I’m hitting the road to Pittsburgh fairly early. Don’t worry, I’ll get an open thread up for the game.
Hilarious Q&A with Paul Zeise. Not that he was particularly good. It’s just that the questions overwhelmingly were blasting at embattled DC Paul Rhoads. Zeise was stuck in the awkward position of not exactly defending Rhoads — remember Zeise still has 2 (perhaps somehow 3) more games of going to practices, interviewing and covering the team this year — but trying to offer any explanation as to why the defense sucks so badly beyond “Rhoads sucks.”

Q: The one constant through Walt Harris and now is Paul Rhoads — and that has meant horrible defense and bad tackling. Why did Dave Wannstedt keep Paul Rhoads around and how much longer do we have to endure this?

ZEISE: I’m not a big fan of holdover coaches to begin with just because I think if you are going in a new direction, go in a new direction. I think that sometimes a fresh start and new approach all around is a good thing. I don’t know what happened, I don’t think Paul Rhoads — who had great defenses his first three seasons — all of the sudden got dumb. I just can’t believe that. But this is a business and the bottom line is production. And this is going on four years now where the defense can’t make a stop, can’t make a critical stop and can’t seem to get off the field in any crucial situation against a good team.

Last week the defense allowed the Huskies to go 98 yards and then 77 yards with the game on the line. Against South Florida, they couldn’t stop the Bulls when the Panthers finally seemed to get their offense going and the Ray Rice run in the Rutgers game speaks for itself.

Dave Wannstedt can still get somewhat of a pass because these, for the most part, aren’t his players but Rhoads has been a big part of the recruiting for this team since he arrived in 2000. I can understand the frustration fans have had with the defense but all I can say is I don’t think Paul Rhoads is a bad coach; in fact, I think he’s a good coach and I’m not sure that getting rid of him will solve the problem.

He finally comes to a point I’ve been making for a while. Rhoads has been an integral part of recruiting the players on Pitt’s defense. Everyone blasts Walt Harris for his recruiting and not caring about the defense. That also meant that Rhoads had a relatively free hand in creating, recruiting and evaluating the defense. Rhoads’ first couple years were with defensive players he didn’t recruit. Go figure, they played better.

Remarkable coincidence that in 2003 when the defense was clearly with all his players and schemes, the performance began its serious collapse. No getting rid of Rhoads won’t solve the problem for next year. But it’s a damn good first step.

On the subject of Coach Dave Wannstedt. He’s not going anywhere. My prediction. Regardless, he gets 5 years with Pitt before he could be jettisoned. He is still too much of a favorite and popular figure with monied alumni, the athletic department and the school administration. He is also a Pitt alum. That almost always will buy you an extra year. It’s the tradeoff when you hire an alum as coach. Pulling the trigger on a firing becomes that much harder.

I’m not calling for Wannstedt to be gone. A couple reasons. He’s here for 3 more years, minimum. I’m not going to make myself miserable and full of bile for all of that time — I’ve been doing enough of that with Rhoads — by calling for his head.

Also, at least a part of me still has hope. Hope that with a new DC who might actually offer some new ideas, better teaching and coaching things can improve. That somehow Coach Wannstedt might figure out that he has to have a bit more flexibility in his schemes. Plus there is still the talent that is being built. Whether it is used well and/or developed remains to be seen, but there is no denying that there are more talented players in the pipeline for Pitt.