I’m pretty sure the Charleston Gazette is an afternoon paper, so their stories come later.

You have a longtime West Virginia sportswriter talking about WVU winning 15-0 in 1967. The kicker, of course, was from the Pittsburgh area.

An article about Wannstedt’s first season in charge. Coach Wannstedt isn’t ready to discuss what happened.

“We’ll deal with the season when the season’s over,” Wannstedt said. “We still have another game left and it would be way too premature to get into (analyzing the season).

“I think you have to correct the bad things that have happened and we can’t stick our head in the sand. But then you look for the things that were good and you build on that.”

Hopefully he won’t have to talk about it for a bit longer.

West Virginia, arguably, is the school that most needs a Big East football conference to work and thrive. While Pitt and Syracuse quietly jockey and hope that when the Big 11 expands, and ND turns them down again, they will get the nod. WVU has nowhere else to go, despite their history. As such, they view the reconfigured bowl tie-ins for the Big East as having good potential.

It recouped by landing half-a-berth for No. 2 in the Sun Bowl, which while it may not quite share the clout of the Gator, has deeper roots (only the Rose, Orange and Sugar have been played longer).

The Sun is also a good deal for the Big East in another fashion. While the payout (see accompanying chart) pales in comparison to the Gator, the Big East will only be required to take 5,000 tickets for the game at the 50,426-seat Sun Bowl. Unsold tickets can eat into conference payouts.

After dickering for a Liberty Bowl berth against a bottom rung Southeastern Conference team, the Big East ended up with a spot for its No. 3 in the Houston Bowl, against No. 5 from the Big 12. That’s a shorter trip than to Phoenix for the Insight, where Big East No. 3 currently goes.

The Liberty would have been best option, but Houston is better than the Insight. The Big East is keeping its date in the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, N.C., where minimum payouts can be boosted by a WVU or Louisville, or a neighboring North Carolina.

Last December, the old Tire Bowl was contracted to deliver a $750,000 payout. The Big East and ACC, due to big-time North Carolina ticket sales, got $1.3 million apiece for a Boston College-UNC game.

Now, the Big East is trying to help place a new bowl in Toronto for a fifth bid. Commissioner Mike Tranghese expects NCAA Football Subcommittee approval for a 2006 game between the Big East and Mid-American conferences.
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Bottom line? Big East football fared better with its bowls recast than it did in telecast renegotiations.

Kind of damning with faint praise.

Unit comparisons between Pitt and West Virginia. Favoring Pitt: QB, Receivers and Secondary. Favoring WVU: D-Line, O-Line, RBs, Linebacker and Special Teams. Special Teams is most questionable.

Finally, a widely distributed AP story on the Backyard Brawl.

I was only able to tune in for the 2nd half. After RMU pulled within 1, early in the 2nd, Pitt just blew it open. Seemed to really turn up the defense, took some better shots and simply wore down a weaker smaller team to win 86-59.

I was only able to tune in for the 2nd half. After RMU pulled within 1, early in the 2nd, Pitt just blew it open. Seemed to really turn up the defense, took some better shots and simply wore down a weaker smaller team to win 86-59.

Here’s what the gamblers are saying:

In the eight major rivalries, the favorites went 6-2 straight up and against the spread. A day like that is normally a catastrophe for bookies, who almost always take more action on the favorites.
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BetCRIS.com was one of the first sportsbooks to release a line for the game, which they opened at West Virginia -9. Catford said they took one-sided action on the Mountaineers and had to gradually increase the pointspread to 13 points before they finally got some buy-back on Pitt.

West Virginia is still laying 13 points in the Brawl — and rightfully so. They’re the top team in the Big East and they’ve covered the spread in four straight games coming into this one.

But even with the success of the favorites over the weekend, is a two-touchdown victory too much to expect from a team in a game filled with as much emotion as this one?

“There are so many big games on a team’s schedule these days, I don’t think these rivalry games mean as much anymore,” says Covers Expert David Malinsky. “If someone thinks they have a matchup advantage here, I don’t think they should worry about the rivalry thing.”

