Apparently if the truth is bludgeoned home enough times, you have to admit a coach may need to go. Ron Cook has had great affection for Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoads over the years. By all accounts, Rhoads is a “good” guy and a solid interview. If you are looking for reasons why Rhoads has skated free over the years from the press asking real questions directly of Rhoads and his defense — this seems to be the simplest reason. He can’t have incriminating pictures of everyone.
Ron Cook appears as close as he is willing to come to admitting that Rhoads needs to go. I’m sorry, he doesn’t need to go. He’s the unfortunate victim of the failures of the defense.
How can someone not take the fall for that?
No, it won’t be coach Dave Wannstedt. It’s true, his first two seasons have been painfully disappointing. It’s also true his approval rating has plummeted faster than President Bush’s. But Wannstedt deserves more time. He deserves at least four seasons to show what he can do.
Defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads doesn’t have that time on his side.
His time appears to be all but up.
It would be unfair to put all of the blame for Pitt’s significant defensive shortcomings on Rhoads, in his seventh season as defensive coordinator.
Cook then proceeds to heap most of the blame on Coach Wannstedt — and there are some points that I’ll come back to in a moment — but eventually Cook has to concede to reality (sort of).
Go back even farther, to the ’03 and ’04 seasons, Harris’ final two seasons. Pitt has played 46 games since then. Its defense allowed individual backs or quarterbacks to rush for more than 100 yards 24 times, including six games of more than 200 yards. Four times, it gave up 100-yard rushing games to two players in the same game.
How can that all be personnel problems?
How can there not be schematic issues that Wannstedt needs to take a hard look at?
How can Rhoads survive?
How could any coach in his situation?
I guess he really wanted to stick with the “how” theme, but the final 2 questions shouldn’t be “How can” and “How could” but “Why should?”
Imagine that, the howling ignorant masses of fans on message boards and this blog might have been right.
As usual, there is also the ignoring of any responsibility that the DC bears in recruiting the personnel over the years — I mean, unless its a star like Revis.
Cook ends his column noting that Wannstedt has time, but sadly enough, it seems Rhoads does not.
As for what Cook said about Wannstedt, there is no doubt Wannstedt was highly defensive about his defensive approach and strategy. That Wannstedt needs to do more adapting to the players he has and the offenses the team faces is not a new complaint. It’s something, frustratingly enough, I don’t think Wannstedt is willing to do.
Could it be another asistant who graduated to defensive coorinator than failed to excell as a head coach and was welocmed back to his alma mater as the savior of their mediocre footbal program but yet stil has entrenched beliefs the same beliefs that doomed him as head coach before?
This is however a nice deal for our opponents. I am sure they feel comfortable knowing that can draw up their game plan against us months ahead of time and as a bonus they shouldn’t have to worry about any halftime adjustments as there won’t be any.
The Stains were a sorriful organization when BB was there. The NEPs were not that bad of an orginzation when he went to them.
History says that College coaches going to the NFL and vice versa NFL coaches going to college ball do not excell in either venue. Carrol is an eception to the rule. Just ask Al Groh.
-Paul the unfrozen caveman defensive coordinator
Frankinchicago – do I win the prize for a correct answer?
Now, I’m hoping that this last half of the season is dramatic enough that it warrants strong changes.
I’m also wondering if we’ll see a house cleaning in terms of not only some coaches, but upperclassmen too. As much as that could be needed, I’d like to see the kids that stuck through these last two years be allowed to finish out – unless they are negatives in the locker room.
i am very concerned about the lack of any kind of improvement all year, or any sort of defensive strategy based on a teams strengths. wanny is supposed to be some sort of defensive guru, wtf? pitt, through 2 different head coaches, has struggled mightily on defense. the only constant is the DC, so it seems like that is the problem. im worried that wanny might be too much of a ‘nice guy’ to actually fire rhoades though. if thats the case, give me his number, i would be happy to do it. hell, id even pay
Don’t discount the pictures, Hoover had picures on everyone and it kept him in power for decades. DC Paul is gone after the season, by his choice or others. I know Paul is well respected by the administration but big time college football is big bucks and missing a bowl game 2 years in a row will cost the university big bucks.
I hope they can turn it around within 1-2 years, I’m getting too old to see another rebuilding process. Pitt has not won 10 plus games since Marino’s Junior year (1981 & January 1st, 1982 Sugar bowl win versus Georgia), a 10 win season is the benchmark.
