pitt. I know they’ll do well for him. In a way, I wish I had one more year of college eligibility so I could play for him.”

Finally, there was a piece on early Pitt commit, Nate Nix and his upcoming senior year.

Because of popular demand, what is likely the final installment of Levon’s excellent adventure.

The Canadian U-21 team returned to — indifference.

There were no crowds waiting, and the only autographs they had to sign were for a commemorative basketball likely destined for the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame.

But the band of tall, weary men who arrived at Lester B. Pearson International Airport yesterday had all the proof they needed of their place in Canadian basketball history. They had bronze medals dangling from their necks and the memory of the game of their lives that helped them win the medals: a 93-90 overtime thriller over the powerhouse United States at the under-21 world championship in Argentina last Friday.
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“I think [the continuity] was huge,” said Levon Kendall, the former Vancouver high-school star who is entering his third season at the University of Pittsburgh and has been with the team all four summers. “I remember the first year we went down to Venezuela and it was a shock, just the speed and physicality of the international game. Each year, we got more and more confident playing against other guys from around the world, seeing you can actually match up with them. That was a big thing.”

Given his veteran status, it was fitting that Kendall delivered one of the most impressive performances in Canadian basketball history. Facing an undefeated U.S. team packed with several future first-round National Basketball Association selections, Kendall scored a tournament-best total of 40 points in the overtime win.

As a group, the tall men at the airport said they hoped they had made a statement about where Canadian basketball is headed.

As the refuge of Canadians too tall and skinny for hockey?

Kendall was the leading scorer and rebounder for Canada.

Even Greg Doyel at Sportsline gave him some love.

This is Dennis Dodd’s at Sportsline. I’ll spare everyone the suspense. Louisville #1, Pitt #2.

1. Louisville: Size and speed. No school in the country has as much of each. Tailback Michael Bush is a 6-foot-3, 250-pound burner who played quarterback in high school. Joshua Tinch, 6-3, 233, is ready to take over for departed J.R. Russell as the go-to receiver. The offensive line averages 319.6 pounds

The defense finished a surprising 15th nationally. How about a 17-year-old defensive end with two years experience (Amobi Okoye)? How about a juco transfer linebacker who was one of the top players in the country coming out of high school (Nate Harris)? The only question defensively is in the secondary, where three starters have to be blended in.

2. Pittsburgh: Steel Town is jazzed about the return of homeboy Dave Wannstedt as coach. After a BCS bowl, the Panthers will be re-made a little bit on offense, as a power running team. That won’t have much of an impact on quarterback Tyler Palko. It will actually help him in play-action mode.

Unfortunately, Louisville is the new tormentor, replacing Miami. Pittsburgh doesn’t have the defense to measure up to the Cardinals’ powerful offense when the teams meet Nov. 3 at Louisville.

All the pressure is on Louisville not to spit.

The Pitt coaches are feeling good about the linebacking corp.

Pitt linebackers coach Curtis Bray believes he has five players who are worthy of working with the first team.

“The tough thing for me is, we can only start three,” Bray said Tuesday.

H.B. Blades, who some rate as the best ‘backer in the Big East, is a fixture in the middle of the Panthers’ 4-3 scheme. J.J. Horne and Brian Bennett play on the weak side. Clint Session and Derron Thomas are on the strong side.
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“J.J. Horne and Clint Session, in my mind, are both starters,” coach Dave Wannstedt said. “We’re going to rotate those guys around a bit more. Blades will be the only one that doesn’t move.

The real good news for those of us who agonized over Pitt’s tackling last year, Clint Session seems to have finally understood something.

Last season, Session showed he has a nose for the ball. The trouble is, he didn’t always execute once he got to the ballcarrier.

“It’s true,” Session said. “I missed a lot of tackles.”

Session started every game at strong-side ‘backer, and finished with 91 hits.

“I came in second on the team,” Session said. “I could have been first if I had made those tackles. Coach Bray and (defensive coordinator Paul) Rhodes have been drumming that into my head. I use it as motivation.”

Session is among the two or three hardest hitters on the team. He thrives on it. Yet, his desire to rattle somebody else’s teeth sometimes gets in the way of his fundamentals.

That was a problem for most of the d-line last year. All too often they would get to the runner, but rather than wrap him up, they would just hit — and miss or glance off.

The strong linebackers theme is repeated but with the idea of this group trying to leave their mark like the group from 2002.

The core members of that group — Bennett, juniors H.B. Blades and Clint Session and senior J.J. Horne — are all grown up now and poised to help the Panthers’ defense rise to the top again.

“The year before [in 2002] the defense was outstanding and that was a lot because there was a group of linebackers led by Gerald Hayes and Brian Beinecke,” Bennett said. “Those guys all played young as well, but they grew up together and, by then, they were mature and experienced and really dominated teams every week. It all came together for them and we’d like to be the same kind of unit.

“H.B., Clint and J.J. and me — we want to leave our mark like that 2002 group did.”

So far, the freshmen are getting plenty of ink pixels and climbing the depth charts. Speed and the best players are definitely ruling. Freshman CB Tommie Campbell is the latest, to rise to second team and will be getting in on special teams.

Freshman WR Oderick Turner is still getting positive reviews. Right now in the battle for back-up QB Bill Stull is working with the second team and Shane Murray with the third. Coach Wannstedt, however, says that they are “interchangeable” at this point so don’t read anything into that.

John Simonitis, the starting Right Guard is back from a hamstring injury.