Only one team in last weekend’s rivalry action was favored as heavily as West Virginia is on Thursday. Oregon was laying 13 1/2 points against Oregon State in the Civil War, but that game turned into the most lopsided victory of the weekend as the Ducks flew to a 42-point victory.

Pitt has flopped in some games this year and recently against WVU. I wouldn’t touch this game.

USA Today’s college football guy is picking the Hoopies.

Stakes are always high for the Backyard Brawl. This year is no different. Dave Wannstedt is trying to overcome his 1-4 start with the Panthers to become bowl-eligible. The Mountaineers have their sights set on the BCS and a possible top-10 finish in the polls. West Virginia 26, Pittsburgh 14.

This general, AP story picks the ‘Eers to win 28-13.

A Connecticut paper picks up the theme from a NJ paper bemoaning the lack of rivalry games in the Big East. Apparently they got UConn Coach Randy Edsall to discuss the subject, and show a little of his own ignorance (either that or they put words in his mouth).

Coach Randy Edsall said he hopes the league considers developing some November rivalries in the same fashion that a conference like the Big Ten promotes rivalries like Penn State-Michigan State or Ohio State-Michigan.

“I think it will make the conference a little better if you had teams play games like those late in the year,” Edsall said. “You have West Virginia and Pitt finishing off the last game of the year every year. That is the best thing to do.”

Edsall said that from a logistical standpoint, having Cincinnati and Louisville play each other would seem like a natural fit. And while that would leave three Northeast teams and South Florida, he thinks it would make sense to have Syracuse play South Florida. He reasoned that the Carrier Dome could nullify the weather differences between the two schools.

That would leave UConn playing Rutgers. While the players believe it could take some time to build a rivalry between the two teams, they like the idea.

Cinci and Louisville already have a rivalry game with each other. With a trophy that has a great name: The Keg of Nails. Penn State-Michigan State is not a rivalry game no matter how hard it is spun. No one is buying it.

We’re heading out the door to be with my family in Lebanon for Thanksgiving. I’ll post later tonight (probably). Just a few articles and things to get posted.

Puff piece on Palko’s season of transition.

The losing is hard on Palko. He’s not sure, but he doesn’t think he has played in a total of five losing games in all of his years in football. It’s especially difficult because Pitt started the season with such high expectations and a No. 23 ranking, back in the days when he was mentioned as a possible Heisman Trophy candidate.

Palko is dealing with it the best way he knows how — by working harder. On Friday afternoon, when there didn’t appear to be another player at Pitt’s South Side headquarters, he was studying film of West Virginia’s defense in a room adjacent to Cavanaugh’s office. It’s safe to say he’ll spend countless hours there between now and next season, gearing up for a senior season that Wannstedt predicted will be “sensational,” a belief shared here.

Palko finds great comfort in that quarterbacks’ room, not to mention great motivation.

It’s the Dan Marino room.

“I have to walk by his jersey every day,” Palko said. “Then, I have to look in the eyes of a guy who was an All-American quarterback here” — Cavanaugh — “and has a national championship ring. I definitely feel I have a responsibility to the position at this school. I want to keep the legacy going.”

Also a puff piece on WVU’s Freshman RB Steve Slaton. Slaton didn’t know much about the Backyard Brawl, as he’s from Levittown, PA. Which is right on the NJ border and is closer to Trenton than Philly. The Backyard Brawl just doesn’t get the run on that side of the state. Not many Hoopies over in Eastern PA and NJ.

A good piece on ESPN.com by Joe Starkey on the Brawl. It discusses Tony Dorsett getting tossed from the game in 1976, and preparations by Coach Wannstedt for this game.

Wannstedt used an old Majors tactic this week in practice, blaring the John Denver song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” — the West Virginia anthem — over the loudspeakers. As of Tuesday morning, anyway, Wannstedt had not gone to the extremes Majors did leading up to the 1973 game.

