It was apparently a light practice today. Something to be expected after a big scrimmage the day before. Still, there are things worth observing.

There are still several positions up-for-grabs, and some experiments are not yet complete, but the move from safety to linebacker for sophomore Tommy Campbell is looking better every day. Now, he’s working with the first team alongside seniors H.B. Blades and Clint Session.

“I’ve been waiting for this chance since I came here from high school,” Campbell said. “I looked at it as a fresh start for me, moving to linebacker, and I left all the problems I had at safety behind me. I think I’ve become a better player and a new player as a linebacker.

“It doesn’t hurt to have H.B. and Clint beside me, either. They’ve been helping me out a lot. Brian Bennett, Derron Thomas, I can ask any of them about anything. If I have a question, they’ll help me out. Coach says that linebacker is the most experienced part of this football team.”

Campbell’s speed and athleticism is a perfect complement to Blades and Session. The trio likely is Pitt’s most aggressive linebacking corps in years, and each one is a playmaker. Sure, Campbell still makes some mistakes, but they’re fewer and farther between.

“Perimeter plays, I can do real well on them, but I have to do better on the inside runs,” Campbell said. “I make some false steps on those plays, but I’m learning all the time. And I’m going to get better. The best way to fix it is to get more repetitions. Eventually, the mistakes will go away.”

It’s been astounding how quickly Campbell has won the starting position amongst the linebackers.

Coach Wannstedt, showing a little of his old school upbringing, seems more than a little frustrated by some of the injuries.

On Ernest “Mick” Williams:

He doesn’t feel good, he got sick again. We need to get him on the field. He had a concussion, it’s been over a week. We’re expecting him back any day. I was hopeful that he would do something yesterday. He just doesn’t feel right the moment he tries to do something. He came out to do individuals yesterday and he just didn’t feel good.

Considering they didn’t seem to diagnose his concussion initially — just calling it some migraines, there should be no rush to get him back banging helmets.

Keeping things easygoing while I watch the final round of the PGA Championship.

Kevan Smith gets a nice write-up.

“I found out Stull broke his hand, and Dexter has two bad knees, so I’m second guy right now,” Smith said. “That gets butterflies in your stomach, just thinking about it.”

Smith is showing no signs of anxiety. In Tuesday’s scrimmage, he completed 11-of-17 pass attempts for 130 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions, while working with the second- and third-team offenses.

“My head was spinning a lot in the beginning, but now it’s really slowing down,” Smith said. “I’m definitely making progress. The speed that I’m learning, and how I’m grasping it, shows my development and how fast I can grab things. If I keep learning at this rate, hopefully, good things will happen.”

Coach Dave Wannstedt singled out Smith for praise after the scrimmage.

“The guy who has learned the most, who was thrown into the fire as quick as any of them, is Kevan Smith,” Wannstedt said. “He’s come out here and has been the second-team quarterback from Day One. He has been very consistent the entire camp. He has been a real pleasant surprise and no one’s talking about him.”

Smith is silencing all the major-league scouts — and even his own family — who insisted baseball, not football, held his best chance as a future pro. Focus on baseball, they said, and the 6-foot-3, 215-pound catcher would have been a top-10 round draft pick last June.

No indication as to whether he’s going to play ball with the Pitt baseball team. You have to imagine Joe Jordano would love to have him “walk-on.” It had to be tough, though, to do his own thing when his own father is at least “hinting” baseball was the way to go. Suggests a very strong-will and desire towards football.
From all accounts, Smith is a natural talent, and if he prefers football over baseball it makes sense to pursue it. Not to mention, that it’s generally been a bit easier for two-sport athletes to move from football to baseball than the other way. At the very least, the baseball organizations will still take a chance on you in the draft and with a signing bonus if you play football first.
An interesting piece looking at the QBs for Pitt, PSU and WVU.

Palko had to learn some things the hard way: Being a backup to Rod Rutherford as a freshman, taking a redshirt the next year and learning that, after a standout sophomore year, he couldn’t win games by himself last season.

“That’s my personality a little bit,” Palko said. “I’m not a selfish person, but if something needs to be done, I step up and try to make it happen. In football, one guy can’t do everything. I’m a little bit of a hard head. Sometimes I have to learn the hard way.

“My way’s worked. It’s not going to always work. There’s that old saying, different ways to skin a cat. My sophomore year, there were times when I handled it the way I handled it in high school. Hey, high school worked.”

