To the surprise of no one, Buddy Morris was hired for his third go-round as Pitt’s Strength & Conditioning Coach. Tom Myslinski was hired as the assistant, again as widely expected.
Not really fired up too much about this one way or the other (hat tip Joe T).
“One guy graduated from here, the other got his master’s from here,” Wannstedt said. “So this means more to them than just a regular job. I think our goal here was to get the strength and conditioning staff in place as quickly as possible because we felt like the areas we needed most improvement in are our strength and our toughness, both mentally and physically.
“I believe Buddy and Tom will push our team and will help us achieve the kind of growth in those areas during this offseason and moving forward. These are two of the best in the business, we’re fortunate to have them both.”
All sounds good. I’m not sure how big an impact this will actually have, other than Coach Wannstedt being more comfortable with them in those positions.
The former strength and conditioning coach, Mike Kent was hired from Louisville, where he received a decent amount of credit for the job he did with their strength and conditioning as their profile was rising. Kent, as I recall, stressed a lot more on the conditioning and stretching/flexibility to avoid injuries and create more speed and stamina. Something, in theory, Wannstedt probably agrees. The results, of course generally didn’t reflect that — at least on the lines.
1) The player has the speed to get there, and…
2) The payer is in the correct scheme to close on the ball.
Both of those fall under X&Os strategy and strength/condition issues (and recruiting speed on the D side, Harris didn’t seem to care about that) where we have been lacking over the last two years. I’d prefer to see the players put in position to make a tackle at least, forget about the big hits (see Session’s play over his career – he seemed to be so enamored by the dramatic, half the time he was watching the ball carrier run past him).
Do agree about the mental toughness. However, I think it has to be directed inward rather than at the other team. The 2006 Panthers seemed to pretty much give up when down, and while there’s a school of thought that it was mostly the upperclassmen (re: Harris’ guys) it looked to go the whole way through the team. Also, the lack of killer instinct was DW’s dragging his NFL mindset into the college game – you know, where if you have a 7-10 point lead you run out the clock in the second half. Only problem was that the team had neither the personnel or the skill to sustain long, clock eating drives. I’m sure Palko was chomping at the bit in more than one game to keep scoring when his OC was calling for LaRod up the middle.
Now, they should have figured out halfway through the season that our D wasn’t good enough to hold teams in the 3rd & 4th quarters, so, to me its just plain poor coaching. Who knows really, but it was a real problem and one that bears watch early next year.
“Lemming said that Penn State’s and Pitt’s recruiting classes will finish in the top 20 nationally, while West Virginia should break into the top 30.”
and…
Lemming said Pitt’s recruiting classes will make the difference in Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt’s future, which, he added, looks promising.
“Pitt is headed far north with the talent it has,” he said. “You can’t tell the true values of a coach until he has a class the full four years. Wannstedt will start turning things around next two years. They weren’t as talented as WVU, Louisville or Rutgers this season.”
Certainly a different point of view from some other’s opinions, and I’m not sure which to believe, but as Chas says “I know which one I want to believe.”
Here the full article, and it has some good insights to what this nation media writer feels about WPIAL players.
…. “I think†is not decisive enough for me and I should think, most other Pitt fans too.
For those of you in the fitness field could you enlighten with regard to how “strength and conditioning” (err, weight-training and nutrition) corresponds/ translates to “mental toughnessâ€?
Really, if DW was doing his job (without excuses) then it would be a hell of lot easier to ignore schmuck utterances and inane arguments to justify retaining Rhoades whilst firing Kent, Bray.
(Incidentally, I liked your theory, Harrison (comment posted under ‘why’ DC Rhoades remains a staple at Pitt).)
I see your point, I didn’t say that X & O’s, speed and strength were not important, just that maybe the coaches need to spend more time making the players be more tough. I’m thinking about the transformation that a military recruit goes through in boot camp. They don’t just want to get the recruit to be physically strong, they want them to me mentally strong and tough as hell. IF this is the direction DW is moving towards with the new hires, then I see good things happening on the field as a result.
I do like the changes so far that DW has made, and hope he gets an energetic and aggressive hire for the secondary coach -who can also recruit. Maybe I’m the eternal optimist (at least compared to some on these Blogs) or maybe I just don’t get so emotionally invested as others, but I do think we’ll see better things in the next few years, and am excited about seeing some of the young DW kids get their chance to shine.
Not a Insider subscriber. What’s the skinny on this Katz story?