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July 31, 2008

As usual with media days, plenty of articles and stories. So getting to them all takes a little time.

The day of Media Day, Paul Zeise had a solid article. It notes the expectations are there for this team, and of course Coach Wannstedt spoke well of the off-season preparations.

“We’ve had an unbelievable offseason, these guys have worked their tails off and have gotten into shape,” Wannstedt said. “[Second-year strength coach] Buddy Morris and his program have really kicked into high gear.

“Our guys are slimmer, in better shape than since we’ve been here and have gotten so much stronger. Some guys have added 30 or 40 pounds to their bench press and whatnot. It has been impressive.

“I don’t know what is going to happen during the season but I’ll say this — these guys have taken the offseason seriously, they have put in the work and they’ve put themselves in position to be successful and that’s all you can ask.”

And as you can expect with any article talking about Pitt’s chances, the question is still: What about that O-line?

The offensive line, however, is the key to the season and Wannstedt said even though it lacks experience, it is talented and, more importantly, healthy. And like the rest of the team, the players are in great shape and that bodes well for the future.

“We don’t have a guy more than 300 pounds, they are slim and trim,” Wannstedt said, “[Right tackle] Joe Thomas is like 285, [left tackle] Jason Pinkston, same thing. And the injured guys, like Chris Jacobson, are healthy and looking in great shape as well. Our line will hold the key to our season, but it is going to be better than some people think.”

It has to be. Otherwise it will be back to multiple QBs — mainly because they will be carted off the field.

Back to the expectation thing.

Questions need answered in camp. Position battles haven’t been won. Heck, a down needs to be played.

But the expectation season has begun. The numbers have grown since before last season, or two seasons ago.

And they’re heavier.

That’s the sign of a growing program. The Panthers merely need to add more victories to equal those expectations.

Of course, that’s the toughest part of this equation.

The players feel that this is the time to meet the expectations.

Time for something good to happen to the Pitt football team under Dave Wannstedt.

Three straight Top 25 recruiting classes – it’s just time.

“It’s finally time,” wide receiver Derek Kinder said Tuesday at the annual Big East Media Day. “We’ve gotta put it together.”

Of course another conventional portion of talking about Pitt this year is how the team ended the season with WVU. Something that WVU people can’t quite forget.

We have gone over this game in great detail in the past, but always from the West Virginia angle.

Pat White was injured. Play selection was terrible. The team choked. The coach choked.

But here at Big East Media Day, it was finally time to get the other side.

What in the name of LeSean McCoy got into Pitt?

How could the pathetic Panthers pull this off and, in some ways, had the upset altered the direction of the Pitt program as much as it did the West Virginia program, although in the opposite direction.

That’s all great, but I’m with Scott McKillop on this one.

“That victory was very, very important for our team,” said linebacker Scott McKillop. “It was a great stepping stone, but we’re aware that we have a long ways to go. We can’t really stay focused on it though. We can’t keep saying, ‘We beat West Virginia, we beat West Virginia.’ If we do that, they pretty soon we’ll be playing West Virginia again and we’ll be 4-7 again.”

Perhaps it’s the blunt honesty with which McKillop speaks about last season’s watershed victory. Having not made a bowl game for the last three seasons, Pittsburgh could have hung its hat on that win and called it a day. But it didn’t and the more one looks at Pitt, the more one realizes why they’ve been picked to finish so high.

So, as much as there are lots of expectations, Coach Wannstedt wants to keep things in check.

“There is with our fans. There is with our alumni. There is with the media. And there is with our team,” Wannstedt said Tuesday at Big East media day, after Pitt was predicted to finish third in the conference in a media poll. “It’s my job as head coach to make sure we keep our feet on the ground and understand that we’ve got to start working on Tuesday (at) training camp, and it’s going to be tough. We’ve got to go out there and put together a good football team during training camp and not worry about those other things.

“If we do that, good things will happen.”

AD Steve Pederson, as the story points out, has to sell the expectations to get butts in the seat.

“What you want is a program that has expectations. You don’t want unrealistic expectations, but you do want expectations in your program,” Pederson said. “What we want is to continue to see progress in the program. It’s kind of funny. No matter what expectations I have, the coaches and players always have higher expectations. They set their own bar high.”

