The big buzz is still the fact that the Big East is now known to be wide open with the loss by Louisville.
There are two ways to look at South Florida’s stunning, dominating upset of ninth-ranked Louisville on Saturday, according to one Big East coach.
“One is, ‘Hey, Louisville, they’re human,’ ” said Syracuse coach Greg Robinson, seemingly wearing a big smile as he spoke by phone Monday.
The second view Robinson expressed probably wasn’t as pleasing to the league’s coaches.
“Uh oh, South Florida’s good,” Robinson said.
In the parking lot before the Notre Dame game, I had commented to Lee that USF would have had a better shot against PSU if it had been the 3rd non-con game for the teams rather than the first. A team and a system like the USF offense runs, has tended to need a game or two before it starts to gel.
But that Louisville loss changed the outlook for the conference. Teams don’t feel like they are chasing anyone.
Although the Panthers are approaching the game as if they are 0-0, the fact remains that Pitt has played four games and has lost three of them. Wannstedt said there is plenty to take from those games and the Panthers have been a work in progress since he took over in December.
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He also said now that the games are meaningful, the Panthers must pay more attention to detail.
“We need to continue to be balanced,” he said. “Even leading into the Youngstown State, we were pretty close from a run-pass standpoint, but we weren’t making enough plays in the passing game. We need to stay balanced in where we are drawing our big plays from.
“And now that we’re starting conference play, we can’t fumble the ball in the end zone. We can’t fumble the ball in the end zone. We can’t drop a ball in the end zone. We can’t drop a touchdown pass. That’s the difference now, starting this week. It is all there ahead of us — we are 0-0 — but we have to make sure we do the things you need to do in order to win football games.”
There were, despite the score, plenty of mistakes and missed opportunities in the YSU game.
H.B. Blades is ready to go,
Junior middle linebacker H.B. Blades doesn’t want to wait a week. He would like to start conference play immediately against Rutgers.
“It’s a new season for us,” Blades said. “Big East play starts on Friday, and this is what it all comes down to. The road to the BCS starts right here. … We’ve played well, but we can get a lot better on defense. We’re getting closer to where we want to be, but we’re not satisfied just yet.”
Coach Wannstedt addressed issues of recruiting.
“People were fired up,” Wannstedt said Monday. “We had several recruits at our game, and they’re fired up. It’s going to be a top 10, possibly better, class in the entire country. It’s going to be one of the best classes that I believe, if everything stays on course, that we’ve had here in a long, long time.”
If that comes true, it might ease some of the disappointment over Pitt’s rapid fall from the top 25 following consecutive losses to Notre Dame, Ohio U. and Nebraska. Pitt has yet to beat a Division I-A opponent under Wannstedt, but gets that chance Friday night at Rutgers (2-1).
To date, Pitt has 17 verbal commitments for its 2006 recruiting class, and there have been no reported defection. The class is currently rated by several recruiting services as being in the top 10, though the ratings fluctuate greatly from September until the national letter of intent signing date in February.
Of the 17 prospective recruits, five are rated as four-star players by the Rivals.com recruiting site: tight end Nate Byham of Franklin, running back Kevin Collier of Churchville, N.Y., running back-wide receiver Dorin Dickerson of West Allegheny High in suburban Pittsburgh, defensive tackle Jason Pinkston of Baldwin and multi-position player Aaron Smith of Gateway High.
“Recruiting is exciting right now,” Wannstedt said. “I think we’re close right now to adding a couple more players here in the near future to our outstanding class coming in already.”
Of course, whenever Coach Wannstedt starts talking about recruiting publicly, the athletic department starts to sweat.
“Give me the hook if I say something I shouldn’t,” Wannstedt said with a laugh as he turned toward an athletic department official. “You know me, I get fired up about this stuff.”
Wannstedt gets excited when he talks about the recruiting class he is putting together. But, he, sometimes, gets carried away and rattles off the names of high school players he’s pursuing — which, technically, is a violation of NCAA rules.
A few times during his televised news conference and his weekly radio show, Wannstedt has dropped the names of guys who have given verbal commitments to Pitt. It also happened in interviews during spring practice and preseason camp.
It’s a little thing — a secondary violation which rarely results in any punishment from the NCAA — but it still is a headache for Pitt athletic director Jeff Long.
“I do cringe when it happens because I’ve been in intercollegiate athletics now for 25-plus years,” Long said. “We’ve been over those rules with coach Wannstedt and he knows them. But he’s also been 15 years in the NFL, where he didn’t have to worry about what names he said.
“In fairness to the coach, I don’t think anybody can say he was trying to gain a recruiting advantage or anything. But it’s one of the things we have to remind him about.”
At this point, it is still just a charming little mistake.
