Paul Zeise’s Q&A (hat tip to Jason for letting me know it was up) is must read just for the opening rant.
Support for this team is truly almost exclusively superficial.
If the past two weeks have taught us anything — judging by the e-mails and voice mails I’ve received and listening to talk shows and reading letters to the editor — it is that many Pitt fans deserve their reputation as being as fickle as the weather in Western Pennsylvania.
Dave Wannstedt has had two, count them, two, games with a team that is compiled of somebody else’s players and already way too many so-called Pitt fans have either jumped off the band wagon or are ready to run him out of town (even though they ran Walt Harris out of town because they didn’t like his style of football and demanded a better run game out of the new coach).
The Ohio loss was no worse than the South Florida loss in 2001 — that one, in fact, was much worse and much more embarrassing for a lot of reasons — but some people insist last Friday was an all-time low for the program.
No doubt things have not begun the way many would have liked, but my goodness, it is ridiculous how quickly the Pitt fan base seems to crumble every time there is some adversity or the program hits a bad stretch.
I wish I could disagree, but if the rapid drop in hit counts to this site since the Ohio game are any indication he’s dead on. People have flipped and given up on the team this season.
I’m trying to strike a balance between Eeyore and Pollyana in outlook. Right now I can’t argue with the columnists ripping on Wannstedt and Pitt’s performance, because, quite frankly it has been atrocious. Still, I believe Pitt will get better. Even this year. And beyond that, the talent that is coming should give hope.
I’ll disagree with Zeise over the issue of not playing to some of Pitt’s strengths rather than going with the so-called power running. The comparison to WVU in 2001 is weak. Pitt hasn’t run the ball well. It hasn’t adjusted during the games to run the ball away from straight up the middle — where quite frankly the line is getting killed — to off tackle or outside consistently. Pitt completely failed to use the short pass over the middle last week (except in the 2-minute drill), getting the tight ends involved and taking some deeper shots to help loosen the defense. That wasn’t just going with a new system, that was just stupid play calling.
Like I said, just read it all.
