A couple previews. Lindy’s has their preview of Pitt online. They placed Pitt #23 and the preview was written by Paul Zeise.

This should be the season in which Wannstedt’s recruiting prowess finally pays off. It is hard to imagine this team won’t get to at least eight wins and a bowl game. And given how strong the defense should be, if the offense comes together quickly, the Panthers could challenge for the Big East title.

As for which ones on the schedule will be the wins and which the losses, well, he’ll never say.

Q: I think that this years Pitt schedule is filled with some tough and tricky games and below I list some very possible losses. I mean, as many as five — how do you feel about games against Navy, Notre Dame, West Virginia, UConn and South Florida?

ZEISE: Pitt could lose any of those five games, as well as games against Iowa, Louisville, Rutgers and Cincinnati. The only three games Pitt should definitely win are Bowling Green, Buffalo and Syracuse. The other nine games will come down to how well Pitt plays, executes, and minimizes mistakes. But on the flip side, I don’t see a game on the schedule that Pitt can’t win, either. Sure WVU and South Florida will be tough but neither of those teams are so much better than Pitt that the Panthers can’t beat them. This is one of those years where you really don’t know how good this team is until it starts playing games.

I think that the Pitt team motto this season of “prove it,” which was suggested by Coach Wannstedt, is as much a daily reminder for him. More than the players, there’s a lot on him to prove as the head coach.

Well, Mark May has faith.

“I think it is very clear this program is on the rise and Dave has it headed in the right direction,” May said. “I am very happy the administration stuck by him and has shown some patience because more often than not, that isn’t the case. Coaches who come in usually have a mess to clean up and by the time they are done straightening it out, they’ve had a few losing seasons and they are fired.

“But if you look at this situation, Dave has recruited extremely well, he’s built a great base of talent, that talent is starting to mature and, more importantly, he is bringing in the right kinds of players. Kids that work hard, are good students and don’t embarrass the university. This thing is being built for the long haul.”

The AP top-25 has Pitt at #25, so long-time Pittsburgh AP writer Alan Robinson has the AP preview. The story starts with the end of last season (of course) and again the issue of proving it wasn’t a fluke. The theme, though is on the players McKillop and McCoy.

The underpinnings of an excellent offense, defense and special teams are there. So are the Big Macs, McCoy and defensive star Scott McKillop.

This can’t be stressed enough it seems. This is the year for Wannstedt to prove things.

Wannstedt, in his fourth year, has posted an underwhelming 13-19 record against I-A competition (16-19 overall) and has yet to take Pitt to a bowl game (The Panthers had been to five bowl games in a row before his arrival). He has recruited well and has been a great ambassador for the program. He now has most of his talent in place and that means finding a way to consistently win games.

That as much as anything else is what we keep coming back to with Pitt. It’s now on Coach Wannstedt to do something. The administration is behind him. The fans are still with him. The talent is there. Expectations are not outsized, but there is lots of optimism.

8-4 is the level of “meets expectations” in this season. He can’t underachieve this year. Not by a game. That would be unacceptable at this point.

Too many times in the first 3 seasons there were games right there for Pitt that the team just couldn’t get it done. Ohio and even Nebraska in ’05. Rutgers and UConn in ’06. Michigan State, Louisville and Navy last year (I won’t count Rutgers since that was as much bad officiating as anything else). 7 games going the wrong way in those three years. Only one offset, and however big that WVU win is and was, it was still just 1 game.

It’s time to start meeting those expectations.

Akron senior Kent St. redshirt junior Eugene Jarvis, as the leading returning rusher in college football, will get some love. He is this year’s Garrett Wolfe (remember the diminutive NIU back?). There will be the inevitable stories that mentions his recruiting.

Angry at Pitt for giving his scholarship to a bigger running back. Angry at West Virginia for going in another direction. Angry at every coach that took one look at him and decided the 5-foot-5, 170-pound sparkplug was too small to play major college football.

So, every time Jarvis steps onto the field he runs with a purpose to show what everyone but Kent State missed out on.

“I’ve been criticized about my size my whole life pretty much,” said Jarvis, a junior with the Golden Flashes. “Coming from high school to college that was always a big issue in recruiting. I had a lot of coaches that backed off me because of my size. At the same time, I just use that as motivation. Every game I go out with a chip on my shoulder trying to prove people wrong.”

That’s good. He plays angry. It works for him. It’s a common motivator. In college, it’s the teams that passed on you. In the pros, it’s all those who were drafted ahead.

Just to recap, though, as I recall why Pitt pulled his scholarship offer (and it was just an offer, Jarvis hadn’t given a verbal). Part of it was Jarvis’ own hubris. He had an early offer from Pitt, but was convinced he was going to get a lot more offers to pick and choose. Those offers never materialized, and Jarvis quickly found out that he didn’t have the leverage or reputation he thought he had to make teams wait on his decision.

Pitt got two verbals early from RBs LaRod Stephens (he hadn’t added the -Howling at that point) and Irv Brown (now a safety). While the offer was pulled after Brown committed, it was Stephens’ verbal that was the main reason. Both Jarvis and Stephens were similar in size and build (though, Stephens is about 2 inches taller). Stephens heard and actually listened to the Pitt coaches and his own about not taking too long to make a decision.

Jarvis also had academic concerns that added into teams backing away from him (which Stephens didn’t have), in addition to being a little too convinced of his own greatness.

Now is the time to remember that Jarvis is 5-foot-6, 165 pounds. That his academic standing — he claims to be qualified for freshman eligibility — is in question. And that he made some comments last spring that irked Pitt’s staff.

When a Pitt fan-based Internet recruiting site asked Jarvis about the Panthers, he said something to the effect of knowing that at least he can play Division I football.

At the time, it sounded like he was making the Panthers an afterthought, a fallback plan if bigger and better schools didn’t come through.

I don’t have the link to that article, but yes. Yes it did. I remember at the time, not wanting Pitt to waste any more time on the kid.

The other amusing thing about the latter article is how fawning Kevin Gorman was over Jarvis at the time, “Jarvis has unique football instincts, a combination of acceleration, elusiveness, quickness and vision that are uncommon. He’s a miniature version of Tony Dorsett, and Pitt has been waiting for his second coming since 1976.”

To be fair, Jarvis had a fantastic senior season at Central Catholic. Still, the number of offers went down rather than up. Pitt, WVU and even Bowling Green all pulled offers. Only Temple, Akron and Kent State remained.

Final thought. That chip and confidence that Jarvis has serves him well. How, though, would he have handled being supplemented by a back like LeSean McCoy? LaRod Stephens-Howling has been all about the team and making it work well. I don’t think he would have been able to put on the same happy face.

The preseason blogpoll is complete. Individual balloting by bloggers here. My ballot was here. Pitt gets little love from the college football blogosphere.

I did the visiting lecturer thing about Pitt for Every Day Should Be Saturday a couple days ago.

If you use Google Calendar I put Pitt’s football schedule out there. It includes any TV coverage. If the time is still TBA, I defaulted to 12pm. In the Google Public Calendar search, paste the following Google ID: 9cldc578j0hk5nt7jajmsskp9s@group.calendar.google.com to find it.

Heh.

Cue “Cease and Desist” letter from ESPN in 3… 2…

Finally, the Octonion returns. Just in time.