There’s still plenty of material to get through, but I’ll focus on the Pitt stuff for now.

I noted in the video clips yesterday that Coach Wannstedt talked a bit about Palko, then Palko answered questions about himself and his goals. Palko stressed how his stats didn’t matter, only winning the game. Well, it can be argued that some of his stats do matter for the winning.

While this will be Palko’s third as captain, the point is clear: As Tyler goes so go the Panthers.

Last season, the first in Wannstedt’s system, the disparity between win-and-loss statistics from the quarterback tells the tale. In the Panthers’ five victories Palko threw for nine touchdowns versus two interceptions and rushed for six more. However, in the six losses Palko passed for eight touchdowns, ran for none and had 14 interceptions.

Wannstedt hopes Palko can be as comfortable coming into this season as he is. “I know our team better, I know what our guys can and can’t do. … I am a lot more comfortable, a lot more confident.”

Palko added, “Comfort comes from success. You pick up more as you have success.”

Another good way to be comfortable is if the O-line actually gives you a chance to make some reads and throw the ball without being buried in the turf.

It has been mentioned before, and most are aware that the move to the 12 game schedule is probably a harsher double-edged sword for Big East teams than most. The PAC-10 took advantage of it to go to a 9 game conference slate to actually allow all the teams to play each other. It also means they still only need to find 3 non-con games each year. All the other BCS Conferences stayed at 8 games in conference, but the Big East with only 8 members has to schedule 5 non-cons as opposed to 4.

The thing all coaches seem to agree, though, is that freshmen will play a bigger role than ever with an extra game. Injuries will be the primary reason.

“They may have to play out of necessity,” West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said. “With a 12-game schedule in the same amount of weeks, there’ll be less time for guys to recover from injuries.”

The effects will be felt not only on Saturday afternoons (or in the Big East’s case, Thursday and Friday nights). It will carry over to the practice field.

“It’s a long season,” Louisville coach Bobby Petrino said. “You have to be real smart about what you do on your bye weeks, what you do when you have days off and when you have weekday games. It’s a real challenge to take care of your players and make sure they’re as sharp as they can be.”

Coach Wannstedt knows Pitt would be playing a lot of Freshmen this year, regardless of the number of games.

“We’re going to have to play (freshmen) just because of our lack of depth,” Wannstedt said.

“When you bring in 25 guys and you have 85 on scholarship, that’s a little less than a third of your team that’s freshmen. So they’re gonna be in a position to play. How much and who, I don’t know.”

The ones most likely to get playing time are Dorin Dickerson, Elijah Fields, Nate Byham, Jovanni Chappel, Aaron Berry and Kevin Collier.

Wannstedt said he hasn’t yet determined whether Dickerson and Fields will be on offense or defense, let alone which positions they’ll play.

“The first four days (of preseason camp) before we put the pads on are going to be real critical,” Wannstedt said. “We’ve got to make a lot of decisions.”

Wannstedt said Berry, who “might be the best receiver on the team,” will begin camp as a cornerback. Byham’s path to playing time opened up when tight end John Pelusi blew out his knee during the offseason. Chappel enrolled in January and was dynamite during spring drills.

Coach Wannstedt is planning something a little different with the incoming players for the first week or so of practice.

But that presents a problem: How does he accurately and fairly evaluate the freshmen during training camp while still giving the returning veterans the opportunity to prove they deserve to keep their spots, or move up, on the depth chart?

The answer? It’s surprisingly simple but could be a stroke of brilliance — separate camps for the first week.

“It isn’t fair to ask freshmen to compete with upperclassmen when they don’t even know the plays,” Wannstedt said yesterday during Big East football media day.

“And it isn’t fair to ask upperclassmen who have been busting it for our program for two or three years to take a backseat while we evaluate younger kids trying to take their jobs.”

For the first five days of training camp, the veterans and those returning players among the two-deep depth chart will practice in the morning; freshmen, redshirt freshmen and some veterans further down on the depth chart will practice in the afternoon.

“By NCAA rules you can only have one practice per day during the first five days, but as long as it is within the time restraints and as long as the players are only out there once, you can split the practice up,” Wannstedt said.

“And I just think that given where we are as a football program, it is important for us to have the two different groups work separately for the first week because it will give every player on our team an opportunity to get a lot of work in.”

Paul Zeise, the P-G Pitt football beat writer, seems quite taken with the idea. I don’t know if any other programs do this, but it does seem like a pretty good idea. The time limits are on the players not the coaches so the coaches can effectively run two sets of drills.

The only downside could be the ever elusive concept of team chemistry by separating the players — especially the new kids — from the main units, you do make it harder to get all that bonding, unity, and respect for each other established early.

Of course, those are intangibles, and that wasn’t the problem last year. It was the product on the field that was why Pitt had a disappointing year. And Coach Wannstedt — who has always had a reputation as a “players coach” sees the benefit to the upperclassmen as well.

“It will give the varsity player who is battling for a spot a chance to prove to the coaches he is the guy, and it will give the freshman kids and younger players a chance to prove what they can do as well as get a lot of reps in and learn the system.”

