Both papers had pieces on Pitt’s football schedule. The story by Paul Zeise had more from Coach Wannstedt.

Wannstedt said one thing that will make the schedule tougher is that he has a young team and Pitt doesn’t get any breaks in September. There are only eight scholarship seniors, not including kickers, and the majority of the defensive backs will be sophomores or younger.

“There will be a lot of pressure on us to get it right in training camp,” Wannstedt said. “We don’t have any exhibition games, any ‘give-me’ games coming out of the blocks. Virginia is a very tough game, especially for an opener. We have young players, but they have talent and we’ll work hard to get them ready. These guys will respond to the challenge and we’ll be a lot better prepared for the beginning of the season this time through it.”

Wannstedt said the early non-conference games are a challenge, but he also expects the Big East to be much tougher. He noted that there were no coaching changes in the conference in the offseason and that most teams relied heavily on underclassmen last season. That means there is more stability than last season when there were three new teams and two teams with new coaches.

“A lot of teams were like us — five I think to be exact — in that they were in some stage of transition last season,” he said. “Now every one has settled in and there were a lot of great young players in the Big East who are now going to be leaders.”

Okay, we have about 6 months to brace ourselves for the slew of inevitable cracks regarding Groh and Wannstedt matching coaching wits. If it wasn’t for the fact that Pitt is involved, we’d probably be slinging as well.

I was surprised in the notes, that OL Coach Paul Dunn interviewed for another job. Unless it was in the NFL or for an offensive coordinator position, that seems strange. I realize there is an argument that he was trying to make chicken salad with chicken s–t on the O-line, but he didn’t exactly distinguish himself his first year on the job.

Now on the subject of Pitt not playing the Backyard Brawl on Thanksgiving, but instead the week before, I’m not that upset. Yes, I suppose I should be since it was an ESPN move to get the bigger college name (hat tip, Chris) — and ACC/BE defectors no less, but it’s not like there was a tradition for the Brawl to be on Thanksgiving. That could be kind of funny. It’s not like the Orange Bowl is packed during most games for Miami. What will happen with a Thanksgiving Day game?

Selfishly, I like it because I’ll be able to make the game for the first time since 2001. If I’m not mistaken, this will also be the first Thursday night home game (not on Thanksgiving) for Pitt since 1997 — when Pitt beat Miami. I guess the only thing that really bothers me is that it isn’t the season finale. The place a good rivalry game deserves to be when it is in conference. Instead, both teams have games afterwards.

One other thing, over at Sportsline.com, they rank the top-10 football-basketball schools:

Why not both? Broaden your horizons as an increasing number of schools have done. In other words, it is possible to be good at football and basketball at the major-college level. All it takes is a few million dollars, a couple of good hires and a little bit of dedication.

It’s important because the two sports bring in the most money at most schools. The list used to be small enough to jot on a cocktail napkin. Now it’s a full-blown bar argument.

No Duke, Stanford or Michigan on this list. See if you agree with this group, based the latest accomplishments at each school:
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9. Pittsburgh: Hard to believe, but Pittsburgh is not just about the Steelers. We swear.

Walt Harris brought the football program back to a BCS level. Dave Wannstedt was disappointing in his first year but is destined to win a Big East title before he’s through.

Howland and Jamie Dixon have the basketball program back to an elite level. Great accomplishments in an urban-campus setting.

Hey, it’s the off-season for football and post-NLI time. Optimism should abound for football.