LaRod Stephens-Howling gets a puff piece today.

At the start of this season, Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt figured Stephens-Howling was a specialty-play back. He planned on using the rookie just for sweeps and screen passes instead of making him a part of the power running game Wannstedt was installing.

But when burly back Rashad Jennings went down with an injury before the Nebraska game, Wannstedt turned Stephens-Howling loose. And after watching Stephens-Howling burrow through and zip around the Blackshirts, Wannstedt reconsidered his plan.

“He’s a tough guy,” Wannstedt said. “He really has a God-given ability to not get hit (straight-on) very often. The great (backs) that I’ve been around do that.

“You could never get a good shot on Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith or Tony Dorsett. They could protect themselves. They had to. When you’re (LaRod’s) size, you’re not going to be playing the game long if you don’t. I don’t know if it’s an instinctive thing or just survival.”

They just can’t keep running him straight ahead with the offensive line that presently exists. He’s got speed and he hits the hole well, but if there’s no hole, there’s still no gain.

Maybe I’m just feeling burned after all the optimism that started the season, but this article makes it seem as if Coach Wannstedt is a little too satisfied with things to this point.

Wannstedt said his adjustment from life in the NFL, where he spent the past 16 years, to life as a college coach took longer than he expected. Now that he has grown comfortable in his job, he has become a much better and more effective coach.

“I’ve learned so much, I’ve grown so much in so many ways as coach and it has been a great experience for me,” Wannstedt said. “I think the biggest area is in communicating with my players and understanding. They look to me as more than just their coach. I am also asked to be a mentor and that’s something that I really enjoy about this job.

“In the NFL, there would be a rare occasion where you’d have a conversation with a player during the season that went beyond what it would take to win the next game. Here there is a lot more going on with these young kids. When they are in my office, most of the time we aren’t talking about football; it is about what is going on in his life, socially, or maybe there’s a problem back home or with a girlfriend …

“I have enjoyed that part of it, but it is a lot more necessary now than I remember. I want to be here for these guys and I want their parents to know I am here, to offer advice, to help them when I can in whatever they need. That’s all part of it, and I’ve grown a lot in that area and it has made me a better coach.”

I like a lot of what I read in that article. From the support Coach Wannstedt is receiving, to understanding that winning is what will fill Heinz Field, to the recruiting, and the way he talks about the players and wanting to help them. Hell, a lot of it is just pure gold to send to parents of potential recruits.

It’s just that there is almost a sense of relaxing, now that Pitt has gotten to 4-4. And I don’t want to read that. Especially as Pitt gets ready for Louisville on the road, on Thursday night, on ESPN, before a sell-out.

Especially, now that the Pizza Place has become something of a good home field advantage for the Cardinals.

Dumervil might be on to something. Over the past two seasons U of L has been nearly unstoppable on its home field.

Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium has received rave reviews for its nice chair-back seating, its luxury boxes, the Brown & Williamson Club and other amenities. Being an intimidating place has not been on that list, but that could be changing.

In three home games this season, the Cardinals have averaged 64.3 points and given up an average of 17. Last season the numbers were 50.6 and 10.4.

With Pittsburgh coming to visit Thursday night for an ESPN-televised contest, U of L has won nine straight at home, its longest such streak since an 11-game run from 1992-94 that tied the school record set at Parkway Field from 1946-48.

But the dominant fashion in which the Cards have put together their current streak is worth writing home about. They’ve won their past four home games by an average of 51.3 points. That includes beating a Cincinnati team that went on to win last season’s PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl, an Oregon State team that bounced back to upset California and a North Carolina team that went on to knock off Virginia.

“We can get momentum going in a hurry at home,” sophomore quarterback Brian Brohm said. “I think it really fires up the defense, because the crowd gets loud and can affect the other team trying to execute on offense.”

U of L has given up just 55 rushing yards per game at home this season, and opponents have converted just 37 percent of their third downs. The Cardinals have averaged 537.3 yards per game and 9.1 per play.

There are some absurd splits between Louisville on the road versus at home. It was at home where they completely blew out UNC and Oregon St. Their losses came on the road.

At home they’ve average 64.3 points/game and allowed opponents only 17.0 points /game. The road has been far unkinder for them.

This has to be a concern for Pitt. Especially when you consider the fact that 3 of the 4 losses came on the road and in 2 of the 3 road games Pitt didn’t get an offensive touchdown. I realize that the Nebraska and Ohio games were in the beginning of the season when the team was really struggling, but it isn’t that far removed.

What can I say, I’m already very nervous about this game.

So, kind of interesting about the suspensions that UConn handed out for the two point guards.