Back to Media Day, and the one dark spot on what was a less defiant more upbeat event than last year, was the uncomfortable fact that in an 8 team league it seems to be a 2 team race.

There are problems, for sure. There appears to be a sharp drop-off in talent after the top two, with league linchpins Syracuse and Pittsburgh coming off poor seasons. The Orange, in Greg Robinson’s second year as head coach, was picked to finish in last place again this season.

“I still think for us to reach our maximum potential, Pittsburgh and Syracuse need to get back to where they were,” Tranghese said. “When they do, then I think we’ll start to really be what I think we can be.”

Hopefully, Pitt can shake things up this season.

Darrelle Revis is selling the spin that he hasn’t made any decisions yet about the NFL Draft.

Pitt cornerback Darrelle Revis insisted he is not ready to decide whether to give up his senior year and turn pro. “I’ll weigh my options after the season,” Revis said. Coach Dave Wannstedt said he hasn’t said anything yet to Revis about it. “Right now, he just needs to worry about having a good training camp,” Wannstedt said. “I think he’s got his head on right.”

Now, I’m not saying he won’t be focused on this season. In fact, I expect a great season from him. Revis has been an excellent player and has never caused any problems. I’m just of the opinion that he’s going pro after this season, and that he’s already leaning towards going pro. He’s a NFL-level CB and will definitely go on the first day.

Since Revis was one of the Pitt players at the BE Media Day, he’s going to be the subject of a few profile/puff pieces in the next few days or so. Here’s the first.

“He has a lot of great natural ability, but that only takes you so far,” the Pittsburgh coach said here yesterday during Big East Media Day. “The thing that separates Darrelle is that the intangible things are so positive. By that I mean his work ethic, his film study, his passion to be the best, those are the things that take a guy with great athletic ability, which he has, and puts him on top.

“He’s a gamer. Every team probably has one guy, maybe two, that you say you never want them to be off the field. You’d like them to return punts, you’d like them to return kickoffs, you’d like them to be a wideout and throw them the ball. He’s that top of guy.”
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Regardless, whatever Revis gets, he’ll work harder to get more. It’s his makeup. His uncle, Sean Gilbert, a former Pitt star, played in the NFL for 12 years and taught his nephew the right way. NFL great Ty Law (also a cornerback) is a family friend who has led Revis in the right direction. The same can be said for his high school coach at Aliquippa, Mike Zmijinac, who told him, “You sleep hard, you eat hard, you …”

You do everything hard.

The message has been clear and the kid has the followed advice: keep working hard and never settle for what you have.

“You see a lot of kids, there’s a difference between talent and working hard,” Revis said. “That extra work ethic is going to take you to another level.

“I’m athletic, I can do things. I can probably jump from here to here on one foot, I can do all of that. But it’s a thing that you have to set yourself aside and the thing about doing that is working hard. The work ethic, pushing through a line, finish all the way through, just doing the little things. Do the little things and big things will happen.”

His skill, not just his athleticism, is why teams didn’t want to throw his way last year and will look to pick on the CB opposite of him this year.

There are natural rivalries that develop by local geography (Pitt-PSU, Pitt-WVU, USC-UCLA, Alabama-Auburn). There are rivalries that develop from years of strong conference battles for supremacy (Michigan-Ohio State, Tennessee-Florida, Oklahoma-Texas).

The worst thing that can be done, though, is for conferences to try and make a rivalry. For years, anyone and everyone has rightly lambasted the “Land Grant Trophy” game between Penn St. and Michigan St. as some juryrigged attempt by the Big 11 to give PSU a “rivalry” game in the conference to make them seem like more a part of the conference.

Unfortunately for Pitt fans, the Big East decided to do the same for Cinci by pairing them with Pitt for the River City Rivalry.

The Big East wasn’t trying to play that up at Media Day. Instead they were trying to talk up other possible rivalries.

“I think we’re a lot different than a year ago,” said Tranghese. “Last year we hadn’t played a game yet. It was all new. Now we’ve played each other and started to develop some rivalries and see what everyone is about.”

But who? There’s some effort to make L-ville and WVU rivals, but that only happens if they remain the top two teams in the league for a longer period than just a couple years.

The funny thing is the coaches aren’t even buying. The Big East office pushes the story, the media asks the coaches and, well…

Maybe someday, if Michael Tranghese’s vision for the Big East takes shape, Rutgers’ table won’t be placed so close to UConn’s.

The Big East commissioner opened the program by harping on the importance of rivalry development in the Big East, especially in the wake of the conference’s major shake-up and the addition of new teams last year.
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For UConn, the closest Big East football schools geographically are Rutgers (Piscataway, N.J.) and Syracuse (upstate New York).

Edsall said he is still not sure where UConn’s most heated rivalries will develop.

