So that’s how he got the nickname Shady?

“My mom gave me that nickname. She said I was a shady baby,” said McCoy, who took more snaps with the first team yesterday than he had previously. “I’d cry and then be happy and smiling and she said I had a shady attitude. It has stuck with me since I was little so I just got used to it.”

I just refer to my boy as “Bi-polar Lad” when he acts that way. Though, this is my favorite sighting (and Season 2 just came out).

There was a Q&A with Johnathan Baldwin, a top player out of Aliquippa. Nothing on his leanings yet.

Did you learn anything at all this spring when [Aliquippa basketball star] Herb Pope was shot at a party? Yeah, but I already knew you have to keep yourself away from certain things and certain people. Some people are jealous of you and you never know what can happen.

Redshirt Sophomore Craig Bokor is hoping not to move back and forth on the offensive and defensive lines. He just wants to stay at Defensive Tackle and play.

“It takes a long time to learn to play defensive line, but Craig has picked things up pretty quick this fall,” defensive line coach Greg Gattuso said. “It helped that he started in the spring, and he played both ways in high school.

“He’s a well-conditioned athlete who works hard on and off the field, and he’s been very coachable. So, I’ve asked to keep him at D-tackle because I think he can help us, and I know Coach Wannstedt feels that way, too.”

As the article notes, Bokor was moved to the spot because they needed to shore it up after some injuries. Now, the position is much, much deeper and he is just trying to stay in the rotation.

As expected, the majority of the stories concerned the receivers and who will step in for Derek Kinder.

Kinder’s absence intensified the competition for the starting receiver spots. There are seven candidates, all underclassmen: redshirt juniors Marcel Pestano and Austin Ransom, redshirt sophomores Cedric McGee and Oderick Turner, true sophomore T.J. Porter and true freshmen Maurice Williams and Aundre Wright.

“Most of those guys were jockeying for his spot,” Hill said. “Everyone wants to be the No. 1 guy.”

Every receiver also is capable of playing both receiver positions, which gives the Panthers a chance to look at different combinations during training camp.

The 6-foot-3 Turner, who led the Panthers with eight touchdown receptions last season, is the biggest target and a frontrunner at split end. McGee, the strongest and best blocker, was Kinder’s backup at flanker and has worked with the first team. Pestano is regarded as the smoothest and best route-runner of the group. Porter is the most explosive and maybe the best in the open field.

While explosive and playmaking ability is big for a WR, when the offense is a Wannstedt-Cavanaugh production you know they will be looking first for consistency.

“It is obviously a setback for us,” receivers coach Aubrey Hill said. “Now we need to regroup as receivers. We need to find the guys who are going to do things consistently right, which is what Derek did every day. But, knowing this group, they will respond and they’ve responded already.”

Bill Stull — who I think it is safe to say is the starting QB this season barring injury or a total meltdown — won’t be able to lean on Kinder in the huddle. Kinder was one of the team leaders and that puts more pressure on Stull. That’s a lot. There will be Mike McGlynn and Darrell Strong, but after that there won’t be any other seniors on the offense.
Ron Cook writes how this could be a good thing for Pitt in the long term. Well, at least for 2008.

Wannstedt has been pointing to ’08 all along. He won’t say that publicly even now that he has lost Kinder for this season. The last thing he’s going to do is feel sorry for himself and write off ’07. That wouldn’t be fair to his other players, who are working hard at training camp and are naive enough to think that, even without Kinder, they can win all seven home games or maybe six and somehow steal a win on the road to finish 7-5 and sneak into some second-rate bowl.

But that doesn’t change the fact Wannstedt long has targeted ’08 as Pitt’s breakthrough season. Almost all of the players will be his recruits, more than a handful, such as Bostick, highly regarded. Many will be experienced in Wannstedt’s system. He’ll lose some key people after this season, among them offensive linemen Jeff Otah and Mike McGlynn, defensive end Joe Clermond, cornerback Kennard Cox and safety Mike Phillips. But those losses should hardly be devastating.

I am already sick of hearing about 2008. I realize that with the road games this season, the schedule isn’t set up for big success. Then you can add in a home slate that does it’s damnedest to keep enthusiasm curbed for this year.

Everyone officially associated with Pitt football is quietly whispering that come 2008, big things will happen. It assumes too much. It assumes that everyone will develop. It assumes the lines will finally be better. It assumes no key injuries. It assumes everything. It also assumes this season will suck.