That was Majors’ first year at Pitt, and he was willing to try anything to reverse the program’s luck in Morgantown, where it hadn’t won since 1963. For starters, he had his defensive backs tape fly swatters (without the screens) across the insides of the tops of their helmets. The idea was to put them in a mind-set to stop the Mountaineers’ star receiver Danny Buggs.

“To kill Buggs, you know,” Majors said.

The coach also had his team drink only Mountain Dew at practice all week and played “Country Roads” ad nauseam — before, during and even after practice in the locker room.

“No bebop music, no jazz,” Majors said. “They showered pretty fast, they got so sick of that damn thing. We had a little humor in it, but it was serious business. We went down there pretty loose and confident.”

The Panthers won 35-7 in a game Majors calls one of his personal favorites.

That song is so easy to hate.

Finally a couple stories on Jovani Chappel announcing his verbal commit to Pitt.

“After I committed to Purdue, I decided to just take a trip to Pitt,” he said. “Once I did, I found out both schools were about equal in everything. With them being equal, I just had to go where my heart was. I had to pray on it. I found my heart was with Pitt.”

Chappel will graduate in December and attend Pitt in the spring semester. “They’re having an excellent recruiting class, which should make for a great future,” he said. “Plus, coach [Dave] Wannstedt is a great man. I think I’ll have a great player-coach relationship with him.”

Coach Wannstedt’s ties to Chappel’s high school coach apparently helped.

… It didn’t hurt that Trotwood Madison coach Maurice Douglas played for Wannstedt with the Chicago Bears.

“Coach Wannstedt was one of his head coaches,” Chappel said. “He thinks he’s a real honest, straight-forward guy who keeps his word. He thinks I’ll have a great player-coach relationship with coach Wannstedt.”

Interesting how those NFL ties are still helping.

You knew this story was long overdue. Hoopie couch burning and the “unfair” stigma on Morgantown.

University chief of police Bob Roberts said it will take a combined effort to douse the flames and end West Virginia’s reputation as the couch-burning capital of college football.

“We want all our students and fans to know that we will hold people responsible and accountable for their actions,” Roberts said.

Sports writer Mickey Furfari, who has been covering West Virginia athletics for 59 years and writes for seven newspapers across the state, said the outdoor furniture blazes have produced negative national publicity.

“But I doubt there’s any danger this week when Pitt plays here because the students are away for Thanksgiving and the weather forecast is calling for snow,” he said. “I would be shocked if there will be any problems, unless they burn the couches to keep warm.”

Wilson, a Morgantown native who has watched the couch-burning trend evolve over the past 18 years, agrees that the Pitt game isn’t likely to spark trouble. He also cites the fact the Mountaineers still have two more important games, including a possible major bowl berth.

“West Virginia has always been a rowdy school, but this week, our couches should be safe,” Wilson said.

Wilson said the problem was blown out of proportion by the media. Many of the students burning couches aren’t even from Morgantown.

Sure they aren’t from Morgantown. Wheeling, Parkersburg, every other ramshackle trailer park called a town in the state, yes. But not Morgantown.

Big news in West Virginia, Coach Wannstedt had the Hoopies as his second choice.

“I really liked Coach Bowden,” said Wannstedt. “But I’d heard a lot of talk that he might not be staying at WVU, so I went to Pitt. As it turned out, he wound up staying a few more years and I wound up playing against his teams every year.

“It’s kind of funny. Even today, whenever I run into him, that’s what we always talk about.”

Considering all week WVU players from Pittsburgh have been talking about their grudge against Pitt for not recruiting them, why is this a surprise?

A tough article asking questions about the lack of change in Pitt’s offense from the start of the season to now.

Pittsburgh coach Dave Wannstedt talks repeatedly about wanting to have a streamlined offense, one that can run or pass equally well and creates matchup problems at nearly every skill position for the defense.

So why then, as Pitt heads into what could be its last game of the season, is the offense in almost exactly the same state it was before the Sept. 3 opener against Notre Dame?