Connecticut suspended guard A.J. Price for the entire 2005-06 season as a result of his arrest on charges of trying to sell stolen laptops this summer, but has allowed co-defendant Marcus Williams to return to the team in December.

Marcus Williams is arguably the best point guard in the Big East, while A.J. Price has yet to actually play in part because of a brain hemorrhage he suffered prior to the start of last season. Price has not actually been given medical clearance to play as of yet.

Interesting to note that the person who actually (allegedly) stole the laptops was a friend of Marcus Williams (who does not attend UConn), yet Williams got the lighter suspension for the three of them conspiring to sell the stolen goods.

Maybe there is more to it than appears — and there usually is — but it still smells a bit.

Then there is some great stuff in this column about Big East Media Day (via College Basketball Blog). From people lining up for the Seton Hall job before the first game has been played, to insulting Memphis Coach John Calipari.

… Maybe the Big East should’ve found a way to bring John Calipari into its league. Calhoun and Pitino sure do disdain Calipari – and the feeling is mutual, rest assured – but this league blocked Coach Life Skills at every turn.

Pittsburgh and St. John’s rejected Calipari’s embarrassingly eager overtures to get those openings, and the Big East presidents chose sad-sack South Florida over Memphis for the 16th and final spot. Calipari has a better chance getting on the Jayson Williams defense team than he does one of these tables at Big East media day.
…
As Huggins so eloquently declared, John Calipari is now the highest-paid mid-major coach in the country, left behind in the charred remains of Conference USA.

Then there were the statements from Jim Calhoun about the future.

“So many schools, with so many different agendas,” one high-ranking conference official would say, surveying the room.

What’s sparing the Seton Halls and Providences in the short-term has to be the miserable state of Syracuse and Pittsburgh football, the fact Big East football can’t break away with so little BCS cachet. Calhoun has never done well with company lines, “Hypothetically, if Notre Dame and Penn State want to come East, I think you’d see some dancing very quickly with football schools,” Calhoun said. “If this did happen, it would be a heck of a football league with those two joining. And a heck of a basketball league. That would be a perfect storm where you would see the structure we have now would no longer be the structure.

“It could happen while I’m still coaching. I think there’s jockeying going on, even at 16 [members]. I don’t think it’s settled yet.

He thought for a moment. Yes, he was sure.

“It’s not settled.”

His hypothetical is unlikely, but he is right that “it’s not settled.”

Then there is this story on the Big East and Mike Tranghese, and what nearly happened after the ACC raid.

With the football membership in disarray, it seemed the Big East was ready to ditch that sport and focus on basketball.

Tranghese, who acted as the league’s midwife in 1979 and has served as its commissioner since 1990, has always been a hoops guy at heart. But when faced with the possibility of leading the breakaway basketball group, Tranghese balked.

“It wasn’t a personal thing,” Tranghese said. “You can’t dissolve a league and then, as the commissioner, say, ‘I’m going to work for one of these entities.’ It just wasn’t gonna work.”

The second meeting broke up without a final decision being made. About a month later, the presidents told Tranghese they had changed their minds. They wanted to keep the league together.

I find it surprising that the basketball schools were the ones so eager to break away. Given the poor state most of the programs were in at that time (heck, still are, mostly). All the b-ball juice in the BE was with the football schools — Syracuse, UConn, Pitt and even BC still.

I am not surprised about this, though.

But the biggest prize — the thing Tranghese lobbied for with all his might, calling in all his markers — was the BCS bid.

The BCS and the Big East were ridiculed last season after Pitt finished in a four-way tie for first place, got a Fiesta Bowl berth with an 8-3 overall record, then was whipped by Utah, a team from a non-BCS league. Meanwhile, California and Boise State, which both went unbeaten in the regular season, wound up in second-tier bowls.

One bowl official confided that the Big East, despite being a founding member of the BCS, had all but lost its automatic berth until Tranghese began his full-court press.

“For a year, I virtually did nothing else,” Tranghese said. “We had earned the right to be given a chance. That was my message.”

And somehow it got through. That was why I thought the Big East stayed together, because of the football schools needing Tranghese. He had all the personal contacts, connections and favors owed. He really was the only one at that point who could keep the Big East in the BCS. Read the whole thing.

Moving to the Fan Fest, Carl Krauser was in a good mood.

The Pitt senior point guard, who decided to return to the Panthers for his final season after exploring the possibility of entering the NBA draft this year, signed autographs with a smile, played basketball with a smile and greeted reporters afterwards with a smile.

Indeed, it was a big smile all day long.

“Just being back here makes me appreciate the game more,” Krauser said at the end of a day at Petersen Events Center that was designed for Pitt fans and dubbed “Pitt Fan Fest.”

