The advantage and curse of doing this blog for quite some time is that everything is archived and there to be looked at (and used against me). Right now, fan sentiment is split on Wannstedt. Honestly, that’s where I am. Split on the coach. Not sure how I feel about him in the long-term; but sure that he will be here through next year. I thought it might be useful to look back at the month of December, 2004 to review what happened at that point.
Obviously, it began with Walt Harris being pushed out the door with no extension and an offer from Stanford. Arguably this was coming after the disappointing 2003 season and the implosion of the 2004 recruiting class — even if in hindsight Pitt may have dodged a lot of disappointments. I was not sure about the whole thing.
I’ve gone back and forth on this all season. I’ve passionately wanted Harris’ tenure ended, I’ve defended him and felt he earned a new extension, I’ve sadly concluded it to be best he leave, I’ve reluctantly announced he wasn’t taking Pitt in the right direction long term. That was all in this season.
…
I guess the issue of whether Harris should have stayed or been released, for me, came down to, “do I trust the administration to hire someone better?†That’s probably why I decided to hope Pitt retained Harris.
Names were immediately bandied about: Rhoads, Wannstedt, Russ Grimm, Bo Pelini, Sal Sunseri, Bob Davie, Tom Clements, Tom Bradley and Rick Neuheisel. I wanted Pitt to look to the MAC coaches like Hoeppner, Novak or Amstutz.
J.D. Brookhart never was given serious consideration. Wannstedt was always the top choice by Pitt. Matt Cavanaugh’s name surfaced right after Wannstedt first pulled his name, and Rhoads got one of the first interviews. Rhoads became an early favorite after it became obvious that Pitt wasn’t serious about a lot of names — Sunseri was given a token interview and they never even made contact with Tom Clements or Tom Bradley.
There was a lot of polite interviews given to former Pitt players turned coaches like Tim Lewis and Cavanaugh. Along with finally interviewing Pelini. Briefly becoming the rumored front runner. Much of the discussion of who Pitt should look to hire post-Harris focused on recruiting acumen. An interesting little excerpt from that time:
The lifeblood of a football program, of course, is recruiting. Chuck Finder writes a sure-to-infuriate-the-locals piece arguing that Western PA isn’t what it used to be in terms of quantity of top recruits. He points out the demographics have been shrinking in the region. (Something I think Lee has pointed out before). He’s not arguing that the well is dry. He is just saying that the talent level, locally is not what it was in the ’70s and early ’80s. It’s a fair point, but one I’m sure many people in Pittsburgh will not want to hear.
The Trib’s recruiting guy, Kevin Gorman, though argues that the next Pitt coach has to focus very, very hard on the WPIAL kids. He points to the kids that have been flowing to the Big 11. I agree that Pitt really, really needs to improve the local recruiting. Gorman, though, seems a little too close to the subject. He covers the recruiting in the region, he knows all the kids and the coaches. So, it seems he is overstating the overall talent level. In some points, he seems to suggest recruiting a couple kids, just to win points with their high school coaches for the future.
Of course, last month Chris Dokish made a point about the talent level in the WPIAL not being the end-all-be-all.
One other guy, Pitt may have interviewed — Miami DC Randy Shannon.
Cavanaugh started picking up momentum as Pelini lost momentum. I started becoming convinced then and remain to this point of the belief that Pelini will be a very good head coach some day but is an absolutely lousy interview — and that has cost him opportunities to this point. Including the Syracuse gig.
More disturbing Paul Rhoads seemed to be the co-leader (and Smizik had a column that I had to admit was worth reading and that I agreed). In fact, just as it appeared that Rhoads would be the guy to get the gig, Wannstedt’s name re-emerged. It also came out how little Pitt was willing to pay assistants until it came to getting Wannstedt.
One of the other sticking points last week according to a source was that the university was reluctant to meet Wannstedt’s demands for salaries for his assistant coaches. He reportedly had asked for no assistant to be paid less than $100,000, and he wanted between $250,000-$300,000 for his coordinators.
The majority of the current staff makes less than $100,000 — with a low of about $65,000 — with the exception of defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads, who got a significant raise following the 2002 season because he nearly took a similar job at Auburn. He makes approximately $250,000 a year.
Over the years, retaining staff has been an issue because the university has not paid the assistant coaches the equivalent of many other Bowl Championship Series conference schools.
Of course, as we’ve learned 3 years later, you still have to make good hires with the assistants.
When Wanny finally agreed I was relieved because that meant Paul Rhoads didn’t get the job and I didn’t have to give up my season tickets in protest.
As for now, Pitt won’t be firing Wannstedt this year. There is no Athletic Director. Wannstedt is close with Chancellor Nordenberg who pulls the strings on this.
