I hope no one was too sorry that I didn’t bother much with the Big 33 game this past week. Yes, there were plenty of incoming Pitt freshmen there from Elijah Fields, Nate Nix, Dorin Dickerson, John Malecki, and plenty of others. But between a lot of things I had to do last week, and just not being overly interested I just didn’t find it worth blogging.

Not that I didn’t read many of the stories. In fact this post-mortem focusing on Tyler Tkach raised the first thing that should get most fans pulse racing just a bit.

His final high school game now behind him, Tkach now has to pack his bags. He has to report to Pitt for summer school and workouts next Sunday.

”Football was always my love,” Tkach said. ”I get to go to Pitt. They are paying for everything. It’s just awesome.”

[Emphasis added.]

That’s right June won’t even be over, but the kids will be working to get ready for practice in August and kickoff on September 2 .

Plus, just about all of the college football previews should be on the magazine racks now.

The BlogPoll Roundtable has returned. Actually I think there have been one or two prior, but I hadn’t gotten around to them. As this one stands I’m a little late but not outside the participatory realm. This one is hosted by Bruce Ciskie (Wisconsin) and you can find links to other blog participants here.

Honestly, I’m going by more instinct and bias at the moment. I’m just not feeling fully versed in the college football situation right now. I think of this as a way of exposing some instinctive biases.

Which preseason college football magazine is your favorite?

I’m probably going with the majority horde here, but Phil Steele’s College Football Preview is the densest, detailed best fix for the college football junky.

I give a second place to Athlon, who distinguishes an otherwise generic and indistinguishable product from the majority with some pleasant work-safe eye-candy throughout the year with their “spirit contest.”

What team is being supremely overrated in the preseason rankings?

Looking at the early pre-season consensus rankings, the easy answer is Notre Dame. And, honestly, you can’t go wrong with that as they are perched at #1.

I’m sure WV will get plenty of votes, but it’s hard to distinguish my natural bias from thoughtful reason. (Which is also the reason I won’t pick ND right now.)

The top 4 overrated teams I see right now are:

Louisville
Florida St.
Southern Cal
Oklahoma

Louisville’s defense wasn’t that good last year and lost their best player to graduation. Brohm is still rehabbing from major knee surgery, and I don’t think their O-line will be as good. They may, unfortunately, be good enough for second in the Big East, but not to be near the preseason top-10.

Florida St. was even worse, but between the fact that its Bobby “daggum” Bowden, a Florida school, and they actually played Penn State tough in the Orange Bowl; FSU is getting way too much respect. Maybe around #20, but to be placed any better is just silly.

Southern Cal will still be good but they have lost so much talent in the last couple years, the rest of the PAC 10 seems to be closing the gap a bit more, all the off-field stuff has to take something of a toll, and I think they are due for a step back. They may still end up a top-10 team, but not top-5.

As for Oklahoma, it is just something about their O-line that seems unsettled to me. Just the sort of thing that can hold them back from being a top team.

Turn the tables. Who is underrated?

Hard to say. It’s just a hunch. Maybe I’ve been subliminally programmed by their god-awful wardrobe selections and variations just within any given season, but my unsubstantiated hunch is that Oregon will be very good this year and end up somewhere near the top-10.

Which conference will be the best in 2006?

I’d give anything to be able to say the Big East. Of course, I just don’t drink that heavily during the week.

It seems to come down to the SEC. More from elimination. The ACC isn’t that good overall, neither is the PAC-10.

The Big 12 South has some very good teams, but then the entire Big 12 North is suspect — to be kind (possibly excepting Nebraska).

In the Big 11 it’s Ohio State, Michigan, Iowa and then 3 question marks in Penn St., Michigan St. and Wisconsin. The rest are either rebuilding or just trying to build period.

That leaves the SEC despite the 3 sure-fire bad teams of Kentucky, Vandy and Miss. St. They have a lot of teams that can arguably be included in the top-25 or fighting to get in.

Which “non-BCS” conference will be the best in 2006?

The Mountain West is not just the easy choice, it is still the right one. Conference USA is getting closer with UCF improving, along with ,UTEP, USM and Memphis still trying. Mountain West, though, is still slightly better at the top with TCU and Utah.

Which non-BCS conference team will have the best season?

It better not be UCF or Pitt is going to have troubles. I think Utah will be a big surprise and have a very good year.

Let’s get your first read on this one…who will win the H*i*m*n? Oh, by the way, players whose last names begin with the letter “Q” are ineligible.

I hate thinking about the Heisman.

Fine. Ginn and Smith will split votes if tOSU does well. I’ll go with Kenny Irons, the running back from Auburn.

As I noted earlier, you can see the Gray interview in raw form. Here are the stories based on the interview. The AP Pittsburgh sportswriter Alan Robinson focused on Gray looking to what can be done next year.

