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October 22, 2007

Football Blogpoll ’07 Ballot, Week 7

Filed under: Bloggers,Football — Chas @ 11:32 pm

Even without a lot of upsets like the past couple of weeks, there were still enough to make this a mess. Thanks as always to Dennis for starting this.

Rank Team Delta
1 LSU 6
2 Ohio State
3 Boston College
4 Florida 4
5 Oklahoma 1
6 South Florida 5
7 West Virginia 2
8 Southern Cal 2
9 Oregon 5
10 Kentucky 4
11 Arizona State 1
12 Missouri 1
13 Kansas 2
14 Hawaii 2
15 South Carolina 10
16 Virginia Tech 2
17 Texas 2
18 Auburn 1
19 Wake Forest 5
20 Michigan 5
21 Alabama 5
22 California 11
23 Rutgers 3
24 Virginia 2
25 Penn State 1
Dropped Out: Cincinnati (#20), Maryland (#21), Texas Tech (#22), Tennessee (#23).

Wait-listed/Standing by: Who the hell knows any more?

I have to say, watching the Oregon game was a really impressive thing. They have one of the best offensive lines in the country.  Shaky (to be kind) defense, but they are damn entertaining to watch.

This season, there isn’t a team on the list of top-25 that wouldn’t truly shock me to see them lose this coming weekend. It’s just that kind of a season.

This is just one of those years, where you want the poll to stop at top 10 or maybe 15. Trying to figure out who “deserves” to be ranked after that is just a crap shoot.

The kickoff time for Pitt and Syracuse’s November 3 game at Heinz Field has been set for noon. Similar to Saturday’s game against Cincinnati, it will be televised on ESPN Regional as the “Big East Game of the Week”. It can also be seen locally on WTAE.

Also, kicker Conor Lee was recognized as the Big East Special Teams Player of the Week (to be known as the BESTPOTW from now on). Lee accounted for 10 points against Cincinnati which ties his career high. He was perfect on three field goals (41, 25 and 37 yards) and one extra point. Lee, who is a candidate for the Lou Groza Award, extended his school-record PAT streak to 66.

Focusing on Youth for Pitt Basketball

Filed under: Basketball,Players — Chas @ 11:34 am

It’s only a week and a half before Pitt’s first exhibition game for basketball. How the time flies. Fan Fest and a scrimmage was held yesterday afternoon. I wouldn’t put tremendous stock in the stats of the scrimmage, but here they are.

The theme for the day, apparently was, “here come the kids.”

Freshman DeJuan Blair and redshirt freshman Gilbert Brown were impressive in the Blue-Gold scrimmage that the Blue team won, 74-69.

Blair had a double-double with 17 points and 17 rebounds, and Brown had 15 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists with no turnovers.

Both players looked like they could contribute right away for the Panthers, whose first game is less than three weeks away.

Blair, though, is saying confident, bordering on cocky things, but does say the right things regarding starting and playing.

“I have no idea what’s going through coach Dixon’s mind,” Blair said. “I’ve been running the floor, rebounding. If you get the ball in my hands, I do great things with it. It’s up to him. He makes all the calls. I’m not worried about starting. I’m just worried about winning.”

Darnell Dodson may end up redshirting. He has yet to get approval from the NCAA Clearinghouse, so it wouldn’t surprise me. If Dodson can’t practice with the team, he’ll be too far behind in learning the system to get into the rotation. Gilbert Brown had the same problem due to injuries last season. It may not be that bad of a thing since it will give Dodson more time to work on the academic side, and there won’t — barring injuries — be a crying need for him at small forward with Cook and Brown.

Freshman Bradley Wanamaker will likely see limited minutes at the start of the season that will grow as he learns to play more at the point guard, and is given some experience and provide additional depth.

On the other side, Wanamaker, a 6-4 guard, had 14 points, eight assists and five rebounds in 30 minutes for the Blue team, which won 74-69.

“He’s tough,” Dixon said of the Philadelphia native. “He has a great feel. He sees the floor. He’s becoming a better shooter every day.”