There was a lot of sentiment that Pitt needed to hire a Pitt guy. It’s a strangely (at least to me) common theme when there is a job opening for Pitt. Hire a Pitt guy or someone from the area. Fear the possibility of stepping stone coaches or something else.
In hindsight, I think the sentiment to find someone with ties was overwhelming and perhaps even necessary after everything else that had happened before.
Interesting, as you were putting this post in, I was making the following comment to an earlier post:
Cylon, I agree with you: “When you want to hire a coach or anyone, you hire the best candidate available!â€
Let’s go back three years. The BE had just gone through a messy break up. There was a constant drum beat from local and national media that said the BE should lose its automatic BCS spot. Morelli, Johnson, and I think Bryant had all backed out on verbal commitments (not entirely sure on Bryant). Our HC’s agent had publicly stated that Pitt was kidding itself if it considered the Pitt HC job to be a big time coaching job and we were lucky to have Walt Harris. Who were these great HC candidates of which you speak that (a) Wanted to come into the above situation; and (b) could recruit in the face of the above situation? If it was Pelini, why was it not Pelini for BC, NC State, Miami, Alabama, ARZ St and I don’t know how many others over the last three years? DW did not come to Pitt and offer his services, Pitt went after him. He was the best HC candidate that we could convince to take the job…hands down. That does not mean that he has been successful, or that the team will have a better win/loss record next year (I think that they will be a lot better over the next two years), but I’ll tell you this for sure, if he is fired after next season (or this one) he will have left this program in ten times better shape than any of the last three or four Pitt HC’s have done. Talent on the field wins a lot more FB games than great coaches do. Les Miles has certainly coached his team to two wins that a less agressive coach would not have. But conversely, Urban Meyer has not been “out coached†three times this year. He just went up against teams with more talent than his. Pitt is loaded with talent. If you go to the games, you are seeing that talent start to gel. I think we are in for a very good run over the next 2 to 3 years.
Comment by HbgFrank 11.01.07 @ 1:09 pm
Skip Prosser had Pittsburgh ties and he jacked Pitt off, anyway, Jamie is a good head coach, if they continue to pay Jamie lots of money he will stay, sooner or later, Jamie will take them past the sweet 16.
Wanny’s true test is next year, no more excuses, no more time because it is bowl game or bust baby!
Please send help.
Once you get past our top 4, we’re in trouble. Blair is good on offense, but not so much on defense. And our second team defense is attrocious. Disgusting. We got lit up by a 6’7 DIII player after he settled down in the second half. Even he was suprised how easy it was to score on us. Here’s a list of big east teams that we held last year to less what UPJ scored last night: usf, uconn, depaul, cinci, st johns, and wvu.
Individual defense from this guy or that guy may not be that bad, but our *team* defense, once we get past the starters, is downright bad. Awful. You would think we’d realize after a while they had 2 plays – but no, we let them score on us over and over again.
Either the second team better step it up or we’re going to have to go with one of those early Howland rotations – the starters until they foul out, then pray. Not to say the starters defense was amazing – i’ve seen much better a few years ago from us.
On offense – back when we were small like we are now, we used to have a ton of plays to get penetration and we were amazing at passing the ball down low in the post. Now, we swing the ball around the outside, and pray someone on D falls down or occasionally, someone drives a little bit, and if it doesn’t work, we back it out, swing it around, and hope something happens. Didn’t we used to run plays? Get guys shots? Actual penetration?
After seeing the team last night against other competition, we need to get much better in the next week or there is no way we’re a top 25 team. I don’t know how we’re going to be able to play guys like Diggs, Wannamaker, McGhee, and even Brown, Biggs, and Benjamin – because their lack of team defense (especially the bigs) is going to hurt more than their help on offense. Blair is another one that is terrible on D – yes, he blocked 3 short kids shots, but most of the time they were shooting right around or over him. No one on our team is moving their feet anymore. We’re not trying to trap screens, we don’t double anymore, no weak side help, ugh…they really need to improve. A lot. Some one needs to light a fire under their asses in practice.
Right now, if we play Georgetown, Hibbert is going to score 50 on us. Not exaggerating. Some 6’7 kid from DIII had 23.
I’m not as alarmed as Stuart, though. I think team defense takes some time to develop. We did hold Pitt-Johnstown to 15 points in the first half — before Dixon started emptying the end of the bench.
There’s a lot of young players who are going to have to contribute early and there’s going to be some rough patches. I highly doubt that we’ll get into the conference schedule undefeated, but I also think we’ll be a more versatile team come February/March.
As much as I appreciate what Gray gave to the program, I thought we were monolithic in our approach the last couple of years. Every time down the court we went inside-out. Effective, but predictable and ultimately proved defensible.
BTW – If we are able to open it up a bit on offense and run while playing some pressure defense with a smaller lineup, a big man like Hibbert plays much less of a prominent role. But, we’ve never really played pressure D. Maybe we will with the athletes we have on the floor this year.
