In case you hadn’t heard — and lord knows you will Thursday night — this is only the second meeting between Pitt and DePaul. The first was a 41-37 Pitt loss in 1936. That suggests very little value to that past history.

Of a more recent vintage, DePaul’s head coach, Jerry Wainwright, was in charge of Richmond last year. A team Pitt beat. That game may be more remembered because it was the same day Coach Dave Wannstedt was introduced as the Pitt football coach, and made an appearance at the game.

Both Pitt and DePaul have their game notes (PDF).

According to the Pitt notes, there was media time after practice this afternoon, so expect quotes in tomorrow’s stories. This is Pitt’s highest poll rankings in a little over a year — before the loss to Bucknell. Of course the ESPN crew will have their storylines for players that we all know well by now. Krauser coming back to school, being a leader with all the kids, moving to shooting guard, his toughness. Kendall and his 40 for Canada against the US in the U-21 game. Gray taking over inside, averaging a double-double and the leading rebounder for the Big East. Young, Fields and Biggs — the talented freshmen. Especially Young after the recent games and getting his first double-double.

For DePaul it’s a young team with freshmen and sophomores doing most of the scoring. A new head coach, and they are almost at the end of a stretch where they will have had only 2 home games out of 8 in a 39-day period. Also, Coach Dixon’s sister Maggie was an assistant for the DePaul women’s team before taking over as Army’s head coach. Blue Demons’ Freshman Forward Wilson Chandler was this week’s BE Rookie of the week with 38 points and 19 rebounds over 2 games. Chandler is 10th in the BE in rebounds.

Another storyline you can expect, concurrently with the requisite/stock discussion of the supersized Big East will be the fact that the BE has 6 teams in the top 25 polls. Actually there are only 5 in each, but I am surprised the BE didn’t claim 7 since Syracuse is ranked #24 in the Coaches Poll and Cinci is ranked #25 in the AP Writers.

And you thought this was over. I definitely weighted the bowl games and way the teams finished in my voting. I also had a colossal screw-up in my voting with Auburn and Wisconsin. I flipped them in the wrong spots. Strangely, this is the second time this season that I screwed up my vote concerning Wisconsin in the blogpoll. I really can’t explain it. (The dairy state and I’m lactose intolerant?)

Well, the full blogpoll is here, and my sanity is clearly questioned during the extras. The individual ballots are here.

1. Texas — This decision needs justifying?
2. Southern California — Or this?
3. Ohio State — Yes, ahead of 2 other teams with 1 loss, but considering one of the losses was to the national champs, that’s a bit of a neutralizer. Very impressive in the Fiesta Bowl and was the only team aside from USC to give Texas a 4 quarter battle.
4. West Virginia — The biggest bowl shocker, and a complete disruption of the conventional wisdom.
5. Penn State — It took 2 OTs to beat a team with 4 losses at the time? Either took FSU too lightly, played down to their level or real questions about how dominant they really were.
6. Georgia — No excuse for the offense not showing up until the 2nd quarter. The defense never actually arrived. Simply inexcusable as a host.
7. Notre Dame — Okay, so I overestimated their chances against OSU.
8. Louisiana State — Kicked Miami’s ass on and off the field.
9. Auburn Wisconsin — Nice ending to an impressive coaching career.
10. Virginia Tech — I knew they wanted to draw comparisons to Miami and FSU, but I thought they meant by winning more often?
11. Oregon — Is there a hex on the Holiday bowl for Pac 10 teams or is the conference overrated? After the past 2 seasons it is looking like the latter.
12. TCU — Good for them.
13. Florida — Sure it they had to get a lousy call to go their way to hang-on, but who’s fault was it that Iowa’s defense sucked?
14. UCLA — I guess.
15. Miami (Florida) — Pathetic.
16. Louisville — Star QB out and still nearly pulled it off against VT.
17. Alabama — Yes, their defense was impressive in shutting down Texas Tech, but that game was simply unwatchable. I’m deducting style points.
18. Wisconsin Auburn — Again, whoops.
19. Boston College — At least the Mayor of Boise apologized.
20. Toledo — If Iowa loses Ferentz to the NFL, seriously, take a run at getting Amstutz. Toledo hasn’t been this relevant in America since M*A*S*H in its heyday.
21. Clemson — Well, this Bowden survived another year.
22. Oklahoma — Okay.
23. Texas Tech — Which will happen first: TTU gets a defense or they schedule some real teams in the non-con?
24. Nebraska — Great, they beat an underachieving, disappointing, imploding Michigan team. Right now with the odd love they are already getting in the predictions for next season, they are the lead team for the “blown out of proportion bowl win, that makes everyone think that next year will be a big year for them” hype. Last year’s winner: Texas A&M.
25. Florida State — After watching the kickers for FSU, it makes a lot more sense why Janikowski’s drunken antics were tolerated so easily.