I swear, I’m getting as sick as everyone else with running out of time and just having to do quick summaries.

LaRod Stephens-Howling is still the starting tailback for Pitt. Everyone else is just trying to be the 1st back-up.

That’s why Stephens-Howling isn’t threatened by McCoy. In fact, he is hoping McCoy is as good as advertised.

“I think it is great that Pitt keeps recruiting great players — that’s how we get better as a team,” Stephens-Howling said. “Why wouldn’t I want a great running back to come here — we’re trying to get better as a unit, we’re trying to become a much better team running the football, so everyone can help. I’ve enjoyed having LeSean around and Kevin Collier — the more good players we have the better.

“I’ve never thought this would be a one-man show, nor should it be. We are all one, we are all in this together and when I’m not in the game I’ll be rooting for the other guys to do a great job and I know they will and I know they’ll be rooting for me as well. We’re trying to win, that’s all we want to do.”

Walker said that the rotation of tailbacks will be determined by how they fare in camp, but there are basically five players vying for three spots. He said Stephens-Howling will be the starter while Collier, McCoy and freshmen Shariff Harris and Greg Williams will battle for the two other spots.

More love for the Johnstown Jet from his hometown paper.

Every coach loves the “tough” players. Freshman Maurice Williams got some love from Coach Wannstedt.

Williams worked with the quarterbacks Friday and has caught the coaching staff’s attention because of his athleticism and ability to bounce back from injury.

“He can do a lot of things,” Wannstedt said. “He gets hit early, his hand swells up. They go in and take an X-ray to see if it’s broken. It’s not broken. He comes back out, puts ice on it for 20 minutes and makes three plays at the end. That is very unusual for any player. What’s very encouraging about that is he’s a freshman. More than catching and athletic ability, I just like his toughness.”

Bill Stull was back at practice today, and his toughness also got praised.

Billy showed some toughness today. He has five stitches in his thumb and he was out there this morning and then in the afternoon. He has the stitches so he has a glove on and he’s a tough guy. Players that are surrounding him notice that. It was good to get him back out here and I thought we got a little better today.

Stull, it should be remembered, was also one of the first recruits Dave Wannstedt went after when he took the Pitt job at the end of 2004. Wannstedt got him to back off his verbal to Kentucky. To some degree there is a bit of loyalty to Stull for being one of the first guys — and that isn’t a bad thing.

Of course the ongoing struggles with snapping the ball to the QB is a bit of a strain.

The quarterback-center exchange has developed into such that the Panthers spent time after meetings Saturday with the offensive linemen and quarterbacks taking snaps. Those groups also were the first players on the field Sunday, trying to resolve the cause for the botches.

“We’re still not as clean as what we need to be with the quarterback-center exchanges,” Wannstedt said. “We’re going to spend the time and make the emphasis to get those little things cleaned up because they will eventually make a difference.”

Redshirt sophomore John Bachman is practicing at right tackle, but Wannstedt said Bachman can play any of the three positions on the offensive line. Bachman is one of Pitt’s top linemen, but his inability to adjust to snapping the ball made his transition to center torturous.

Meanwhile redshirt freshman Shane Corson has admitted that his academics might be more of a factor to keep him off of the O-line than a depth chart.

Now, he’s battling just to be academically eligible so that he has a chance to get on the field.

“I’m sitting on an academic thing right now,” Corson said during the team’s media day on Monday. “Depending on last semester … I’m having trouble, me and this professor (with) a lost midterm. I’m still in the dark. I don’t even know yet. When the summer grades are out, I’ll find out.”

Yeep.

Completing a troika of Johnstown articles, Wayne Jones expected to grayshirt, but is now on scholarship and trying to catch up on his conditioning to eventually contribute on the O-line.

“He’s pushing through it right now, and the most encouraging thing is that he’s not missing any runs,” Pitt defensive line coach Greg Gattuso said. “He’s working hard, and he’s dropping weight. It’s exactly what we want out of him.

“I personally believe we have the best conditioning coaches in the country, and if Wayne listens to them and keeps working hard he’s going to be a heck of football player as a 300-pounder in a year or two.

“He’s talented, and he can move pretty well,” Gattuso added. “But he was just too heavy. We don’t want big, heavy tackles in our program. We want them to be strong and quick, and you can’t move if you’re too heavy.”

I believe the term for Jones is “project.”