H.B. Blades was put on the preliminary watch lists for the Rotary Lombardi Award and the Lott Trophy.

The Lombardi Award goes to the “top down lineman or defensive player who lines up within five yards of the football.”

Rutgers TE, Clark Harris; WVU LB, Kevin McLee; and WVU C, Dan Mozes are the other Big East players on the list.

The Lott Trophy is named for Ronnie Lott, and must be a new one, because I never heard of it.

The award is unique because it represents the first trophy to give equal weight to personal character as well as athletic performance from a defensive college player and will be the first national college football award based on the West Coast.

Okay. Yep, this is the 3rd year for it.

While on the subject of Blades, he got a puff piece in the Harrisburg paper yesterday.

While Blades readily accepted his leadership role, he said it’s hard to believe he is approaching his final college season.

“Time flies,” Blades said. “When I was a freshman, I remember Lousake [Polite] and those guys telling me that it will go by fast. I said, ‘I’ve got a whole three years left after this.’ But now I’m going into my senior year, my final year, and I’m going to try to make it as memorable as possible.”

Blades, the son of Bennie Blades, led the Panthers with 121 tackles last year. But Pitt’s run defense was shredded in losses to Notre Dame in the opener, Louisville near midseason and West Virginia in the regular-season finale.

And that performance against the Mountaineers, when Pitt gave up 451 yards on the ground, stayed with Blades for a long time.

“It’s been a long offseason, for sure, but the break after the West Virginia game gave us a chance to think,” Blades said. “We thought about why we weren’t at a bowl game, what we could have done, and we … want to go out and correct those problems.”

For some reason, though, I’m chilled to the bone by this comment from DC Paul Rhoads.

Blades said Pitt’s biggest problems on defense were stopping the run, the most glaring issue, and tackling. Defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads partially agreed with Blades’ assessment.

“For sure, we’ve got to stop the run,” Rhoads said. “I wasn’t displeased with how we tackled last year, but obviously we were extremely porous against the run. The way you stop it is that you get more comfortable with your assignments and get into the right places.”

He “wasn’t displeased” with how Pitt tackled? Oh, )!^%#$@*!!!! Then he’s the only one. That doesn’t fill me with great confidence.