CollegeFootballNews.com does yeoman’s work each year with its 119 previews of all D-1A teams. Not only are they detailed and fairly accurate, the writers actually put their name to the work so people know who to yell at when things are wrong. In something of a change of pace, they put their Pitt preview up on the Fox Sports site before their own. (Thankfully an eagle-eyed reader alerted me.)

Head coach Dave Wannstedt is a pro coach who realizes when a talent level isn’t quite where it’s supposed to be. He knows his team has to be faster on defense, stronger against the run, more efficient in the passing game, and far more effective running the ball. In other words, the Panthers have to become the Steelers.

While winning a world championship isn’t likely to happen any time soon, being more of a player in the Big East race would do for now. While all the attention will be paid to Louisville and West Virginia and their national title hopes, the road to the Big East championship and the BCS will literally go through Heinz Field.

Pitt might not be as talented as the Mountaineers or Cardinals, but it has some great pieces in place to work around and should be better overall by the end of the season. That means the timing is perfect; the final two games are at home against … take a guess.

One of the more optimistic previews on Pitt you will find.

The season will be a success if … Pitt wins the Big East title. Crank the expectations up a notch. The team should be an experienced, hardened squad by mid-November. It’s not often you get ten games to prepare for your two biggest home games.

I have an element of “I want to believe” going as I read this. Turning to their offense profile, really drives that feeling home. While Jeff Otah and Kevin Collier are conspicuous by their absence in talking about the particular units, there is still a lot of “if… , then…” pervading the view. Honestly, I look at Pitt’s offense and there are legit questions about the running game, receiving game and the O-line. There seems to be a cautious amount of optimism about each unit, to lead to the higher expectations.

The offense preview strikes me as most concerned about the running game, but knows that Coach Wannstedt will be stressing it.

Running Backs
This could be a problem even with the return of leading rusher LaRod Stephens-Howling. The most talented runner on the roster, Rashad Jennings, transferred to Liberty after things didn’t quite work out with the coaching staff. Raymond Kirkley wasn’t able to stay healthy last year, but he was a good back and will be missed. Stephens-Howling isn’t big, so he’ll need plenty of help in the rotation meaning Brandon Mason and Shane Brooks have to be steady reserves from the start. The fullbacks will be a strength as the season goes on despite the limited experience.
The key to the unit: Average more than four yards per carry. The running game was non-existent at times last season, and didn’t exactly rock anyone’s world in spring ball, so this will have to continue to be a focus of the coaching staff before the opener.
Running Back Rating: 6

As for the offensive line, well the good news is they have more experience — which they seem to like. The bad news, is they weren’t that good last year and it won’t be too different a squad.
Moving to the Defense preview, the big issue is the D-line. The secondary seems to be in good shape with Revis on one side, Phillips coming back at safety, so the real question is who will step up to take the other corner position. The linebackers are led, of course, by H.B. Blades so that isn’t as big a concern. On this side of the ball, it just keeps coming back to the D-line.

There’s plenty of experience but not a whole bunch of size and there needs to be far more from the pass rush. There will be a rotation of sophomores at tackle who need to hold up better than departed starting tackles Thomas Smith and Phil Tillman did, while end Chris McKillop, the only returning starter, has to be an even better pass rusher. The depth isn’t bad, but that’s primarily because the starters are hardly a lock to keep their jobs.
The key to the unit: All the young players have to become savvy veterans, while Chris McKillop and Charles Sallet must get in the backfield more from the outside.
Defensive Line Rating: 6.5

It’s terribly scary that the lines are the biggest question marks — again — heading towards September. As additional reading, be sure to read this “primer” on O-linemen.

Last week, the NCAA updated its list of “schools” from which it would not accept academic transcripts.

The NCAA on Wednesday added 16 nontraditional high schools, seven of them in Santa Ana, Calif., to a list of those whose transcripts will no longer be accepted because of questionable academic credentials.

Five schools, including Martinez Adult Education in Martinez, Calif., were removed from an original list of 15 released last month after a review by the NCAA. Other schools are still being investigated and could face similar sanctions in the association’s attempt to crack down on so-called “diploma mills” whose graduates seek athletic scholarships to college.

…

The other schools removed from the original list of 15 schools were: Hawaii Electronic, Honolulu; Ranch Academy, Canton, Texas; Tazewell (Va.) City Career and Tech Center; and Virginia Beach (Va.) Central Academy.

The 16 added Wednesday include Access, Horizon, Joplin, Los Pinos, Lyon, Otto A. Fischer and Rio Contiguo, all of Santa Ana. The NCAA said 22 others have been cleared for only those graduates entering college this fall and are subject to review.

