“– PALKO HAS PAYTON’S EYE: In particular, Payton seems intrigued by Palko, a left-handed rookie out of Pittsburgh who was proficient in the short passing game during his college career.

“He’s had a lot thrown at him,” said Payton, who was credited with developing Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo during his stint as Bill Parcells’ offensive coordinator in Dallas. “I thought he did pretty well during the mini-camps. You look for good decision-making. I think when the live bullets start coming and he gets work, not only this weekend when we play Pittsburgh but the snaps for him, he can’t get enough of them. He’s got someone like Brees who he can study and see the little things he does well. He’s handled the installation well, but like any young quarterback, there is a lot going on in their minds and it’s moving pretty quickly. You just hope each practice he gets better.” ”

This is the most exciting part of the game this weekend – i can’t wait to watch.

And to answer the “season ticket numbers” question – not F’ing many at all. We’re screwed with the BEast schedule forever.

After looking at this, I don’t think it’d hurt to push harder to get some recruits on defense…especially LB’s and DB’s…and you can never have enough lineman. Looking at the depth charts, our backups are soph or freshman at EVERY position…we don’t have any juniors backing up seniors…we need to get some continuity here…

Its great that we’ve increased our quality level on recruiting on offense (5 star qb’s and rb’s) but have we given up on the other side of the ball? I don’t see any 4* or above commits for next year…I know we got some last year, but we need to get some every year to get/keep this going…we need to close on some of these guys for next year.

Nordenberg and Long are like the Guiness cutout characters … only in this case clinking their “New Big East — Proud Member Forever” commemorative beer mugs together (comically missing them a few times first).

Brilliant!

The DBs overall should be better, even without Fields, but again only if Thatcher and Phillips stay healthy, and if Cox is supplanted at CB (one can only hope) by one of the younger more talented guys. Revis was pretty much neutralized by smart coaches last year (another failure on Rhoads part not to use his best player more creatively), so his loss (impact-wise) won’t be as huge as some may think on the D. Or so I wishfully-think.

Pray that Morris had a transforming effect on the DL … that’s all I can say.

check it out..
link to cfn.scout.com

I’m not going to say I agree with him though…with a new offense and our defense…if we win all our home games i’ll be happy.

The only thing that helps is that our 3 hardest games come at the end of the year, so maybe, just maybe, we’ll have some shit figured out by then and have a shot at taking down one of them…not *that* would be amazing.

What I’m looking forward to is the year after…2008…a year older and more experienced, our good recruits getting older, stronger, and more experienced, and we get all 3 teams at home, and have the easier teams on the road…we could really put something together there… I think thats our first real shot at winning the big east in a while.

I think Pitt might shock some people, but 9-3 is a little crazy.

8-4 is a successful season in my opinion since we don’t have a QB with some real experience…I think 1 college game and garbage time at that?. The Linebackers are who? Hale would have been a great pickup, someone tell this kid that he’s got a guaranteed spot unless he smokes la pipa. LB’s and Secondary is getting a severe overhaul, let’s hope Buddy and secondary coach Chris Ball torture the kids a little. Either way I can’t wait for Sept 1, crazy that it’s only a month away.

i’m still considering on hauling it up there immediately after the test, though, if it’s a night game.

when i think about uva im reminded of tucker max’s uva-horserace-party story… sundresses and booze, always seemed appealing…

Pitt has some quality running backs…McCoy, Collier, Brooks, Collins, Hynoski. I think we can replace Stevens-Howling on offense, and he would be a significant upgrade to Cox at corner.

Is our offensive line going to be any better? Are there even going to be any holes to run to? If we keep getting dominated up front with the inside running game I hope we have enough sense to at least try to take it outside, use some speed around the edge, spread the field instead of running into 7 or 8 in the box.

At best our “great recruits” under Wanny have 2 years college experience under them, and some only 1 – that hardly holds up to 5th year seniors other programs will be bringing (yes, not all, but some).

Not to throw this season under the bus already, and i hope to be suprised, but I’m still looking forward to 2008 more than anything.

A decade of this has caused me never to be optimistic or expect anything, and instead aim low and be suprised and excited when we overachieve.

Look at last year FCS – both teams had me believing (6-1 after 7 games, bball team #2 in the country at one point) and look how that turned out for me.

Suprisingly we have the most jr/sr offensive lineman out of the 4, with 10!. The funny part is almost half of them back up a underclass starter that was recruited by Wanny. WVU, lu and rutgers all have 7 or 8 o lineman that are jr/sr…and a lot of redshirted ones as well… I can’t wait for a few more years to pass before we don’t have freshman and sophomores on the line day in and day out…

Finesse and creative playcalling are great, and coaches like Urban Meyer and Rich Rodriguez have developed great offensive machines built on finesse & deception. But these teams have also had superior line play. And that is the most important reason why they win 10+ games annually.