But Krauser savored the day perhaps more than any fan.

“It’s a great feeling to be back in Pittsburgh,” he said. “Today, seeing all the kids and all the families makes it all worthwhile to be back here. In the NBA, it’s a business. But in college, it’s about one thing, and that’s to win a championship.”

Also at the event was Brandin Knight and a couple possible future Pitt players: Aliquippa High School Junior Herb Pope and JUCO Gjio Bain.

Freshman forward Sam Young put on a little show during the scrimmage.

Two dunks and a 3-pointer.

And that was just in the first few minutes.

Sam Young, who wears No. 23 in honor of his basketball hero, Michael Jordan, gave Pitt fans something to think about Saturday at Petersen Events Center.
…
Young capped the men’s scrimmage last evening in the closing seconds with his final dunk — a thunderous jam off a teammate’s missed shot — that drew a collective gasp from the sparse crowd that remained.

“It’s not surprising. We see him do it all the time,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “We saw it when we were recruiting him. He’s getting better and better every day. He works hard. He’s hungry. He’s a good kid. He loves being here.”

Defense will be the thing the entire team needs to work on in the weeks leading up to the season.

A weekend full of sound and fury, but ultimately signifying nothing. UCLA and Texas both gave hope for some utter BCS chaos, but at the end they won.

Florida wins and actually wore uniforms that were aesthetically worse than the Virginia Tech unis.

I mean, at least the VT unis seemed to have some style and flow to the sleeve thing by comparison. The Florida offering was just blocklike and awkward. The Florida unis actually reminded me of those ugly split color home/road unis you can now get on clearance.

Actually, now I’m scared that will be the next offering.

Is there anything more disconcerting then the phrase, “bowl eligible Rutgers“? Well, I guess Temple, but this is still pretty high on the list.

I guess the Bowden/Clemson coaching deathwatch is back on the clock.

Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina team beats Tennessee in Knoxville on the night they retire Peyton Manning’s jersey. I’ve seen more believable plot lines in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. That’s it, unless Tom Brady breaks his arm tonight, I don’t care what the spread is, I’m betting on New England next week against the Colts.

The stories started this past Monday about Pitt having a shot at winning the Big East. This despite their well documented 1-4 start, and only being 4-4 at this point. The meme has continued into the weekend. Such talk has of course offended non-Big East college football columnists who can’t stand seeing the, uh, sanctity of the BCS denigrated by the continued presence of the Big East. In a fit of originality he takes to calling the conference the “Big Deceased.” Whatever. (I’m guessing, though, this columnist for the Orlando Sentinel wasn’t quite so offended at a 4-loss Florida St. team in the BCS in 2002)

At this point, there are 3 teams with legitimate shots at winning the Big East: WVU, Pitt and Rutgers. Louisville is pretty much out of it, but I’ll throw them in for fun. Best record is the winner. If the records are tied between 2 teams it is how they did in head-to-head as the tie-breaker. If 3 (or more, god forbid) teams are tied with the same records and same head-to-head records then it is BCS ranking to decide.

Pitt has lost to Rutgers already this season, so RU has the tie-breaker if they finish with the same record. WVU has beaten both RU and Louisville to hold the tie-breaker over each of them.

Big East Games Remaining
WVU (3-0): UConn, @ Cinci, Pitt, @ USF
Pitt (3-1): @ Louisville, UConn, @ WVU
Rutgers (3-1): USF, @ Louisville, Cinci
Louisville (1-2): Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, @ UConn

Scenarios for Winning the Big East

WVU: Win out; win 3 of 4 including the Backyard Brawl; lose to Pitt, but win other 3, and Pitt loses one more game; lose to Pitt, but win other 3, Pitt wins other 2 and Rutgers wins out — WVU would win BCS tie-breaker based on BCS rankings (beating Maryland and losing to VT would almost assuredly trump Pitt and RU); or win 2 of 4 including the Backyard Brawl and Rutgers loses 1 more game.

(Potentially bizarre scenarios for WVU winning would also include: losing 2 of last 4, including the Backyard Brawl, but RU losing 1 more and Pitt losing twice or losing 3 of last 4, but winning the Backyard Brawl, Pitt losing 1 additional game, Rutgers losing twice and Louisville losing 1 more game.)

Pitt: Win out and Rutgers losing 1 more game; or winning 2 of 3 including the Backyard Brawl and Louisville, WVU losing 1 additional game, and Rutgers losing 2 of last 3.

Rutgers: Win out and WVU loses 2 of last 4; win 2 of 3 including Louisville while WVU loses 3 of 4 and Pitt loses at least 1 more game.

Louisville: Win final 4 games (which would include beating Pitt and RU) and WVU loses 3 of last 4.