“We’ve only been playing some of these teams for three years and I don’t know if you develop a rivalry in three years,” Edsall said. “You want those things to happen and I think they will. You can see some signs of things maybe getting a little bit closer to that. I think there’s a potential rivalry to be had with Syracuse and with Rutgers because of a proximity standpoint and some of the things that have already happened through the basketball end of it.”

Edsall, however, has a difficult time fitting Rutgers into his own conditions for a rivalry.

“To me, when you have rivalries I think it’s usually an in-state thing or bordering states or it’s just a history of playing for a long time,” Edsall said. “I think in the short history with [Rutgers], we’ve beaten them a few times, they beat us last year. The scores have been very close the last few years. It’s something you see that might be happening.”

Schiano said he would love to see a rivalry develop between UConn and Rutgers, but he doesn’t want to see it forced just for marketing.

For UConn fans, based on basketball, they want the rivalry to be with Syracuse. The ‘Cuse, though, might not be so interested as UConn is such a new team in football. Besides, the Orange have enough problems with football at the moment as summarized in the title to this article:

Now, that’s the way to market to fans.

Last year’s blanket coverage of Levon Kendall on the Under-21 Canadian National Team was so highly received how could I resist a chance to do it again.

Having missed out on qualifying for the world championships in Japan, head coach Leo Rautins is instead taking a young team to Europe for an eight-game exhibition schedule played in three countries against seven national teams.
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“Our team is young,” said Rautins, who is in his second season as the national team head coach. “We have three 19-year-olds. A veteran for us is 23 years old. It’s a unique situation. We have the ability this summer to play these games and get to know each other, with no pressure.

“We need to get ready for next year and the year after.”

The core of the team is made up of players who won a bronze medal for Canada at the under-21 world championship last summer, one of Canada’s most significant international results.

“I think we had a group of guys who played together for quite a few years and that’s what they’re trying to establish here,” said Levon Kendall, the Vancouver forward who was the centrepiece of the under-21 team last year.

“We’ve got some guys who are going to be together and can look long term at qualifying for the Olympics and the worlds and can build toward that each summer. We did that with the younger team and it paid off.”

The team is being coached by former Syracuse player Leo Rautins, who is also the father of current ‘Cuse player Andy Rautins. The younger Rautins, just got added to the team.

“We had eight or nine coaches from across the country involved in the process of putting the team together,” Rautins said Monday. “There was no question that Andy earned a spot here. He shot the ball very well.”

So naturally, those coaches wouldn’t be influenced by the fact that he’s the head coach’s son.

Canada will not play in the FIBA World Championship in Japan in August. So this summer’s European tour is designed with an eye toward next year’s Olympic qualifying tournament and the 2008 Olympics. Andy Rautins is one of three 19-year-olds on the roster, and the team’s average age is 24.

“This is a summer of development and experience for us,” Rautins said. “We want to establish a core for the Olympic qualifier next year. We’re taking young players we feel have potential to play for us next year and in the Olympics the year after and mixing them with a group of experienced veterans.”

Along with Andy Rautins, the younger players on the Canadian squad include Pittsburgh senior Levon Kendall and Michigan sophomore Jevohn Shepherd.

The Canadian team travels to Italy today. It will play Italy, Greece and Serbia this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The team will then head to Germany for a pair of games against a German team that will be preparing for the FIBA World Championship and will be led by Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks. The trip will end with five games in Slovenia.

The Canadian National Team tanked last year, but the U-21 performed well. Good that Kendall will be playing some very good competition in the offseason. Hopefully his back will not act up.

There’s a lot of stories from Big East Media Day. I’m still sifting through them to skip the repeats or saying the same thing (to some degree they all do, but at what angle). Just get this out there, though, Pitt and UCF have worked out their contract issues with the games.

The problem came about when the UCF-Marshall game was moved to Oct. 4, a Wednesday night, to become an ESPN2 broadcast. That meant the Golden Knights will have eight days off before playing host to Pitt.

The Panthers, who play at Syracuse on Oct. 7, will have less time to prepare. In a letter to UCF officials, Long noted the terms of the contract called for each team to have the same number of days.

The Pitt-UCF game was moved to Friday, October 13, 8pm so ESPN2 can air it. Apparently that clause of the same number of days was put in there by former Pitt AD Steve Pederson. While the actual terms of the deal weren’t specified here’s what has been reported: Big East refs will end up calling the final game of the series at Heinz Field and the buyout clause has been upped to make it more difficult for UCF to bail on either of the games.

That buyout issue is significant. UCF was overbooked on road games for 2007 (in part because they had switched this year’s game with Pitt from a home to road). It’s hard enough to get decent games years in advance especially with the need for 5 non-con games. Patsy teams are going for the big paydays with that increased pressure, bailing on one deal to take a better. UCF just announced they are paying the buyout and bailing on their trip to Tennessee in 2007.

The Golden Knights paid $10,000 to get out of the football game, which was scheduled for Sept. 29 and contracted to bring a $500,000 payday.

Tennessee is replacing UCF with Louisiana-Lafayette. Presumably a weaker opponent and requiring a bigger cash guarantee from Tennessee.