Big East Basketball blog has a solid preview of Pitt up. He predicts a conference record of 11-7. Something that I think is probably right within +/-2.

Sam Young Speaks

Filed under: Basketball,Players — Chas @ 9:32 am

But he doesn’t seem particularly enthused about doing so.

Ready to talk more, too, if only because Coach Jamie Dixon wants him to.

“They told me to be more social, be more of a people person and open up and get out of my shell,” Young said. “Sometimes that’s not me, but I have to do that to please the coach.”

Part of why he didn’t talk much last year, he explained was frustration with the nagging physical problems. Even with all of the pain in his knees, Young wouldn’t stop playing at all times. Not letting himself rest and improve. Even skipping knee treatments. At least until the coaches made him.

One problem Dixon struggles with is Young’s playing too much, not too little. During the summer, Young often stops in at the Petersen Events Center at night and joins any one-on-one or pickup game he can find.

“He’d play you guys if you’d show up,” Dixon joked to a room of reporters.

At first, Young said he found it difficult to honor Dixon’s request. Playing daily was a passion long before he led Friendly High in Fort Washington, Md., to state titles in 2003 and 2004. He spent another year at a prep school before signing with Pittsburgh.

“Me being a gym rat is what got me here,” Young said. “Me loving the game is what got me here, so I can’t stop doing that. At the same time, I’ve got to be careful and I’ve got to watch who I play and where I play. I used to play outside a lot, and now I don’t. It’s just a matter of being smart.”

Young is ready to make the “junior leap” that several interior Pitt players have made in the new millenium. To be the guy on both ends of the court.

“People are going to watch out for me,” Young said. “My knees are healthier. I feel a lot more confident about jumping. Sometimes I would go into the lane last year and I would hesitate to jump off one leg.

“There was a lot of stuff last year that was bothering me. It was frustrating. I was definitely not 100 percent.”

“It’s a matter of me taking care of it,” Young said. “Last year, I would play and play and play. I knew my knees were bad. But sometimes I wouldn’t get treatment. If I take care of it, I’m almost positive nothing will go wrong with it.

“Right now it’s 99.9 percent. When I play on it, I don’t feel it at all. That was my main focus over the summer. If I was going to compete, I needed to be 100 percent.”

“When you’re in the background, you feel like you’re on the outside looking in, and you wait for that chance for it to be your time,” Young said. “Sometimes it doesn’t always work that way.

“Now I’m [eager]. I feel like I’ve been ready to step up long before now. This is my time. I’m ready to step in and become one of the leaders of the team and handle my role appropriately.”

Hopefully, his knees will hold up for the season, with barely a twinge.

LeSean McCoy Is Good

Filed under: Big East,Football,Honors,Players — Dennis @ 8:35 am

Come on, even those homers in Happy Valley can agree with that. As PSI notes, Shady is looking like the favorite to win the Big East Freshman of the Year award.

Rushing Yards
1) Ray Rice, Rutgers: 204 carries, 999 yards, 4.9 yards/carry 142.7 per game
2) LeSean McCoy, PITT: 141 carries, 805 yards, 5.7 yardsd/carry 115.1 per game
3) Steve Slaton, WVU: 135 carries, 752 yards, 5.6 yards/carry 107.4 per game

Total Offense
1) Brian Brohm, Louisville: 372.2/game
2) Mike Teel, Rutgers: 282.1/game
3) Ben Mauk, Cincinnati: 255.1/game
9) LeSean McCoy, Pitt: 117.6/game

Touchdowns
1) Ray Rice, Rutgers: 14 TD’s
2) Steve Slaton, WVU: 11 TD’s
3) LeSean McCoy, Pitt: 9 TD’s

Very impressive stats, especially considering the team he plays on.

So does anyone else think that when the coordinators were taking orders over the headsets from Coach Wannstedt, that every now and again they pretended the signal cut out and called what they wanted? Can’t help but think Cavanaugh did a couple times.

I loved this observation from the game.

Defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads looked like he was ready to pour a bucket of Gatorade over himself after the Panthers shut out the Bearcats in the second half. Rhoads, in fact, reveled in his increased camera time a little too much with injured head coach Dave Wannstedt in the booth upstairs.