I’d say fans are expecting at least a +3 increase in the win total.





link to sportingnewstoday-cdn.texterity.com

Shady answers a question of utmost importance: Would you rather be a cat or a dog? (He says cat if you don’t feel like clicking the link)
He was also conspicuously absent from Sporting News’ list of top 10 RB in to ’09 draft.

Comment by matt 07.31.08 @ 11:44 am

Or if you actually do read the article, you’ll see he says dog

Comment by PITTinCT 07.31.08 @ 11:54 am

10-2.

We should be 10-2 this year. We were one competent QB from being 10-2 last year. There’s no reason we can’t be as good as last year.

Comment by Stuart 07.31.08 @ 2:03 pm

Or I’m retarded and can’t read. 🙁

Comment by matt 07.31.08 @ 3:03 pm

I’m saying we go 9-3. That would be an amazing, yet unsurprising year to me.

10-2 would be incredible.

Comment by James 07.31.08 @ 3:12 pm

Anyone see this rivals Pitt preview:

link to collegefootball.rivals.com

Two complete screw ups. First, has Bill Stull listed at 300 lbs “Bill Stull, 6-3/300, Jr.” and has “…are hopeful the returns of Stuff and Kinder will boost a lethargic passing game.” (obviously referring to Stull again).

Comment by Jim 07.31.08 @ 3:13 pm

How about we get to a bowl game. ANY BOWL GAME.

Comment by Tony In Harrisburg 07.31.08 @ 3:49 pm

This board had an interesting discussion about “what if Bill Stull had not broken his thumb”. I didn’t see a discussion on “what if Joe Flacco did not transfer”. I think that would have been intriguing.

Comment by BigGuy 07.31.08 @ 3:53 pm

Because we had no control over Flacco transferring, he wasn’t going to play last year no matter what. That’s been over for years. The stull thing was just a dagger – losing your QB in the first game. Unreal.

My point was that we were one or two passes (or minus 3 pick 6’s at USF) from being 10-2. And that was without our top WR and QB. There is NO REASON that we can’t do that this year. We SHOULD be 12-0, but i’m going go out on a limb and say we’ll shit the bed for two games. (I wouldn’t be suprised if we beat USF and WVU, but lost to UConn – AGAIN.)

PS – that WVU player that shot the guy in the head – they want to pretend he was cut months ago, and off the roster. No announcement was ever made of that until he killed someone. Too bad he was listed on it until he shot someone.

Their official athletic site, on July 25th:

link to 64.233.169.104

Comment by Stuart 08.01.08 @ 5:00 am

Glass houses, Stuart.

link to pittblather.com

Glass houses.

Comment by Chas 08.01.08 @ 7:30 am

I’m going to come at this from the same page as Stuart and say that there is no team on the schedule that we can’t beat. If everything clicks and goes the right way with injuries and referees 12-0 is not impossible.

Which is why I’m going with 9-3. Once again agreeing with Stuart, Pitt has never won at UConn. I can see it not happening again. Throw in Notre Dame/Iowa and WVU/USF and there are 3 losses.

Comment by Kevin 08.01.08 @ 7:36 am

Walker was already off the roster – excuse me, the media guide roster. Just because he was left on the 2004 roster (which was the team he was on previously) doesn’t mean anything – he was already off the 05 roster, which was already printed. Not sure why Pitt even had to update the 04 roster.

Find a roster from WVU that didn’t list him 3 days ago.

Their kid was never removed from any roster (not one), he was never announced to have left, and he played in the Spring game.

I’m not sure how much more the kid could be on the team short of wearing his gear to the murder.

Comment by Stuart 08.01.08 @ 8:49 am

But anyways – coaches poll is out, looks like we’ll have to win a few games to get any respect.

Somehow State Penn (no one knows who their QB is though) and Michigan (yes, that school – once again, i’m not sure they even have a QB on roster) are ranked though. Makes a lot of sense to me…

Comment by Stuart 08.01.08 @ 8:51 am

“We don’t have a guy more than 300 pounds” Do we really want to advertise this?

Slim and trim offensive linemen, Wannst next, svelte, nimble, and dainty?

What happened to big, hog, road-grading linemen?

Last year our weakest link was the o-line. We lost two good ones to the pros and another to graduation. If these guys don’t perform, we’ll be lucky to go 7 and 5.

Comment by shadyforpresident 08.01.08 @ 6:02 pm

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