Utter crap time here. Lee claims to be too busy to help draft this one. Bull. Even he’s trying to avoid trying to figure this mess out.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	—
2	Michigan	—
3	Southern Cal	6
4	Arkansas	6
5	Rutgers	7
6	Florida	1
7	Notre Dame	6
8	West Virginia	—
9	LSU	2
10	Louisville	7
11	California	5
12	Texas	8
13	Boise State	2
14	Wake Forest	3
15	Wisconsin	1
16	Oklahoma	2
17	Auburn	10
18	Boston College	2
19	Maryland	2
20	Georgia Tech	1
21	Nebraska	1
22	Tennessee	8
23	Kansas State	3
24	Tulsa	1
25	Virginia Tech	1

Just looking at it, tells me I have to make changes. Cal slides further. Maybe flip ND and WVU. Maybe. Flip Oklahoma and Wisconsin, perhaps.

Help!

Despite what I think we all consider to be a disasterous football weekend, Pitt has a new verbal.

“I just called Coach (Dave) Wannstedt and committed to Pitt,” stated rugged middle linebacker Max Gruder (6-foot-2 inches, 220pounds) from Charlotte Country Day High School in Charlotte, NC. “Pitt was the school I wanted to go to all along. I told every school recruiting me that Pitt would be my choice if they offered.”

…

Gruder has received scholarship offers from Western Michigan and Rice. North Carolina State and Illinois have recently contacted him about his senior film and hope to schedule official visits.

“I have had a number of college players and I can tell you that Max is as good as any of them,” stated Charlotte Country Day High School Head Football Coach Bob Witman. “You just don’t see too many players with Max’s size that can move that fast. Max is a really big player, but his main asset is his speed. He runs sideline to sideline and he can run anyone down.”

Gruder is listed as a 1 to 0-star recruit according to the recruiting sites.  He was all-state last year been selected for the NC team in the NC-SC Shrine Bowl All-star game. Also, he was selected to another all-state all-star team.

His asset and why Pitt recruited him, seems to be his speed. We all know Pitt needs speed. Of course, it also hinges on Pitt teaching and developing his talent. Erp.

Even before the game was officially over, Coach Jamie Dixon couldn’t help but turn his thoughts to what was coming after the end of the game.

“The emotions for me became greater today as the game ended and the ceremony began,” Jamie Dixon said. “We had lots of friends and family here and I think my biggest concern was how my parents would react. They have been through so much but they were looking forward to this. They wanted to come back here and that was great. And my mom just seems to be doing a little bit better and that’s great, too.”

The Pitt players knew how much the day meant and weren’t going to make any mistakes.

“We definitely wanted to win this game for Coach Dixon,” said junior guard Ronald Ramon, who came off the bench to score 16 points. “We know the tough time he went through at the end of last year.”

Maggie was honored with banners being raised, Patriot League Championship rings being distributed and words from Coach Dixon and Maggie’s former players. One more chance to say goodbye.

I have no clue what the actual numbers are for Pitt’s All-Access subscriptions are. The prices still seem a bit high. It also doesn’t help that it doesn’t work in Mozilla or Mac or even Internet Explorer 7 at this point (only IE 6). They are almost making it attractive to give it a try for November.

Pitt Athletics is proud to announce that Pitt’s upcoming men’s basketball games against Northeastern and Oakland on Nov. 17 & 19 will be available via live web cast on Panthers All-Access website for exclusive live streaming of these non-televised games.

This special offer includes complete game coverage of Pitt’s basketball game against Northeastern on Friday, Nov. 17 and the Oakland contest on Sunday, Nov. 19. Both games have a 5 p.m. tipoff and live coverage begins at 4:30 on the web cast.

It’s $7.95 for a month. Plus, act now and get a free”Panthers All-Access” keychain. Okay then.

Ah, the box score. My favorite. The team definitely cruised. 9 players with 18 minutes or more and the high in minutes was Kendall with 25. That is good to read in the early games.

The Panthers looked good, very good in the opening game (hat tip to Dave in Orlando).

Five minutes remained in the game when Western Michigan assistant Cornell Mann turned to Broncos head coach Steve Hawkins and asked him if he had ever seen an offensive performance like Pitt’s on Sunday.

“I said ‘Yes, two years ago when I went to watch Illinois at Michigan State,’ ” Hawkins said after the No. 5 Pitt Panthers put on an offensive clinic in an 86-67 victory over the Broncos here in the inaugural Maggie Dixon Classic, an event held to honor Pitt coach Jamie Dixon’s sister, the Army women’s coach who tragically died of a heart ailment at 28 on April 6.

Let’s keep some perspective, as nice as it is to read that. It was great that Pitt cruised and had 23 assists. It should also be noted that the team also had 17 turnovers. The turnovers are a little too high.

Hard mentally to accept that Pitt was the undercard for this day. The number in attendance was more than doubled for the women’s game later. Of course, the later game actually included the real home team at West Point.

Western Michigan, despite losing by 19 was not that unhappy with their performance in the new offensive style. And a solid effort.

“I thought we really battled hard in second half despite the score at halftime,” said sophomore Derek Drews, who led the Broncos with 13 points. “Pitt is probably the best team we’ll play all year and hopefully, at the end of the season, we’ll have a chance to play a team of that caliber again. (Our) hat’s off to Pitt. They came out and had a good run in the first half, and there’s not much you can do about it.”

…

[WMU Head Coach Sean Hawkins said,] “We didn’t play in front of 150 people and we didn’t play a Division III school. We were playing against a top-five team in the country and they played like it. And I was very pleased with the way our kids battled and competed throughout the day. Just too much Pitt.”

A very good start to the season.