“I can be part of something special,” Gray said Monday, a day after pulling his name out of consideration for the NBA draft.
…
With Gray back, Pitt will return eight of the top 10 players from a team that went 25-8, played in the Big East championship game and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

“We’re going to be a great team,” Gray said. “And to come back and be a big fish in a small pond for another year, it seemed like a great opportunity.”

Coach Dixon of course gave him support with either way he would go.

“He supported me in whichever decision I made,” said Gray, a former star at Emmaus High. “He made it very clear that we could have something special and he wanted me back, but he said,’Hey, if this is the right time for you to go to the NBA, it can only help our program.

“When he’s going out recruiting, he can say, ‘Here’s a guy who came in not so highly recruited and look what we did for him, he’s in the NBA.’ “

That’s the way you sell it.

Another angle was the mental toll of trying to decide to come back to Pitt or go to the NBA.

Beneath the smiles Monday were two bleary-eyed guys who worked tirelessly in unison over the past few months to arrive at a decision that sent Pitt basketball fans jumping through the roof.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon and his star center, Aaron Gray, will reunite next season following Gray’s decision Sunday to withdraw from the NBA draft and remain at Pitt for his senior year.

…

“I’d be playing ball with the guys in the back gym. It was a haven,” Gray said. “We’d be having fun and I’d say, ‘Wow, this could be something special.’

“They were constantly asking me, ‘Hey, why do you want to do that? Why do you want to go to the NBA?’ When I wasn’t playing basketball, I was thinking about my decision.”

That was a big part of it. Coming back to his team. Playing with his teammates one more year.

Gray turned down what likely would have been a million-dollar contract to return to Pitt and be the focal point of a team that will be the favorite to win the Big East Conference and compete for a national championship. Gray said he spoke with all his teammates in the past few weeks and said their words played a big role in his decision-making process.

“I called every single one of them and sat down with them,” Gray said. “I told them if I passed up this opportunity to come back [to] be with you guys, I have to make sure you guys are committed to the things I want to achieve here. Every one of them looked me in the eye and told me we have a common goal. I wholeheartedly believed them. That was one of the biggest factors, actually, that made me come back here.”

…

Gray feels strongly that he has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with Pitt next season. The Panthers have made five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, but the 2006-07 Panthers could be something special. In addition to Gray, Pitt has seven other key players returning from a team that was 25-8 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament last season.

The expectations could be as high as they were in 2002, when the Panthers returned five starters and opened the season No. 5 in the Associated Press poll. That team was 28-5 and lost to Marquette in the Sweet 16.

One preseason poll has the Panthers ranked fourth. Andy Katz of ESPN.com has Pitt ranked No. 4 behind Florida, Kansas and North Carolina in his preseason poll that came out yesterday.

“We have a lot of returnees,” Dixon said. “But we have a lot of guys who will have to give us more than they have in the past. It’s June. We still have a lot of work to do. Give me a break until November, all right?”

If Coach Dixon wants a little break about expectations, then he better hope the football team shoots out of the gate strong. Otherwise, you can bet the basketball team will be seeing a lot of attention.

Gray also got feedback about what he has to do to improve from NBA scouts and GMs. One of biggest issues is the issue of conditioning. Gray had a body fat measurement of 15.0%. That was the highest amongst all of the potential 1st round draftees. Patrick O’Bryant came in at 10%. Even Paul Miller was 13.8%. If fact of all the players at Orlando who were measured, the only players to have a higher body fat were: Rashad Anderson (17.3%, due in part to illness), Terence Dials (15.8%), Marco Killingsworth (19%), and Yemi Nicholson (17.2%).

I usually don’t like to talk about high school juniors, but I’ll make an exception for a legacy. Former Pitt player and coach, and present D-line coach for the Carolina Panthers, Sal Sunseri is sending his son to Central Catholic.

Tino Sunseri, who will be a junior this fall, is living in Fox Chapel with his uncle and aunt, Gus and Karen Sunseri, who will serve as his legal guardians.

“I was very pleased with the way everything went,” Sal Sunseri said afterward. “Me and my wife (Roxanne) were very excited about the open-mindedness of the committee.”

Tino Sunseri, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound quarterback, started the past two seasons at Weddington, a suburban Charlotte school which plays in North Carolina’s highest classification. Weddington is in the same conference, the Southeastern 4A, as nationally ranked Independence, which has won 92 consecutive games and six consecutive state titles.

Sunseri was considered one of the state’s top 100 sophomores by NCpreps.com and is expected to compete for the starting quarterback job at Central, which won the 2004 WPIAL and PIAA Class AAAA titles and reached the WPIAL semifinals last season. The Vikings will participate in Pitt’s 7-on-7 passing camp Friday.

The WPIAL held a hearing to determine his eligibility. The hearing was closed to reporters at the family’s request.