Five other schools have applied to the NCAA clearinghouse, but no decision has been made on their status for initial eligibility. They are Educational Consultants, Midlothian, Va.; God’s Academy, Grand Prairie, Texas; Mill Creek Baptist School, Youngstown, Ohio; New Life Academy, Salt Lake City; and Progressive Christian Academy, Camp Springs, Md.

The NCAA listing is not retroactive, meaning it won’t affect any athletes already enrolled in college.

There seems to be a lot of confusion and anger. Shockingly Lutheran Christian Academy out of Philly — the school that was the focus of NYTimes and Washington Post articles — got clearance for students for this fall. They are, however, part of the group of 22 subject to further review. And there’s the problem. Among the 22 that made the list were some schools that have fairly clean histories.

Mere hours after the NCAA released a list Wednesday of 22 schools that it cleared for accreditation during the 2005-06 school year, officials of two of the schools, Oak Hill Academy and Fork Union Military Academy, both based in Virginia, took umbrage at being on such a list at all.

“Our academic rigors and integrity have never been called into question until now,” said Michael Groves, president of Oak Hill, a 127-year-old institution that annually produces a nationally ranked high school basketball team and has a long list of alums that have played professionally. “We’re a high-profile institution, and we’re proud of the success that we’ve had with our young men and women.”

But many of Oak Hill’s high-profile graduates spent only a year or two at the school, and Kevin Lennon, the NCAA’s vice president for membership services, said his investigative staff is focusing on transcripts that show a student “has enrolled for only one year… or has a significant jump in his GPA in his third or fourth year.”
…

A separate list of 22 schools, including Lutheran Christian of Philadelphia; Notre Dame Prep of Fitchburg, Mass.; St. Thomas More of Oakdale, Conn.; and Virginia’s Oak Hill and Fork Union Military Academies, were cleared for prospects entering college this year, but are subject to future review.

Fletcher Arritt, who has coached Fork Union’s postgraduate men’s basketball team for 36 years, told The Inquirer that he was a little baffled that a prestigious academy offering multitiered men’s and women’s athletic programs in a variety of sports would be part of such a review.

Hey, Oak Hill is a fine institute. Esepcially since Julian Vaughn, a now potential Pitt recruit, is going there this fall.

Of course, you can question how hard the NCAA is actually investigating the schools at this point (though, to be fair, they just started and gathering information to make a legit case against accepting academic transcripts — due process and all that).

In all, 22 were passed, for now, by the NCAA because they cooperated with a complete survey in response to the basic needs of students and the overall description of the prep school. Although the NCAA put a disclaimer on the 22 by saying the NCAA still has questions (for the classes of 2007 and beyond), the students arriving on campuses this fall can move forward. Sixteen schools, including Christopher Robin Academy in New York and North Atlanta Prep in Georgia, were not cleared.

[Emphasis added.]

Yup, that’s all it took to get NCAA approval for this season. Simply respond to the questionnaire. How bad is it, that 16 schools couldn’t even do that?

This gives columnists to look at the present effort as half-assed and incompetent

In its quest to identify and admonish secondary schools of questionable academic repute, the NCAA set itself up for charges of heavy-handedness by listing some places that have never fielded sports teams. And in publicly censuring some established institutions without having done thorough homework, the administrators probably will have to rescind a few declarations and apologize to Oak Hill Academy and Fork Union Military Academy.
…
Of course, this scrutiny is long overdue. After years of operating as a subway turnstile, the NCAA’s Clearinghouse might start to resemble an airport metal detector. Maybe.

And from even a cursory examination, it appears there is plenty to scan.

or at least a starting point.

At least the NCAA took a step toward addressing the latest academic scam: bogus prep schools that clean up three years of lousy transcripts with a one-year makeover, allowing players to gain college eligibility. For too many basketball players, high school has become a vagabond process — bouncing from one school to the next, until finishing at a prep school that magically fixes a player’s academic deficiencies.

Of course, the very fact the NCAA Clearinghouse was rubber-stamping all manner of garbage diploma mills necessitated the corrective action. Now those who wound up on what everyone at the Nike camp is calling the “banned list” are squawking.

…

Many coaches at Nike wondered how Lutheran Christian avoided being immediately banned by the NCAA. Lennon said that the review process is continuing for that school — and that its “graduates” have hardly been green-lighted to play in 2006-07.

“Some of the students who attended there might get their records reviewed [by the NCAA Clearinghouse],” Lennon said.

The NCAA’s other hope is that its member schools will stop using the Clearinghouse eligibility standard as their own. In other words, just because the NCAA screwed up in allowing schools like Lutheran Christian to proliferate, it doesn’t mean the schools have to look the other way and admit its players.

“That should not be a de facto admissions standard,” Lennon said.

*cough* Bob Huggins *cough* Kansas State *cough*