Buddy Morris first stint as Pitt’s strength & conditioning coach produced All-American linemen the likes of Mark May, Jimbo Covert, Bill Fralic, Mark Stepnoski,Jim Sweeney, Chris Doleman, Bill Maas and others. His second stint didn’t produce squat. Did Buddy become dumb all of a sudden or did he not have the talent to work with like he did the first time around? I believe the answer is a lack of talent.

I have seen the highs and lows of Pitt football. I have attended at least one Pitt game in each of the last 37 years, and have attended approximately 200 games altogether. We were 1-10 my freshman year and four years later, when I was in grad school at Pitt, we were national champs. It doesn’t get any better than that, and I truly hope that was not a once in a lifetime happening.

I unconditionally love & support Pitt football & basketball, win or lose. I am not busy at work in the fall, which is why I am able to attend so many games. Since I live in Harrisburg, every game I attend is a road trip. In addition to attending four or five home games annually, I usually attend several away games. Since 2000, I have attended games at Notre Dame, Boston College, WVU (twice), Syracuse (twice), U Conn, Temple, Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida (Tampa) and the Tangerine (Orlando) & Tire (Charlotte) Bowls. The rides home are always shorter after a win, but I think I’ve probably seen more losses than wins over the years.

All of the lean years will just make the good years ahead even sweeter. I believe the upgrade in talent on the lines will start producing good results. The pathetic line play has clearly been Pitt’s major weakness these past 20+ years. I just hope Wannstadt, Cavanaugh & Rhoads will be able to coach up the talented atletes we are atracting. In my mind, that is the greatest uncertainty.

Sports are a great distraction. It gives us something to watch and talk and argue about. Otherwise, more of our energies would be expended on more unpleasant topics like the idiots in Washington or the assholes who run Penn State’s athletic department.

DLine – it’s about injuries. If Malecki is heathy, he is great. Mick Williams may be our best lineman, but he’s never been healthy. I think Bokor is hugely talented. Super fast off the ball. If Jared Martin is healthy, that’s another ballplayer. Duhart needs to come in, get in shape, and start as a strong side Dend that can stuff the run. McKillop has supposedly gotten up to 270, which would help. Tony Tucker might be a player as a true. Point is that we have options, unlike last year when we had nothing.

Even at LB where we are unexperienced, behind our starters, we have Nix, Dell – who is a stud athlete – and others with some talent. Man, I wish Fields was eligible, but the talent level at Dback is still impressive. Aaron Berry is nasty. Cox will be fine. Gary and Chappel coudl be good. Lowell Robinson could play safety. Aaron Smith is a talent. Man, some of these guys are going to be good.

If the DLine can stop the run and our QB play is solid, man, we could be really good. I also don’t think you all realize how good McCoy is.

So, whats our yds/carry goal for this year in the hard games (wvu, rutgers, lu)? Considering we rushed for -1 yds total (due to -40 in sacks) at WVU last year…i’m hoping for positive yardage. But i guess the key to that game is to holding them under 400 yds rushing…

And replacing the QB with the 4th best rating in the nation is going to be a question. No doubt we have the talent, but are they going to come in and take a while to understand it all and pull a Morelli? Will bill stull start, and then piss around for a few games before Bostick gets put in? Or the other way around?

This could be a great season, or a total disaster. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Mike Phillips, but he should help stabilize the safety position now that he’s fully healthy. Nice to have Thatcher back as Sam Bryant was just terrible last year. Really would’ve been nice to have Fields there as a fallback just in case. Corner is going to be shaky unless Kennard Cox improves by leaps and bounds. I think Berry could be a good one, but he’s inexperienced. Luckily, he’ll have two good games to get adjusted.

I’m excited to see what the LBs are going to be like. There will probably be some growing pains there, but McKillop could be solid in the middle. It’s going to be tough to replace Blades, but I can’t see how it could get any worse than what Session & Co. did last year. I think there’s some untapped talent and depth there with Nix, Dell (if he’s healthy), Gunn, etc.

Spoke to a co-worker (Pitt alum and season ticket holder) who has some family ties to the Pitt coaching staff earlier this week. He told me Dickerson has become an absolute monster under Morris’s tutelage…that he’s pushing close to 230-235 right now and is athletic beyond belief. We’ll see.

On defense, it would be nice to see an opponent tackled by the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Pitt player to flail an arm at them, instead of the usual 9 Pitt players it takes to tackle anyone. Also, I am hoping that Kennard Cox makes an attempt to cover a receiver this year. Granted, if you don’t have great speed and aren’t physical then you shouldn’t be at the line of scrimmage but Kennard would drop 15 yards and allow the underneath stuff all day, miss a tackle and then that was it.