Well known ND shill Tom Lemming is raving about ND’s recruiting class and giving some respect to Pitt.

The recruiting efforts of Weis and his staff thus far have Notre Dame sitting at No. 2 nationally among recruiting classes, according to recruiting analyst Tom Lemming. ND’s season-opening opponent — coached by another first-year coach coming in from the NFL, Dave Wannstedt — also finds itself in the national top 10. Pittsburgh is rated seventh, based on verbal commitments to this point. Texas is No. 1.

“I haven’t seen Pitt get off to a start like this since the early ’80s, when they were still in their glory years,” said Lemming, whose weekly recruiting show “Tom Lemming’s Generation Next” debuts on CSTV Thursday at 6:30 EST (7:30 EDT).

“Wannstedt has been working recruiting almost like Charlie. But then again, I’m not sure anyone’s worked it like Charlie.”

The article gets strangely obnoxious because Coach Wannstedt mixed up a couple of the ND assistants during a press conference. Very odd.

A press release from some handicapper services picks Pitt.

Pittsburgh -3
Things likely to improve at Notre Dame, but perhaps not this quickly. Pitt still looking to prove something have plenty of talent back and more than enough motivation to beat ND at home to start the season. Lay the points.

Okay.

Since May, I have been banging on the NCAA mandate to cut all media guides to a maximum 208 pages. I have said from the beginning that what they would cut, wouldn’t be the fluff and the stuff they use to try and sell the school and program to recruits — it would be the stats and records.

Pat Forde’s column calls out one of the biggest examples of this malfeasance.

As is so often the case with NCAA rules, the intent was outflanked by the schools’ reaction. Instead of trimming the fat, many schools eradicated or drastically reduced the history of their programs and kept the recruiting propaganda.

“This is what the coach wanted,” came the apologetic response from one SID trying to explain why his guide had lost so much of its useful information. “And what the coach wants, the coach gets.”

The Dash’s favorite version of football Pravda belongs to Iowa (32), where the program has apparently just sprouted out of the cornfields within the last 12 months. (This should come as surprising news to Hayden Fry.) There is no year-by-year record of anything the Hawkeyes did before 2004, no school records, no bowl history.

If the Hawkeyes should start the season, say, 8-0, the media will report that it’s the first time since … uh, well … we don’t know when. If quarterback Drew Tate should throw for 500 yards in a game, it could well be a school record … but we really wouldn’t be able to tell you that for sure.

But let’s look at what you do get: 144 pages of recruiting top spin titled “Why Iowa” to start the guide, including 16 consecutive pages trumpeting Iowa’s success putting players in the NFL (in case the point didn’t sink in, the back page of the guide reiterates the current Hawkeyes in the NFL). There are a mere eight pages on Minister of Information/head coach Kirk Ferentz (33), including a section entitled “Coach Kirk on Kirk.” Eight pages apparently were not enough to include Ferentz’s career record. (It’s 42-31, in case you’re wondering.)

And on page 17, recruits are shown pictures of Bill Cosby and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. The caption’s unspoken message: Dear African-American player: See, black people really do come to Iowa City! By next year, we’ll try to update this page with a picture of Fifty Cent!

Sadly predictable. Forde also offers the following thought on the game on Saturday.

Notre Dame at Pittsburgh (17): Which NFL expatriate coach gets his first college Gatorade bath? Huge game for both teams: Notre Dame has five ranked opponents on the schedule, and this might be the most beatable of the group; Pitt could be favored in its next seven games if it starts with a victory here. Loser finds its immense offseason optimism doused.

This is what I said, last week.

One way or the other, in a week Pitt or ND faithful are about to have expectations tempered.

Pitt needs to win. There can be no risk of a certain incident that took place on the South Side after the loss a couple years ago.

Collegiate Licensing Company is the organization responsible for licensing the use of university logos on everything from t-shirts to putters to golf bags to grill covers to mascot mobiles that play the fight song (I have to get one for the next kid) to coffins (for those of you who haven’t read RJYH, I’m not kidding about the last). Well, they are starting a new holiday: College Colors Day.

What is it? Aside from the obvious ploy to get people to buy more gear?

College Colors Day, which coincides with both “back to school” on campus and the kick-off of the college football season, seeks to celebrate and promote the traditions and spirit that drive collegiate athletics by encouraging fans, alumni and students to wear apparel of their favorite college throughout the day of September 2.