Give him 2 more years, are you nuts?
Repeat after me, WANNY WILL NEVER TAKE PITT TO A BOWL GAME LET ALONE HAVE A WINNING SEASON!
He took over an establised program, he has driven it into the ground!
What are you going to say when they lose to
Syracuse this weekend?
No more bullshit excuses, he did not take over a team that was horrible, he has made us horrible all by himself.
See his Miami and Chicago track record, why do you think Pitt would be any different?
I may come off as defending Dave, but his record in Miami was 42-30 in the regular season. I can’t believe that people bring up Miami when discussing how “Terrible” he was. Revisionist historians. That includes the 1-7 debacle that happened when Ricky Williams decided to light up instead of play. Going into the last season he was 41-23. I think any of us would take that.
I am upset that Pitt isn’t doing better with him. But to continually bring up the fact that he was bad in Miami is just false.
Do you guys think we look like the 20th ranked team in the nation?
Obviously, we could have this turned around by Sunday. Or within a few weeks. I thought we were going to beat Duke until i saw the game the other day…now i’m concerned about OSU, Duke, Washington…
Does anyone really, I mean really think firing Wanny would accomplish anything? It just will bring in another coach everyone will want fired in 3 years and kill any continuity we had.
I wanted to address some of the things said about recruiting Western PA in one of the older articles (I believe the Chuck Finder one) linked to.
I agree that the WPIAL isn’t quite as fertile as it once was, and that you can be mediocre by recruiting strictly western PA talent. But I also think that the same holds true for a lot of places.
Harris seemed to actually overrecruit Florida and underrecruit his backyard, especially in the last few years. And it burnt him.
Even the Florida teams go outside of Florida. Check those great Miami and UF and FSU teams. They weren’t just getting the best players in Florida, but almost in the whole damn country!! (First example I can think of is Chris Leak being from Charlotte, there’s others I don’t feel like looking up).
Take South Florida. All Florida guys. And despite their super hyped up Cinderella start this year, it looks like they’re just another team that will max out at 10 wins in their BEST years.
Hell, Shady was initially a USC recruit!
What I’m saying is that you can’t just recruit western PA, or Florida, or DC. There’s so much competition for recruits, especially in the “hotbed” areas, that you need to be able to recruit various areas of the country. Not just one. Take the USF example. They’ll recruit the hotly contest Florida area a lot, and because it is so hotly contested they’ll lose a lot of those players.
Just to let you know depending on how strong we finish in contigent on HOW MANY TOP FLIGHT RECRUITS answer DW calls- meaning HALE, BALDWIN, SADDLER SAlES, CARRAWAY, HOLLEY, ALEXANDER, GRAHAM, WILLIAMS from VA and PRYOR, yes pryor (he wants to be a legend and that wont happen at OSU)
Just look at how we are playing and look at next year.
DW is building great things.
PS- The players care too. Note how many WLAT players cried after losing of Nebraska on the muffed FG. NONE. They never cared.
BTW- What was WlAT biggest win
I watched him take a team that was set up for the passing game and try to turn them into a power running team his first two years. That sucked and only reinforced my believe that he was a bad choice.
He has done a great job of recuiting no doubt. The young players seem to be raw but very talented. What has been killing me lately is that I hate repeat hate the fact that our offense took PSU 70’s playbook and installed it as our offense and I have hated PR’s bend over and take it D since 2003. Every running back with a decent line has had career days running against us since then.
All that being said Wanny could stay forever if he turned the O & the D over to anyone who isn’t afraid to roll the dice once and a while. We are so conservative it makes me sick. As for the O We only run 2 plays from the “wildcat”, we rarely pass between the hash marks or pass at all on first down. run run pass punt, run run pass punt, I could go on all night but if you watched PSU’s games in the 70’s then you know what I am talking about. As for the D Paul Rhoades took 6 years to install any kind of biltz package? enuff said. Find someone, anyone from a D2 school that understands agression on either side of the ball and let them call the plays and Wanny could stay there into his 80’s.
Do you honestly believe that if a coach can not find a way to win in a poor conference three years in a row at a program that was to bowls for the previous years and had some decent seasons he should be allowed to stay? No, you have a team that is a complete national joke now. We went from a respectable team that had an opportunity to become the giant of a garbage conference, and now we are another syracuse. Rick Rodriguez recruits 2 and 3 star players and he ALWAYS wins. So to say that DW has too many young guys is a joke. His first year everyone expected huge things. Instead, we get a joke of a season where he loses to OHIO….. Yeah, Ohio. His playcalling is disgusting, and his defense is retarded. If you dont coach properly it is very evident… This guy just doesnt have it. He has failed at every job as a head coach. We need to hire a guy that has had success.
