Very much the theme of the stories today. Both in terms of short term and long term.

OK, 6-5 isn’t the ways most fans expected to open the Dave Wannstedt era. It isn’t the way Wannstedt expected to open it, either. But with a ragtag defensive line which lost two solid starters, and with an offensive line that never had any, there was only so much of Tyler Palko-to-Greg Lee that could be effective.

Wannstedt and his coaching staff must shoulder some of the blame. Despite the switch in strategies, the offense shouldn’t be this bad. The Panthers’ staff was outcoached by Charlie Weis and Notre Dame. And never, ever, should this team lose to Ohio – no matter where the game was played.
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After the worst start in 20 years at Pitt – and those two decades in between include some awful seasons – fans are already looking for the bandwagon’s exit doors.

Wannstedt is trying to wean the Panthers off the West Coast offense and mold them into a power team. For the most part, he doesn’t have the players he wants. He may as soon as next season.

Patience is not often tolerated in major college football.

But, it’s just too early to show Wannstedt the exit doors. It’s too soon to cast this as a mistake.

Another long-view column.

The current coach and his previous two predecessors have had the same mission, and it’s not an easy one.

This is still Pitt.

How quickly hungry fans forget just how bad the Panthers were less than a decade ago. Does 72-0 ring any bells?

How fast so many people were to dismiss the advances the program made in eight seasons under Harris and to cheer his forced departure.

Yet what Harris did — taking Pitt from a doormat to a perennial bowl team, and doing it rather quickly — is more the exception, and it’s not something that should be forgotten because that’s in the history books now, too.

Harris, now at Stanford, took the Panthers as far as he could. It was time for a change.
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Here’s the thing: We can’t pin it on Wannstedt, at least not yet.

Pitt is a work in progress, as it has been for some years.

To me, these columns should have run by Monday or Tuesday (or even held until after the upcoming game). I’m not necessarily disputing their points, but with only a couple days before the next game the longest view with which I care to even glance at is Pitt now at 8500-1 odds of winning the BCS Championship.

By Wednesday, the attention shifts to the upcoming game — what Pitt can do to win and what to expect from Nebraska. It’s now Thursday, the time for speculating and lecturing about the long-term and planning for the future is something done in a football week during the first few days after the last game. Now it is about the present situation and preparing for the opponent.

Now for the short-term, it’s about the offense.

Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko believes the Panthers’ offense is struggling because it is in a state of transition.

But he laughed at the notion that the new offense, which is more run-oriented than the offense under former coach Walt Harris, is restricting him from making plays or slowing his progress as a player.

Like anything in life, he said, there are growing pains the whole team is going through but that doesn’t mean the offensive system isn’t working.

It’s going to have to be a hell of a leap needed just to get the offense back to looking like it did against Notre Dame. There’s a reasonable question of just how much patience should be shown over the offense’s performance.

Offensive Coordinator Matt Cavanaugh tried to shift the blame away from Palko for the 2 interceptions run back for touchdowns against Ohio. The first he blamed himself for calling “a play using a route that works in the NFL, but not necessarily in college, because of the difference in the spacing of the hash marks.” The second he blamed DelSardo because he didn’t come back to the ball.

I’m not sure I buy either excuse, and that still doesn’t explain why Palko put so much air underneath the ball on both throws. Besides, Palko doesn’t need excuses to be made for him.

“It’s a feeling-out process with the offense,” he added. “As much as I study, it’s just a matter of getting used to the offense. We’re all working hard and putting in the time. We need to make better decisions. I made some poor decisions and got exposed.”

Pitt can’t afford the mistakes this Saturday.