I wish I were making this up.

Some other stories.

The Notre Dame Offensive Line is a source of strength and continuity. Unlike Pitt’s.

The Irish’s first-string linemen — center Bob Morton, tackles Ryan Harris and Mark LeVoir, and guards Dan Stevenson and Dan Santucci — combine for nearly 100 games’ worth of experience.

LeVoir has started the past 24 in a row. Morton and Stevenson have started 22 apiece.

John Sullivan, who is listed on the depth chart as the backup center, started all 12 games last season. He is expected to get ample playing time against Pitt as part of a four-player rotation at the guard and center spots.

“We have four guys who can start on the interior,” Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said. “All four will play. The benefit of that (is) you end up keeping them fresh.”
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Pitt’s first-team line consists of tackles Charles Spencer and Mike McGlynn, guards Dom Williams and John Simonitis and center Joe Villani.

“They (the Irish) are a good unit, but you can’t really compare us to them,” McGlynn said.

“With us, everything is sort of new, from a personnel standpoint,” Wannstedt said. “Simonitis is really the only one that was in the lineup on Opening Day a year ago.”

Simonitis is a third-year starter. He has played in 22 games, including 19 starts, in his career.

McGlynn, a red-shirt sophomore, became the starting right tackle five games into last season.

Williams redshirted as a freshman last year. He had a solid spring camp, and fills the vacancy created when Spencer was switched from guard to tackle.

Spencer, a fifth-year senior, was a backup defensive tackle in 2002 and ’03. He started every game at left guard last year, and earned All-Big East honors.

For all the talk of ND having a more vertical game, with their O-line and running back Darius Walker, they are going to pound the ball — a lot. Yes, they have a big playbook, but it seems that they should have a focus on running to set up the pass.

Even the in Syracuse where they host WVU to start the season, the student paper knows what is the game of the weekend.

DT Thomas Smith (not Charles as the article says) was back in practice and in pads, but looked stiff and slow. Clint Session was not in pads but on the sidelines doing conditioning exercises and stretching. And if you like glitter.

The ADT national championship trophy, which is awarded to the winner of the BCS title game, will be in Pittsburgh this weekend. The crystal football will be on display from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday at the U.S. Steel Tower and from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Saturday outside Heinz Field.

The other time the ADT Trophy was at Heinz Field was in 2003, when Pitt upended Virginia Tech. Notre Dame is 1-4 when the trophy is in the house, with the lone victory coming in 1993 against Florida State.

That trophy ways 37 pounds (presumably that includes the pedestal).

Joe Starkey gives love to the way the Irish schedule.

Tyler Palko promises to watch his mouth. To which I say, “F–k that.”

It seems Pitt has been working on recent commit Ricky Gary for some time.

“They’ve been on me ever since I was a sophomore,” Gary said. “Coach Wannstedt, he was recruiting me the hardest. Anytime the head coach recruits you, it shows they really want you.”

Finally, oft-forgotten and lost in the shuffle, Tez Morris the senior free safety gets a well-deserved puff piece from his local paper in Ohio.

Some athletes find it difficult to accept that they’re entering the final year in their college career, but Morris said he couldn’t wait for this season to get started and began thinking about it as soon as spring ball ended.

“This is my last go-around,” Morris said. “This is what it’s all about, and I’ve got to step into that leader role. I have to stop messing up and play perfect all season, but it’s time to stop talking about it and start playing.”

We hope so.

It’s about the coaches. It’s the compelling storyline. There’s no sense in pretending otherwise.

Weis said he had declined overtures from ABC Sports to tape ”drop-ins” — brief bits of canned insight and information — for use during its telecast of the Irish-Pittsburgh season opener Saturday (7 p.m., Ch. 7, 890-AM).

“I told them, ‘Why don’t you go to the players?'” Weis said Tuesday. “‘Why don’t you go get Brady Quinn on tape? Why don’t you get Brandon Hoyte?'”

On the other side of Youngstown, first-year Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt had a different take on the request: “Why not? That sort of stuff is great for promoting your program, whoever they want to use.”

The note piece doesn’t say whether they did use ND players or not.

Once the game starts, then it is something else:

“This game is between players, not between coaches,” Weis said. “I think a lot of times the fanfare and the attention goes toward the coaches — but in reality it comes down to which team executes the best.”