Just as then, the offense is still overly reliant on the passing game to generate scoring and keep drives going. Just as then, a No. 1 running back has not emerged. Just as then, Pitt never can seem to figure out whether it needs to go with a single running back and let him try to develop, or to use a multi-back rotation and go with whichever back is running well.

One thing is for certain: the Panthers (5-5, 4-2 Big East) are running out of time to find out the answers.

You could say that.

West Virginia, on the other hand, has no problem running. And running a lot.

Defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads said the Panthers must find a way to stop the Mountaineers’ rushing attack or they have no chance of winning.

“You see how they play; they line up and try and knock you off the ball,” Rhoads said. “But they also spread you out so if you don’t make the tackle at the point of attack, it can go for a long, long way. And those running backs — and the quarterback can also run very well — all have a lot of speed, so once they get into the secondary, it can be off to the races.”

The Mountaineers average 236.8 yards per game on the ground and have rushed for more than 200 yards in six games. Twice the Mountaineers have eclipsed the 300-yard mark and had 297 against the Bearcats. Steve Slaton is their leading rusher (117 rushes for 695 yards) and White is second (73-513).

Those numbers don’t bode well for the Panthers, who have been inconsistent stopping the run all season because they have been beaten too often up front.

That could spell trouble because West Virginia’s offensive line is as good as any the Panthers have faced since the opener against Notre Dame.

The health of defensive tackle Thomas Smith, who has a toe injury, might be a big factor. When he has played, the Panthers have had some success stopping the run. When he hasn’t, they’ve struggled.

Pitt gives up an average of 158.6 yards per game on the ground. Only one team, Ohio, has rushed for less than 100; three teams have burned the Panthers for more than 200.

The article says Rhoads doesn’t want to leave Lay and Revis to take the WVU receivers one-on-one because of QB Pat White’s accuracy. Crap. I don’t see how Pitt has a choice. They need to bring the safeties up more, not just to stop the running back but also White. Pitt needs to be able to keep White from getting outside the pocket and turning the corner.

Both team’s passing numbers are down from last year. Hardly a shock.

WVU lost their top receiver and quarterback from last year. They have switched QBs during the season and have developed a powerful running game.

Pitt, as has been well documented, has a new coach and new offensive philosophy that emphasizes running a lot more.

Pitt players will have their thanksgiving feast at a hotel in Washington, PA.

It is Robert Morris, after all.

That means player puff pieces in the context of Pitt basketball.

Senior John DeGroat gets the “I’m just trying to help the team,” story.

Playing time didn’t come easy to DeGroat in the opener. He played only 13 minutes, scoring three points and grabbing four rebounds.

“Same thing as last year,” he said. “If I’m on the court, I’m on the court. If I’m not, I’m not. I’m still part of the team. I’ve got to support my teammates, no matter what. Everybody wants to be on the court, but I do take my (senior) role as a lead role.”

DeGroat was a scorer in high school at Monticello (N.Y.), where he averaged 24.3 points to go with 13.5 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game as a senior. He went on to play two seasons at Northeastern Colorado Junior College.

As a sophomore, he averaged 11.7 points and 6.9 rebounds, and shot 49.4 percent (128 for 259), including 44.4 (32 for 72) from 3-point range.

Now, in his second season at Pitt, DeGroat is hoping he can contribute.

“Everybody can keep improving. I’m improving every day,” he said. “One part of my game I can improve is I can rebound and defend more, but I’m getting better every day.”

DeGroat was not seen very often until nearly the end of the season when he got into a couple games during the random bench rotation time. This, despite expectations that he was going to be an immediate contributor at forward. It still remains to be seen what happens this year.

The other story is for Center Aaron Gray.

Gray is a double threat at center. He can score when called upon, but he also is among the best passers on the team. When St. Peter’s played zone against the Panthers, Gray found the open man and forced the Peacocks to play more man-to-man defense. And when they played man-to-man, Gray exercised his size advantage and went to the basket.

