Yep. Smart and necessary move by Coach Wannstedt after the hiring of new DC Phil Bennett. Greg Gattuso gets his own promotion.
Pitt football coach Dave Wannstedt announced today that defensive line coach Greg Gattuso has been given the additional title of assistant head coach.
Gattuso, 45, has spent three seasons on Wannstedt’s staff after 12 years as head coach at Duquesne University. Gattuso was a finalist for Pitt’s defensive coordinator opening, but Wannstedt hired former Southern Methodist coach Phil Bennett.
“From a staff standpoint, Greg Gattuso will be my assistant head coach,” Wannstedt said. “He’s done a great job recruiting in the area, and I think he can bring a lot more to the table.”
Yep.
‘What impressed Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt was that Bennett, a longtime associate, not only shared a similar philosophy but also was willing to learn the Panthers’ terminology rather than implementing his own.
Bennett said the Panthers will use multiple formations to confuse their opponents while keeping it relatively simple so as not to confuse their own players.
“We’re not going to change a whole lot,” Bennett said. “It’s a lot easier for me to learn the terminology that’s in place. But, I can tell you, I want to improve. They found their niche with what they wanted to do defensively, and they were good at it. I want to help us get to the next level.”‘
I don’t like this:
‘Bennett said he believes “defense is an attitude,” and wants his to be one that can win games with a four-man rush and a solid secondary instead of relying upon blitzing.’
Even in the WVU game we didn’t blitz continually, what we did was choose the proper times to do it, when it could work.
I like this hire, and it fits with the recruitment pattern of DW for defensive players over the last two years. Now, though I wonder if we’ll see a different D lineup at LB with Murray fading into the background and more speed at the outside LB positions.
Also Post Gazette reports this :
NOTE — Pitt defensive end Doug Fulmer was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA, which means he is a sophomore in eligibility and has three seasons left to play. Fulmer has missed most of the past two seasons with a broken ankle and a torn ACL.
When Bennett was asked his defensive philosophy, he said it was very similar to Wannstedt’s in that it was “aggressive and dictating.”
“Defense is an attitude,” Bennett said. “We want to be aggressive yet smart enough to execute the game plan. An old coach once told me ‘a band is going to play every time you blitz so you better make damn sure it is yours.’ If you want to be dominant on defense you have to dictate tempo and get takeaways and that’s what we’ll do.”
Don’t forget that Stull and Smith will be in the mix too.
Hail to Pitt!
johnny (with a lowercase “j”)
Let’s get serious here, Smith was so bad that he is the sole reason for the loss to Michigan State. Because of Smith, we had to switch to the Wildcat offense for a few games. Smith was godawful, and shouldn’t be considered in the running for waterboy, let alone QB.
USF was a close game until Bostick threw a few picks that set up a few scores that really changed the game.
Bostick is a project but with the right coaching he can make it, he needs time to mature. Unless Cross and Stull are flat out terrible Bostick is going to take a redshirt.
Also, Pryor is going to tOSU, best of luck to him, hopefully we play them in 2010/2011 for it all.