PS. Do you honestly think we are going to get Hale, Alexander, or Pryor???
What big recruits want to go play for a team that wins 3 or 4 games a year and hasnt been to a bowl for 3 years? Thats pathetic…. Relegate them to the MAC. Pitt football is horrible
Plus, DW told everyone who listen that help was on the way and this program would be in the right direction in 2008. Guess what- help is here in the form of MO WILLIAMS, MATHA, JACOBSON, DUHART, ROMEUS, SHADY, BOSTICK, BERRY, BYHAM, TUCKER, SHEARD, plus more recruits are coming. And yes… shane will come if saddler comes. PERIOD.
To the doplhins. What passing game- Marino was gone and you got tricky ricky williams- you tell me what do you do? RUN RICKY RUN.
Dylan, what type of offense would you run with the players this year? I guess you would throw the ball all over the field like a video game? Are you going to the Ruters game? I would enjoy watching the game with you or one of the DW haters. Please let me know who will be there.
Ditka- who may not come when we finish strong this year? Graham, Baldwin, Holley, Sales, Carraway, Alexadar (who PSU doesnt want), Collier, Saddler, Hale and I told you PRYOR wants to be a rock star. He will never be a rock star at OSU. Just think Tressle did not even want to play Troy Smith because he beleive Justin Zwick was better. Atleast at WVU he has a legit shot at starting for THREE years but not at OSU as QB
HAIL TO PITT….. No matter what.
Under Walt we went to 5 bowl games. We beat Va Tech, BC, WVU, Oregon State, NC State (when they were good) and Notre Dame plus a host of others. No team in the nation could just write us off as an automatic win. We went toe to toe with a very good Miami team and lost on a dropped pass in the end zone in 2003. Walt did a lot of good things while he was our coach. He put Pitt football back on the map.
I am not saying that Walt should have stayed at Pitt forever but no one should claim the same about DW until he can produce at least similar results. The team he had in 2005 was a decent team that he wanted to transform into a power running team. He didn’t consider looking at what he had and trying to get the most out it. That’s either bull headed or stupid.
In his behalf he has brought in players that on paper look to be the real deal but he has yet to produce any real results. Wanny has only produced 1 upset during his tenure. To me that isn’t getting the most out of your players. He has another year to get the ship righted but that should be it. At some point you can’t keep pointing at the players and saying we don’t have the talent. I would not bet $ on us this weekend and yes I will be at the game as always.
Lets analaysis the offense. What plays should we run? Smith could not throw a screen- let only a deep out and also had trouble handling snaps in camp. TWO- with a freshman running back/ redshirt QB and another QB who missed 10 days of camps you are limited to the number of plays you run because they have not digested the playbook plus, their pass block is horrendes.
I believe DW handled this situation very well. WOuld I like more wins… YES but man we all knew coming into this year that 7-5 was likely 8-4 would be incredible but 6-6 was the probable outcome and this was before injuries.
Look at last year- we were in all those games until the second half when we ran out of gas. Now, with injuries freshman being thrown into game we are doing well. The cuse game is big and YES a MUST win and VERY WINNABLE along with the remaining games minus WVU (will need a Herculean effort to win).
What is wrong with the ship DW is directing? Please tell me that you can see what DW is building. The roots are there and the players are here and more are coming. You are watching the growth of PITT football.
Hail to Pitt.
Yes.. I wished we won more games and took advantage of the BE when it was down and get blown away in the bowl game like WLAT did in Arizona. NOT.. Sorry.. I knew the first year would be tough because DW was switching the entire offense, defense and mindset from Wlat fun and gun to DW power running game. Plus, with the negativity from Wlat’s former players made the transition to DW system alot harder (this has been documented).
Now in regards to screens, draws and short passes on third and long. Please remember who is under center, a redshirt freshman, and a true freshman, who missed 10 days of camp. Now… were those draws against Ville were bad plays too. I think not. the QB makes the final decision whether the balls goes 10 yards, or if he checks down. Bostick did alot of check down and added to the fact the receivers and QB did not get a lot of reps in camp to improve the timing. You add all the facts together and guess what… you get draws, screens and check downs. I guess that is the coaches fault too?
Now.. Dylan with the field pass and extensive knowledge about Pitt play calling. What type of offense should we run with our personnel?
A lot of people, here and on other boards, are scared to death to admit that they were happy as hell when Wanny was hired.
Now there is NOBODY out there willing to admit to it. All the sudden, none of us wanted the ‘stache and we all wanted Bo Pelini over Wanny, right?
I don’t buy it, because I remember the excitement about Wanny 3 years ago.
I’m not gonna lie and say I’m still 100% onboard w/ Wanny til this day, but I, like the MAJORITY of people, was happy when he took the job.