“We got them out of their zone because I got the ball in the high post and was making good passes,” Gray said. “It was opening up our offense. When they went man-to-man the guys were looking for me. I was trying to get to the hoop. I worked on my moves really hard during the offseason.”

Gray is looking to be more assertive this season. Because he is one of the team’s better passers, Gray sometimes fell into the habit of passing out of the low post last season instead of going to the basket.

In the offseason, Dixon and the coaching staff talked with him about taking more of the offense on his broad shoulders.

“One of the things I do in practice is pass too much out of the post,” Gray said. “The coaches said I need to be a big offensive contributor to this team because we have so many young guys who are working their way in.”

How Gray develops and progresses this season will be part of how well Pitt does. It’s the trend for the whole team. Development and progress.

There is no doubt that this will be an up and down season for Pitt. There just is no other way with the number of new, talented players plus the ones from last year who are getting a shot.

I think most fans understand that. What I, and most, want to see is some reasonably steady improvement over the course of the season. Last year the team didn’t change from start to finish. No improvements, no growth, nothing.

Final note, Carl Krauser is once more a candidate for the Naismith Award to go with his candidacy for the Wooden Award. Long-shots, I know, but who knows.

It is Robert Morris, after all.

That means player puff pieces in the context of Pitt basketball.

Senior John DeGroat gets the “I’m just trying to help the team,” story.

Playing time didn’t come easy to DeGroat in the opener. He played only 13 minutes, scoring three points and grabbing four rebounds.

“Same thing as last year,” he said. “If I’m on the court, I’m on the court. If I’m not, I’m not. I’m still part of the team. I’ve got to support my teammates, no matter what. Everybody wants to be on the court, but I do take my (senior) role as a lead role.”

DeGroat was a scorer in high school at Monticello (N.Y.), where he averaged 24.3 points to go with 13.5 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game as a senior. He went on to play two seasons at Northeastern Colorado Junior College.

As a sophomore, he averaged 11.7 points and 6.9 rebounds, and shot 49.4 percent (128 for 259), including 44.4 (32 for 72) from 3-point range.

Now, in his second season at Pitt, DeGroat is hoping he can contribute.

“Everybody can keep improving. I’m improving every day,” he said. “One part of my game I can improve is I can rebound and defend more, but I’m getting better every day.”

DeGroat was not seen very often until nearly the end of the season when he got into a couple games during the random bench rotation time. This, despite expectations that he was going to be an immediate contributor at forward. It still remains to be seen what happens this year.

The other story is for Center Aaron Gray.

Gray is a double threat at center. He can score when called upon, but he also is among the best passers on the team. When St. Peter’s played zone against the Panthers, Gray found the open man and forced the Peacocks to play more man-to-man defense. And when they played man-to-man, Gray exercised his size advantage and went to the basket.

“We got them out of their zone because I got the ball in the high post and was making good passes,” Gray said. “It was opening up our offense. When they went man-to-man the guys were looking for me. I was trying to get to the hoop. I worked on my moves really hard during the offseason.”

Gray is looking to be more assertive this season. Because he is one of the team’s better passers, Gray sometimes fell into the habit of passing out of the low post last season instead of going to the basket.

In the offseason, Dixon and the coaching staff talked with him about taking more of the offense on his broad shoulders.

“One of the things I do in practice is pass too much out of the post,” Gray said. “The coaches said I need to be a big offensive contributor to this team because we have so many young guys who are working their way in.”

How Gray develops and progresses this season will be part of how well Pitt does. It’s the trend for the whole team. Development and progress.

There is no doubt that this will be an up and down season for Pitt. There just is no other way with the number of new, talented players plus the ones from last year who are getting a shot.

I think most fans understand that. What I, and most, want to see is some reasonably steady improvement over the course of the season. Last year the team didn’t change from start to finish. No improvements, no growth, nothing.

Final note, Carl Krauser is once more a candidate for the Naismith Award to go with his candidacy for the Wooden Award. Long-shots, I know, but who knows.