Palko admits that last year didn’t.

He went from hometown hero to scapegoat, took the lumps that went with the position. There were questions about his arm strength, his decision making, his leadership. He has learned to listen to his coaches, not his critics.

“I think it helped him a lot,” Pitt linebacker H.B. Blades said. “Now he knows. He handled adversity last year. Tyler’s a great player. He knows that. We know it. He found out through the media not everybody loves you. I think he took too much of the blame last year.”

He left out questions as to whether he was playing hurt or such. Honestly, there are still some questions about his arm strength. Especially throwing to a sideline, 10-15 yards downfield. The ball tends to float a bit at that spot — which may be more about the way he throws to that spot — unlike when he throws over the middle or even a deep ball along a sideline. Hopefully they have worked on that some more.

The part on Morelli skips over his mental acumen issues. Which leads to a contrasting figure.

Finally, Luke Getsy, in his second year starting at Akron gets a story on ESPN.com. (Given that I live in NE Ohio and a Pitt alum, I probably pay more attention to stories on Getsy than I should.)

Some quarterbacks get by with bionic arms and chutzpah. Getsy does it with preparation.

“You’ve got to be prepared for everything,” he said. “If I move this way, I’ll be able to make a play here or there. It’s kind of an instinct thing, but if you don’t know what’s going on around you, bad things happen.”

Getsy’s instincts were telling him to leave Pittsburgh, his hometown school, after losing the starting quarterback job to Tyler Palko in September 2004. But he was hardly prepared for his next move.

He had never been to Akron. He didn’t know much about the MAC. And because then-Pitt coach Walt Harris wouldn’t release him from his scholarship, Getsy had to pay his own way.

The scholarship situation also prevented him from contacting other schools.

“I pretty much had to go on hearsay,” he said.

He knew Akron coach J.D Brookhart, who had been Pitt’s offensive coordinator during his first two years there. But as Getsy packed his bags, left his hometown behind and headed for Akron, sight unseen, he knew it was a leap of faith.

Turned out to be the best scramble this quarterback would ever make.

“I wouldn’t trade my past for anything,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade the position I’m in now for anything.”

When Getsy was battling Palko for the starting QB spot in 2004, it seemed unbelievable that the much heralded Palko could be in a dogfight through training camp with Getsy for the starting position. It did refelct well on Getsy’s guts, smarts and preparation to make it a battle. The best thing for Getsy was probably that Coach Harris has always preferred the arm strength and physical tools at the QB spot (for those whow remember the epic David Priestly-John Turman QB battles). That probably got Harris to make a decision before the end of training camp and give Getsy just enough time to leave Pitt.

One of Getsy’s most gratifying moments came after the MAC championship, when he and Brookhart received a congratulatory letter from Harris, now Stanford’s coach.

“We have a lot of respect for each other,” Getsy said.

“Luke understands how much Walt gave him,” Brookhart said. “We’re men and we make our mistakes and don’t handle things right. They worked it out and they’re again on speaking terms, so that’s good.”

Getsy enters the fall with high expectations. He wants another MAC title and for Akron to make a statement nationally. The Zips get a chance right away with an opener at Penn State.

If all goes well, could Getsy become the next MAC quarterback playing on Sundays?

“Someone would be crazy not to give this kid a shot in the NFL,” Brookhart said. “I’ve never been around one like this, who knows it the way he knows it and gets it and make decisions and sees things.

“The intangibles, he’s off the chart.”

There were some hard feelings on both sides when Getsy left.

More family stuff this weekend, kept me away from the computer. If I had known I was only going to get one post I would have done more of a round-up thing. So, a little combining and mixing of Saturday and Sunday news.

Freshman receiver Aaron Smith is going to need surgery on his separated left shoulder. Coach Wannstedt conceded he was done for the year, but said the issue now was whether Smith would enroll at Pitt for the fall or wait until winter semester to take classes. I suppose it could be a numbers manipulation thing with scholarships, but considering Smith had some delays relating to academics getting on the field with the NCAA Clearinghouse there could be other reasons for delaying. The other possibility is to preserve his full eligibility, including a redshirt year. It all seems kind of vague and unclear to me since Smith has actually practiced with the team and the school would be footing the medical bills. I guess the issue is that he hasn’t started taking classes.
Smith was the closest Coach Wannstedt would come to saying who would be redshirting this season.

