I still don’t know how I feel about bringing back Steve Pederson because of what he had done for the school in his first stint. One thing that bother me though is the fact that he had that previous term here in the first place. He was here for six years before bolting to Nebraska. He didn’t want to have anything to do with us and left. When he couldn’t get it done there they fired him and without question we welcomed him back.
Some people believe Pitt is a second-rate program, and by bringing Pederson back because he couldn’t get it done at a “higher level” shows that even Pitt’s administration feels we’re inferior enough. Or, as Panthoor said in the comments:
Man leaves Pitt for mighty Nebraska…Man falls on face, Pitt hires him back.
As I said in the comments, I’d much rather see winning sports teams first and foremost — the logo and identity issues are of very small importance in comparison. However, Pederson addressed the issue briefly at the press conference yesterday.
“It is Pitt,” Mr. Pederson said, “In 1996, this was a different place and, to some extent, we were fighting then for everybody’s attention, so we made decisions then that we thought were in the best interest of our program and we were very proud of the association with the city of Pittsburgh, which we feel is unique because the city and the university are so intertwined. That’s why we made the decision back then.
“But we’ve been through enough logo changes around here for now, and I like our uniforms, I like our look so we are going to worry more about supporting our teams now.”
We’ll see how long he sticks to that attitude.
Plain and simple our problem with football is our head coach. He is a dumb ass, I cannot wait for his press conference after the game when the hoops hang 60 on him.
Wanny will never go to a bowl at Pitt, Stevie will fire him next year when his record is 5-7!
i still dont see why we hire a guy after he leaves us and proceeds to run a great program into the ground on account of his attitude. hell we’ve had nebraska people here telling us to be careful. i agree, it does make pitt seem a bit desperate/second rate.
Hoople-town is going to be burning, win or lose, and it’s gonna be fun to watch.
How long it takes before Cox gets burned and Chappel takes over so that someone can defend the only passing threat they have. If we can make them 1 dimensional and put 9 in the box, i think that’s the only chance we have to stop them.
What players throw TDs today? I say Strong: 1, Mo Williams: 1, Shady: has an attempt but dropped, Bostick: 0. The rest are Shady running it in.
Lets go beat then hillbillies!!!
HAIL TO PITT
I don’t see where I said that they went “all out”. Sometimes that is called for and sometimes it isn’t. I’ve hired many vp and SVP for my company and sometimes we do a national search and sometimes we zero on a few people we are familiar with that we feel are a good fit with what we are trying to accomplish. In fact, most coaches and AD’s are hired with a focused search on just a few candidates. How many coaches do you think MI and NE are interviewing? You think they are zeroing in a few candidates? Do you see them holding press conferences to discuss their thinking and process? Even with an all out search you still end up picking someone that you don’t really know untill after they work for you for a period of time. My understanding is that they considered at least two other candidates and gav thoughtful consideration to bringign Pederson back. Omar stated they actually offered the job to the GT AD. I can’t confirm that, but it is consistent with my understanding thst there were at least two other serious candidates. It is certanly aceptable to not like Pederson, but do you really think that they just took Pederson back without any due diligence or discussion with the governance structure at Pitt? I can assure you that there was much discussion about the decision, but ultimately it was Nordenberg’s to make. we’ll all see if it turns out to be a good one or a bad one.
There are all ways detractors, no matter what program you are talking about. The fact that “some people” think Pitt is second rate is always going to be there. “Some people” found fault with the program when Dorsett and then Marino were here. I fail to see the conncetion that just because the Administration brought back pederson that it shows anything about the administration. The administration brought him back because they thought he was the best person for the job and carefully considered the pros and cons. Nordenberg said as much in his press conference and interviews.