AD Jeff Long is not evil.

I don’t agree with some of his decisions. He may be tin-eared and lacking a charisma, but he is not out to ruin Pitt athletics. There has even been good like his work to help other sports in the athletic department. Building campus facilities and updating other sports facilities to bring them out of the 70s.

The plan would have the greatest impact on what are commonly referred to as Olympic or non-revenue sports, those programs that have lower visibility than basketball or football.

Pitt plans to build a soccer complex, track/intramural complex, softball field, marching-band facility and baseball complex. The athletic department also plans to spend $11.4 million to renovate Fitzgerald Field House, Trees Hall and the Cost Sports Center and put a diving well into Trees Pool.

The soccer, baseball, track and softball facilities are in the first four-year phase of the plan.

The athletic department construction will take place at the former site of the dilapidated Allequippa Terrace public-housing project, which was torn down in the mid 1990s. In 2000, the Oak Hill housing community opened on a portion of the site and, since then, the remaining land was at the vortex of a tug of war between Pitt, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, and developer Beacon/Corcoran Jennison. In March, the parties came to an agreement, clearing the way for Pitt to go forward with its plan to build the state-of-the-art athletic facility. While the deal has not been finalized, sources indicate the closing of the deal is imminent, and that will give Pitt the land it needs.

Part of how he’s worked on it is with the unpopular reseating plan for Pitt basketball and the increased mandatory donations.

This hasn’t been a good week for AD Long. There was the leaking of the new Panther/dog/mutant/dino/thing head logo that was widely panned.

Then there was the announced cancellation of the Clemson home-and-home for 2010 and -11. I thought it was probably a mutual thing, though,  because the way it was set, Pitt might have wanted to cancel or change it more. Pitt had a home slate in 2010 of WVU, Louisville, Rutgers, Miami and Clemson (not to mention ND on the road) while 2011 had Pitt with 3 difficult non-con road games and ND as the only attractive home game. Simple marketing suggested that Pitt needed to reorganize the schedule. Add another good home non-con in 2011, maybe go a little lighter with 2010 for the other non-con home games. Plus, 2009 still needs to be finished and it could allow a home-and-home to start then.

Sure, it’s always annoying to give up a decent opponent on the schedule, but it was only Clemson. Instead, AD Long decided to get defensive over the schedule.

“Clemson approached us about getting out of the series because they wanted the dates,” Long said. “At first, we balked, but then we began to talk to some other teams and, when we realized we had enough time to find an adequate replacement, we decided to go ahead and let them out of the contract.

“That’s really all it was — some times things come up. And some of the teams we are talking to as a replacement are very encouraging to me. We are talking to BCS conference teams, so this talk of wanting to add a I-AA is just not fair.”

Long said contrary to popular belief, his policy and desire is to get Pitt at least three non-conference games (out of five) against teams from BCS conferences (or Notre Dame) every year.

Did he really need to put the blame all on Clemson? What was the point? You say something like there was talk of changing the years and in discussions it became mutually agreed that it would be best to cancel.
Long also put himself in a scheduling corner. He now has to make sure that he has a BCS conference opponent to take the place of Clemson. He says they can find an “adequate replacement.” Clemson is a consistent mid-level bowl team. That means to find the “adequate replacement” means he can’t come back with a Northwestern, a Mississippi State, Vandy, Baylor or Kentucky. He’s going to need a Maryland, Oklahoma St., Purdue, Texas Tech, South Carolina — or even Boston College. And that also means no MAC, C-USA or such for the slots.

Give Zeise credit in the article for pointing out the disconnect between Long’s stated goal and desire of putting 3 BCS-quality opponents on the schedule each year and reality.

Although Long’s stated desire is to play three BCS non-conference teams, a look at future schedules suggests he has work to do.

The Panthers are scheduled to play only two BCS conference opponents in 2008 (Iowa, Notre Dame), 2009 (North Carolina State, Notre Dame) and as of now 2010 (Notre Dame, Miami), 2011 (Notre Dame, Iowa) and 2012 (Virginia Tech and Notre Dame).

In fact, the lone exception in the next seven seasons is 2013 when Pitt is scheduled to play Virginia Tech, North Carolina State and Notre Dame.

That doesn’t look too good.