On having a timetable on making decisions about redshirts:

I think we wouldn’t even think about that until we’re into the season. Last year, John Bachman was a great example. We had led ourselves to believe we were going to redshirt him, and then halfway into the season, as we looked at our offensive line not just for last year but for this year, we said we’ve got to play somebody or we’re going to have a tired, inexperienced left side of the line. Those decisions are made as the season goes on.

Nate Byham will be one player Coach Wannstedt has declared will not be redshirted. The TE corp already looks solid and set with Senior Steve Buches, Junior Darrell Strong and Freshman Byham. I have to agree with Paul Zeise that Pitt could and might be wise to make use of three tight-end sets during the season. Strong has excelled in second team scrimmages when Bill Stull has been the QB.

Senior LB Clint Session was a standout player on Friday.

For the Saturday scrimmage, around a 100 or so Pitt football alumni watched before going to a cookout.

John Bachman is making it a battle with Jeff Otah for the starting left tackle position. During the scrimmage the offense was able to move the ball well, but made 4 turnovers to miss opportunities in the redzone.

The Panthers conducted their second scrimmage of training camp. The offense showed progress by scoring four touchdowns, but it also committed two fumbles and two interceptions.

“Offensively, I was real pleased with how we moved the ball. The disappointing thing was we turned it over when we had the opportunity to score,” Wannstedt said. “You have to give the defense some credit, too. Defensively, I thought we were OK. The best thing we did on defense was cause turnovers.”

Fifth-year senior quarterback Tyler Palko completed 10 of 19 passes for 115 yards with an interception. Sophomore Bill Stull was 12 of 19 for 145 yards with an interception. Freshman Kevan Smith was 3 of 8 for 37 yards with a 10-yard touchdown pass to walk-on fullback Chris Bova.

Sophomore tailback LaRod Stephens-Howling led all rushers with 42 yards and a touchdown on seven carries but fumbled once. Redshirt freshman Shane Brooks (six carries for 29 yards) and freshman Kevin Collier (eight carries for 27 yards) also scored in an overtime drill.

Junior tight end Darrell Strong led all receivers with seven catches for 95 yards. Redshirt freshman receiver Oderick Turner had four catches for 59 yards, including a 37-yarder.

Coach Wannstedt was mostly happy about the second scrimmage.

On the second scrimmage in general:

It was good work today. We ended up getting probably close to about a hundred plays with everything included. The special situation that we worked today, we worked some overtime, live, ones against ones and had the officials go through everything which I thought was good. The thing that was good today, the good and bad, was that offensively we moved the ball. I was real pleased how we moved the ball. The disappointing thing was we turned it over a few times when we had opportunities to score. But, you have to give the defense some credit, too. Clint Session went in there and caused a big fumble. There was some pressure on one of the interceptions. Defensively, I thought we were okay. The best thing we did on defense was cause a couple of turnovers. And I was pleased with the offense. I think we’re starting to come together a little bit and [we’re] making some plays.

The Kicking game is something that looks to be an issue of growing fear in the pit of everyone’s stomach.

With senior David Abdul (heart) not cleared medically after undergoing surgery, redshirt sophomore Conor Lee and freshman Dan Hutchins have been vying for the placekicking duties.

Lee, from Upper St. Clair, was the unquestioned front-runner coming into camp but did not kick yesterday because of a strained hamstring.

He said, “It is precautionary right now, and I could have [played] if it was a game.”

Hutchins went 1 for 2 yesterday, making an 18-yarder but missing from 37 yards.

Wannstedt sounded a little perturbed at the kicking game, saying: “We have to get zeroed in and get some consistency with our field goals.”

Abdul might actually make it back to the team this season, but nothing is clear.

Palko played well in scrimmage. To some it was a marked improvement over what had been a lackluster camp to date.
H.B. Blades likes what he is seeing up front from the defense.

Blades wasn’t pleased with his defensive front’s performance last fall, but he had a lot of good things to say after the scrimmage.

“They’re doing real well,” Blades said. “I’m very pleased with Corey Davis’ progress. He’s come a long way and is playing terrific football right now. John Malecki has come in and played real well.

“Gus Mustakas, all those guys, collectively as a group, they’re doing a great job getting into the backfield and making plays. Last year, it was kind of like they were getting used to everything, but now they’re comfortable. You can see that by the way they go out there and play.”

Lots of work still before the first game.