For Weis, Saturday’s game will be the first true referendum on how well his team has absorbed the changes he and his staff have implemented, everything from a new offensive system to a fresh defensive lineup that includes just three returning starters.
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Personnel, Wannstedt said, would be the key. When he was the Bears head coach, Wannstedt couldn’t get his teams past Mike Holmgren’s Packers, compiling a 1-11 record in six seasons. In his first game as head coach of the Dolphins in 2000, he went against Holmgren’s Seahawks.

“We beat them 23-0, intercept them six times,” Wannstedt said. “Mike is shaking my hand after the game, and he says, ‘God those plays didn’t look the same as they did when [Packers quarterback] Brett Favre was running them, did they?'”

Hey, have you heard that both coaches were in the NFL? Yeah, I managed to miss that factoid too. That startling piece of information led the P-G to run a timely story on pro-level coaches coming back to college. Cutting edge. Hasn’t been beaten into the ground around the country for the last couple of years. I mean, there have been some small stories out there regarding someone named Pete Carroll. Here and there stuff on Al Groh, Chan Gailey, Mike Shula,Sylvesterr Croom and so on — occasionally. No one ever mentions poor Rich Brooks at Kentucky, though. Same with Ron Zook. Why is that?

When Wannstedt and Weis are out recruiting, though, they like to use props.

Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis likes to flash his 2004 Super Bowl ring when chatting up high school recruits.

Since returning to his alma mater, Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt has worn two rings that are much older, but also are testaments to devotion.

“My wedding ring and my Pitt national championship ring,” Wannstedt said, smiling.
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“I use the ring more for recruiting,” Weis said. “Everyone knows that when a kid is trying to decide among Division I programs, one of (his) aspirations is to play in the NFL. The ring is a symbol of being at the height of the NFL.”

Weis has not bothered to show the current Fighting Irish players his jewelry collection. He prefers to express that message to them verbally.

“It’s not the ring itself and the bling-bling,” Weis said. “It’s what it stands for.”

Wannstedt said that if he did not have a Pitt ring, he probably would wear his Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl ring or University of Miami national championship ring.

“It means, hey, you’ve been there,” Wannstedt said. “You’ve been the very best at what you do in your profession. There’s not many people in any profession — there’s not many coaches, at any level — that have been the very best at what they do. It’s something that adds credibility to what you’re doing.”

I’ll give Weis credit for a solidly crafted, self-effacing, one liner regarding rings and recruiting.

“I wear them any time recruiting is possible,” Weis said. “Every one of the kids you’re recruiting to a Division I school aspires to play on Sunday. So when you sit there and flash a ring on them, they’re not looking at your face, they’re looking at your hand.

“Like I tell my wife, if I can get them to look at my hand instead my face, I got a chance.”

For Charlie Weis, unplugged here’s his press conference from yesterday.

Q. What significance or importance do you put on the fact that you have two passionate head coaches going back to their alma maters and playing each other in the first game against each other on such a stage?

COACH WEIS: I think Dave (Wannstedt) would say the same thing that I would say, is that this game is between players, not between coaches. I think a lot of times the fanfare and the attention goes toward the coaches and the coaching staff, but in reality it comes down to which team executes the better, the best.

Both teams are going to be well prepared. I don’t think that’s going to be the issue, then comes down to who executes the best. Like I said before, I have a lot of respect for Dave and his entire staff. I don’t think this should be about Dave and I. I think it should be about University of Pittsburgh versus University of Notre Dame.
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Q. You mentioned Dave Wannstedt as a defensive guru, and you’ve been called an offensive guru. Describe how your styles go against each either as pertains to Saturday?

COACH WEIS: Dave is a really good coach, and remember, it’s not just Dave, they have Rhoads there who is a good coordinator who he kept. When he came in there, he kept Rhoads. I think that their philosophies are interesting because, you know, I know Dave; Dave knows me. Now, that doesn’t mean that’s what’s going to end up happening, but now you have to throw the other factors, the other factors that are involved: Who are the other players that are involved; and by players, I mean, the other coaches that have an influence on defensive game plans and offensive game plans. I think that this is going to come down to, I don’t think there’s going to be a trick game. This is going to come down to an execution game.