Oh, come on. He had to be fired-up. He gets to turn on the sports radio in Pittsburgh during the season for the first time in quite a while, without hearing about how bad a DC he is.

Ron Cook, after finally giving up on Rhoads, is back on board.

Give Rhoads credit for keeping his guys together. We are quick to barbecue him when things go bad. It’s only right to applaud him after a performance like this.

“We” meaning everyone else. I also don’t think the criticism was that quick in coming. It’s just that it has been ongoing for a number of years, yet Rhoads is still there. One good game of play calling by the DC doesn’t erase the years of ineptitude in coaching and planning and play calling.

The story for Pitt, of course, was LeSean McCoy and LaRod Stephens Howling, but the other story was all the other things that finally happened in the Wannstedt era.

It was the first time the Panthers (3-4, 1-1 Big East) have had two running backs rush for more than 100 yards in a game since 1988, but there were a number of more significant milestones. Most notably, it is the first time Wannstedt’s Panthers have beaten a ranked opponent or a team they were not favored to beat. Pitt also snapped a four-game losing streak and, for the first time under Wannstedt, erased a halftime deficit and came back to win.

Which is all good, but also grounds things firmly back in reality. It took 2 1/2 years for those things to happen.

The interesting thing in the game, as everyone noted, was that Pitt actually used LeSean and LaRod within the same series rather than using one exclusively on a possession. They finally accepted that maybe a little change of pace in the running game might be a good idea. Something Coach Wannstedt had previously ruled out (lending some credence to the theory that OC Cavanaugh may have pretended the communications cut out from time-to-time).

“We’ve got two backs who can come in and do the same thing and keep the defense getting tired,” Stephens-Howling said. “I feel like we really wore the defense down. Coach got to a point where he only had to call three running plays because we were wearing the defense down.”

Then, of course on defense, the turnovers finally happened.

“Finally! We got some turnovers today,” said Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt. “I thought the players did a great job in finding a way to force some turnovers. How? I have no idea except by playing hard.”

Oh, god. I’m, uh, going to chalk that up to some exuberance over the win and maybe the painkillers from the surgery. His players had something of an idea.

“It really was hard work and hustle. We did what we were supposed to do,” Duhart said. “All week long, we did turnover drills. Turnover drills, turnover drills, turnover drills. We worked on stripping the ball. What we did in practice showed.”

Not to mention actually being aggressive on defense. Attacking up front. Bringing blitzes and pressure. Not simply read and react.

Pitt did suffer some injuries. Joe Thomas went out with a hamstring injury.

On the Cinci side, the coach was unhappy. Very unhappy with the poor play of his team. And he knew who to blame.

“Poorly coached, sloppy football,” Kelly said. “Turnovers, mistakes, missed assignments, not being in good football positions. It’s bad football. I’m the guy that’s got to take responsibility and correct it. It’s easy to take responsibility. You’ve got to do something about it.”

“We were poorly prepared,” Kelly said. “We didn’t execute our offense, defense or special teams. We continued to make the same mistakes that we made last week. We turned the ball over, had penalties. I have to be accountable for that.”

I have to admit to being impressed by that. The coach took the blame completely. Didn’t just say that it’s his fault because he’s the head coach but took the blame for the preparation, execution and mistakes. Then said, that that isn’t enough. It actually has to be fixed.

He also knows how to shovel out a bunch of coaching cliches at once.

“We’re going to use this week to re-evaluate everything we do and how we do it,” Kelly said. “We will circle the wagons and close it down and close ranks and begin to chip away at the problems that exist.

“Our football team was poorly prepared and executed at a very, very low level, and that falls on me.”

I was very surprised to see Cinci play so poorly. Even more surprised to see them play so conservative on offense. Not to go no-huddle the entire game was an absolute head-scratcher to me. I’m not complaining, but it seemed that their offense got away from a lot of things they had been doing. Losing to Louisville the prior week and turning the ball over at key times seemed to have made the coaches get a bit more conservative on offense.

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