This time it’s Conredge Collins getting the love for the way he’s been running the ball and playing.
Pitt starting fullback Conredge Collins quietly has had as good of a spring as anybody on the team, but has not received much recognition because of the position he plays and the attention that is being paid to the tailbacks and quarterbacks.
His work, however, has not been overlooked by the coaching staff.
Now, if it was just Zeise pumping Collins, I’d take it with less than a grain of salt considering the man-crush he’s had for Collins. Gorman’s practice report blog post, though, also gives some love to Collins.
It was one of several impressive runs by Collins, who had his best practice of the spring after Wannstedt was critical of the Panthers’ running game.
Collins has had limited carries, but ran strong up the middle and to the outside against the first-team defense, which had trouble tackling him individually. On his next carry after running into Phillips, however, Collins saw Elijah Fields coming and slid to avoid a collision.
That’s the type of respect Fields already is commanding with his physical play. Even so, Porter made an impressive play by catching a pass over the middle, absorbing a hit from Fields and hanging onto the ball.
So, at the very least, Collins had a very good practice on top of a steady spring. Mike Phillips was injured trying to bring down Collins, but it seems Elijah Fields has everyone’s attention when he hits.
Other things kind of absorbed from the two reports on practice (not that you can’t read them yourselves):
Junior DT Gus Mustakas got lots of praise from Coach Wannstedt and the beat writers seem to be in agreement.
Senior OT Jeff Otah will probably be the anchor on the line.
Tyler Tkach is now playing more. Seems he was banged up early in spring practice.
Elijah Fields may keep Lowell Robinson off the field at the safety spot. Hmm. Maybe Fields is as good as suggested. Now, if he can just stay focused.
The beat writers are confused and annoyed they don’t have a handle on the starting QB job. Both use comments from OC Matt Cavanaugh to bolster their perceptions. Gorman is under the impression that it will be Stull or Smith — that Bostick will have no chance.
“He’s going to come in and get a chance to compete a little bit, but not being here in the spring is a setback for him,†Cavanaugh said. “He’s missing 15 practices and he’s going to start from square one when he gets here. He’s been here, been studying a little bit and watching practice, but there’s nothing like being under center.
“We’ll certainly take a look at him and see how he compares, but he’s going to be behind. I think these two guys are going to battle and, hopefully, one of them steps up and makes it an easy decision.â€
Meanwhile, Zeise doesn’t seem to think Stull or Smith have done enough to merit anything at this point
Cavanaugh said that while both quarterbacks, Bill Stull and Kevan Smith, have made progress, neither is ready to take the starting job. “They are getting better, but I can’t get past the fact that both of them have a long way to go,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m not discouraged because they are improving, but I can’t project where they’ll be come the season.”
Guess we won’t know for sure for some time.
But I can’t really blame national media for not focusing much on the college angle. More grating is that local media doesn’t. In Pittsburgh, Henry is mocked more for being a Bengal (to appease Steeler fans). On shows like Junker (PSU guy) and Crowe (Alabama guy), the WVU connection is never mentioned. And it’s not really emphsasized in the local rags either. They don’t want to look like they are “Pitt homers” you know (same thinking behind the retarded Heisman votes for Jason White by our local “journalists” over Larry Fitzgerald a few years back, I guess.)
Just like the conveniently forget how Rodriguez defiantly swore a few years back that he would simply ignore the new tougher Big East academic standards. And of course, the total piece of sh*it that is Huggins. Local media should have gone ballistic over that. But geez, Pitt got more criticism for the mere RUMORS that Calipari (kinda controversial but never been arrested as far as I know) MIGHT be a candidate back when it looked like Dixon might leave.
Plus local media absolutely have totally covered up the latest in a long line of PSU crime scandals (yet again). We know all about the past DUI’s and rapes at Happy Valley that don’t get prosecuted (and never mentioned again). Last week’s fiasco was only the latest. Imagine if about 1/4 of Pitt starting football players had been involved in a huge brawl that involved destroyed property and near-riot! And imagine that after it happens, conveniently, the DA suddenly becomes “unavailable” for an undisclosed reason (maybe he’s hiding out with Dick Cheney), so charges can’t be immediately filed. Then, the victims are threatened with anonymous harrassing letters demanding them to drop charges. That scenario would be front page newspaper fodder every single day here. But since it’s PSU, after the first day it’s grudingly printed on page D-999 next to the Filly Corral ads, and then nothing is ever written about it again. “Oh, a crime at State College … that’s Penn State. Not a LOCAL story.” OK, fine, but then don’t bombard me with FRONT page stories about PSU when their teams WIN.
With players like Jones and Henry, clearly it’s indicitive of Rodriguez’s willingness to recruit the lowest level of humanity as long as they can play. Huggins will extend that thinking to hoops. WVU has totally pimped its ethics for athletic success. That’s the real story here. But, of course, there’s nothing, other than to sneer at Pitt fans who mention it (“Pitt fans are so jealous.” However, they are very diligent to mention whenever a new Pitt recruit hasn’t yet qualified, etc. It’s a clear reflection of pro-PSU bias in general, and also a fawning over perceived “winners” in Pittsburgh (the Steelers having a former physician directly involved in the national steroids scandal is totally ignored, for example). WVU has had a nice run for a couple years so they are now anointed. Plus, local media guys play WVU success up knowing that it pis*ses Pitt fans (like me) off.
The only solution is for Pitt to win, and win for several years. Then the media will kiss our as*ses too. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon (in football, which is all that matters of course), so I guess the lesson is that I should only care about Steelers, Steelers, Steelers like all the other braindead morons in this town … then I’d get happy-happy-joy-joy stories everyday and I’d be happy.
Hey, Pitt is certainly not perfect. Quite the contrary. But the double (now triple) standard is disgusting.