Finally, a puff piece on Coach Wannstedt from the Chicago Sun-Times (warning, Beano Cook quotes in the story).

“Right now, the immediate goal is just to get off the bus Saturday night and get going,” said Wannstedt, Pitt Class of ’74, master’s of education, 1976. “But I hope that one day that night is looked back upon as the night that the University of Pittsburgh began its climb back to being a team consistently ranked nationally in the top 10 and beyond.”

Soon, or at least for a Saturday night, it will be all about the game, the teams and the players — not the coaches.

Following up on Trevor Ferguson. Seems it isn’t academic or criminal reasons that caused him not to enroll (cynical, perhaps but it is the times we live in when you immediately wonder), but personal/emotional.

A 6-foot-6 combo guard, Ferguson enrolled in summer school and went through voluntary workouts with Pitt players. But he decided within the past month that he wanted to return home to Tampa, Fla., and pursue other opportunities.

“He’s back home and looking at other options,” said Kenny Gillion, Ferguson’s former AAU coach. “I think it’s just one of those things where he’s homesick. His family is going through some things and he wants to be home. It wasn’t a problem with the coach or a player up there. He’s just looking for another situation. I think he’ll be staying in Florida this time.”

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said Ferguson did not enroll in classes Monday after spending the past month at home.

It’s not as simple as just being homesick.

In Florida yesterday, Oldsmar Christian assistant Pannone said Ferguson credited Dixon and Pitt assistant Joe Lombardi for the positive impression they made on him.

“Trevor’s mother passed away from cancer when he was a junior here, and he just has this special feeling for the area where he was raised,” Pannone said.

“Trevor went to Pittsburgh in the summer and added 10 pounds. He had a great time, but people forget that he didn’t visit Pitt before this. Those winters are something else up there. I just don’t think he felt he could adjust.”

Under these circumstances, Coach Dixon released him from his National Letter of Intent. Under NCAA rules (apparently), however, Ferguson will still have to sit out the 2005-06 season. He will still have all 4 years of eligibility.

This is a little selfish but all I ask is that he doesn’t end up going to South Florida. If he blossoms as a player, I don’t want to see him in the Big East where he can hurt Pitt.

Joe Flacco officially transferring seems to have stirred things up a bit.

I was and am of the opinion that if Flacco had decided to transfer after the bowl, while Coach Wannstedt was transitioning into the job, a release of his scholarship probably would have been given. It’s something of a common courtesy to do so when a new coach comes into the program.

Flacco, however, waited until after the spring game and semester ended before seeking a release. And judging by the lack of communication throughout the summer, did not appear forthcoming about where he wanted to go play. At that point, Pitt and Coach Wannstedt couldn’t just let him go. Like Luke Getsy, he will probably get released after the fall semester, so he can go on scholarship at Delaware in the winter.

Now he’s at Delaware, practicing with the team but sitting out the year, saying all the stock things:

“I would rather go somewhere I know they want me,” Flacco said. “I felt wanted here.”

He’ll have two years of eligibility at Delaware beginning in the 2006 season. Next spring and summer, Flacco, 20, should compete for the starting job against junior Ryan Carty and red-shirt freshman Jarryd Moyer. They are presently backing up returning senior starter Sonny Riccio as Delaware prepares for its Sept. 10 opener against Lehigh.

This past winter, Delaware had hoped to sign high school quarterback Marquel Neasman of Bradenton, Fla. But he chose to attend Division I-A Central Florida.

Ever since, Delaware coach K.C. Keeler has said he needed more depth at the position and would welcome a transfer. Riccio, a former backup at Missouri, and his predecessor as UD starter, Andy Hall, who left Georgia Tech, also were transfers.

Flacco was No. 2 on Pitt’s depth chart last fall and after spring practice behind Tyler Palko, who became the starter last year as a sophomore and was named second-team All-Big East. Wannstedt, a former Miami Dolphins coach who succeeded Walt Harris, installed a more run-oriented offense in which Flacco said he felt less comfortable.

“The bottom line is, I wasn’t going to play there,” Flacco said. “I felt that moving on would put me in the position to feel more like I was on the team.”

Flacco apparently really likes pass oriented offenses, and Delaware runs a variation of the no-huddle spread.

Delaware, meanwhile, hopes to someday actually get a freshman QB recruit rather than a transfer.