Out: Georgia Tech and South Carolina
In: Oklahoma and Nebraska

As Pitt began the season rolling through the cupcakes, there was very little national commentary other than the occasional snark at Pitt’s schedule. Then Pitt hit the difficult stretch and still went through unscathed. That got a boost. Pitt only played one game last week, against a lesser opponent than Wisconsin and barely survived a couple comeback attempts. So Pitt found itself getting a large boost from the top-20 to a couple spots shy of the top-10. The simple explanation is that the voters finally noticed or gave Pitt “respect.” Not so much.

It was that the voters were finally convinced of reality and a lot of other teams ahead of Pitt lost. The voters look at the RPI more, and see a Pitt team up near the top. They also see teams with similar numbers but not the same record higher because of early expectations and need to compensate. A nice factor, though, was Wisconsin dismantling Michigan State. That was an eye-opener. But consider that all of these teams ahead of Pitt lost — Michigan State, Boston College, Louisville, Villanova, Washington, Arizona, Maryland, Oklahoma, Ohio State, NC State, Illinois, Memphis and UConn.

Then consider that the 2 other unbeatens are now #1 and #2 and Florida has a weaker non-con than Pitt. Naturally, Pitt had to get up higher. Of course, whenever Pitt takes its first loss, be prepared for a very quick drop.

The long reported, discussed and dissected have now been addressed by Pitt and Coach Wannstedt. While there is no official press release on the Pitt website (at this time), Coach Wannstedt did discuss transfers, some more recruiting and early starts.

First the good is that Jovani Chappel out of the Dayton, Ohio area has already enrolled and begun taking classes. Chappel is a cornerback who will be eligible for spring drills. He will be one of many competing to take the place of Josh Lay.

Then there are the departures. Again, no surprises, just becoming official. Rashad Jennings is heading to Liberty.

Jennings, the Panthers’ second-leading rusher last season, has enrolled at Liberty, a Division I-AA school in Lynchburg, Va. He will be eligible to play this fall.

“It’s home,” said Jennings, who wanted to go to school closer to his family in Forest, Va. “The campus is 10 minutes away from my house. I took time to pray over it, and I believe I’m fulfilling my calling.”

At Liberty, Jennings will be play for first-year head coach Danny Rocco, a graduate of Fox Chapel High School and Penn State. Rocco replaced Shaler native Ken Karcher, who was fired with one game left in what turned out to be a 1-10 season.

WR Terrell Allen is heading to Coastal Carolina or Gardner-Webb and TE Robbie Agnone is going to Delaware. A fresh start and playing time are the issues.

And, of course, there is Greg Lee entering the NFL Draft.

“I want to recruit potential first-round draft picks every year,” he said. “The more guys that make the NFL, the better for our program and for recruiting. But in Greg’s situation, I’d like to see him stay because I think he could have helped himself with another year. I think it really would have been good for his opportunities. I spoke with his dad and he also wanted him to stay, but sometimes there is more involved than it would seem.

“More time would have certainly helped him, but I wish him the best and hope he succeeds.”

When it first became known that Lee was heading to the NFL, there were reports that Wannstedt had a confrontation with Lee’s agent, Michael Huyghue, about the situation. Wannstedt said that his interaction with Huyghue was not confrontational, but certainly wasn’t cordial either.

“I’m not really going to comment on that stuff,” Wannstedt said. “It was a difference of opinion. I’m going to take care of my guys, the players that committed to Pitt. It is my job to help them achieve their dreams. And I want them all to better themselves, but if I think they need more time, I couldn’t in good conscience sit back and not voice my opinion.

“I know what it takes to play in the NFL and I’ve been around enough to know that I can help my players if they listen to good advice and put themselves in the best situation to succeed.

“Losing Greg and Rashad hurts, but it doesn’t change one thing about our preparation for the season. All it means is that all of the young running backs and receivers are going to get a bigger opportunity this year. They are all one step closer to the field.”

Very interesting.

Pitt still has a couple more recruiting weekends and several more targets.
Pitt’s remaining targets include two WPIAL players — Duquesne wide receiver Elijah Fields and Trinity tackle Andy Miller — defensive back Aaron Berry from Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg, defensive ends Geno Atkins (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), McKenzie Mathews (Syracuse, N.Y.) and Audie Augustine (Oakland Park, Fla.), wide receiver Tamarcus Porter (Pahokee, Fla.), quarterback Thaddeus Lewis (Hialeah, Fla.) and Perry wide receiver Aundre Wright.

Most of these players have already been to Pitt for official visits. Right now Wright is the only scheduled visitor for this weekend, and Augustine for next.

There’s also a shot taken in the P-G at recruiting sites. Sure it’s 6 months or so behind the stuff from the summer, but this kind of bashing is year-round. The usual stuff about how they aren’t really experts, cheerleaders for the school they cover, etcetera.

Oh, and PantherReport (the Scout.com site) is now PantherDigest.com.