You know what I like about the Q&A with Paul Zeise of the P-G and the blog/reporter’s notebook of Kevein Gorman of the Trib.? They are the places where you get a better sense of their opinions on things and where their biases are. Bias is not inherently bad. It is unavoidable. We all have it, from our experiences, life and everything else. Reporters pretending they can go into some sort of hypnotic, Robert Heinlein “fair witness” state is self-deluding.

Gorman’s post from the other day could be considered dumping the notebook. Just getting all the extra notes and thoughts from the past week plus out at one time. Lots of good stuff.

I’ve been hard on the defense, because I just haven’t seen what I expected from them. Also, with the Wannstedt approach to games, the defense has to be great for Pitt to win. Gorman also saw the defense as less than stellar so far.

Some signs that Pitt’s defense wasn’t all that impressive:

Buffalo’s 15-play, 73-yard scoring drive that spanned six minutes, 54 seconds and gave the Bulls a 6-0 lead with 1:59 remaining in the first quarter was its longest scoring drive since a 16-play, 80-yard drive against Miami last season. That’s Miami of Ohio, not Florida.

Buffalo tailback James Starks, whom Wannstedt said might be the best back the Panthers face this season, finished with 97 rushing yards on 20 carries (or 4 yards more than McCoy on the same number of attempts). It was the highest rushing total by Starks against a BCS opponent. His previous high was 66 yards at Auburn.

And the week before versus BGSU, the Falcon offense was 4-4 in the redzone. There are issues, and it can’t all be pinned on injuries at linebacker. Eric Thatcher comes in for some direct criticism.

He also makes an interesting observation on Wannstedt.

“…We didn’t sustain for 60 minutes. The second game, we did. That was the theme all week in practice. I put together a few gimmick things for them and did some things during the week to really try to illustrate and emphasize that it really is a 60-minute game, regardless of who we’re playing and what the score is.”

To this day, I don’t understand how a coach who so detests gimmicks on the field – such as the Wildcat offense – uses them so frequently off the field.

Heh.

As for his knock on the student section from the BGSU game,

Which makes me wonder where the student section was a week earlier, when Pitt needed some support while trailing Bowling Green by 10 points with 11:52 remaining in the fourth quarter. Does the student section really need a song to be played to stir up some interest in cheering for the home team?

There’s an easy answer to that. The team and the coaches gave the fans nothing to believe at that point. Pitt was being shut out in the second half, while BGSU had scored two more TDs. Everyone recognized what was happening and that the team was going to blow that game. Fans cheer when they believe. Whether it is believing they can hold or rally, the fans need to believe.

I’ve been to enough sporting events to recognize when fans believe or not. When they don’t believe, it’s just not possible to get that energy to do anything more than half-heartedly, briefly, or at best desperately get behind the team. Nothing Pitt was doing on either side of the ball suggested they were going to do anything. Their body language on the sideline was screaming that they were lost. Fans could see and feel it.

And that is the lead-in to Zeise’s rant.

And the fact that it has been discussed so much on blogs and message boards and even talk radio should tell you the sorry state of where the Pitt football program has fallen. I mean, we’ve spent the past three seasons discussing everything — recruiting rankings, marketing schemes, song selections, logo changes, the ridiculous whining about the script helmets — EXCEPT winning football games. It is not a good thing that all of these things are discussed so much all the time and it is more proof that Pitt really needs a long run of winning games because the fan base is really getting restless.

…

Look, I know some of you get angry with me because I like to poke fun at these kinds of silly gimmicks and these long drawn out discussions about logos and uniforms but I’ve been saying this for years: The best — and at this point as fans are out of patience, the ONLY — marketing program or plan that will put people in those seats at Heinz Field is WINNING FOOTBALL GAMES WITH SOME DEGREE OF CONSISTENCY.

Period.

The athletic department’s marketing people have done a great job with the hand they’ve been dealt but they have gotten absolutely no help from the team and ultimately that is the only thing that matters in this market, particularly for a team that is trying to compete with three professional franchises for media attention as well as fan dollars — if you win and produce a good product, they will ultimately come to watch. Heck, thankfully even the Pirates are starting to find out that concerts, skyblasts, bobbleheads and fireworks are no longer enough to keep people interested in coming back to the ballpark.

So again, as Al Davis says “Just win, baby” and all of this other stuff will go back to being a part of the meaningless sideshow to the main event, which should be the actual football played on the field.

No disagreement. Ticket sales were up this year and they sold out in 2003. As much as lower prices helped, the primary reason was that the expectations were there for the team to win.

The only thing I will say in defense of the discussions is that they tend to come up during bye weeks. Slow news cycles. You know, when there is no game to discuss. So the topics available drift to other things.

Back to the other stuff.

Q: Why is Oderick Turner so inconsistent and looking so disinterested at times? I thought he came from an NFL family (his father played in the NFL). Shouldn’t he know how to play with more passion and intensity?

ZEISE: Being the son of an NFL player only means your dad was a good football player. It doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t take the lessons you learned from him and put them into practice. And when I watch Oderick Turner play it is somewhat frustrating to me. He has all the talent he needs to be a big-time player, I just don’t get the impression he really loves it that much. There are times he makes big plays, but he leaves so many big plays on the field every game he’s become somewhat of an enigma. You contrast the way he approaches things with that of Derek Kinder, who loves to play and it is easy to see if you just watch him run around out there. He plays with heart, with passion – he really goes after it every play. Turner still hasn’t developed this kind of consistency and I fear he might not ever get it.

Turner seems to have everyone frustrated. In a way the comparison with Kinder reminds me of Louisville’s two receivers from last year: Mario Urrutia and Harry Douglas.

Urrutia looked like a game-breaking receiver. He had natural talent, size, strength and speed. He lacked heart and desire, though. Short-arming receptions, shying from contact and just lacking effort at times. Especially compared to Douglas who, while shorter and not as fast, had more desire and you knew would do whatever it took to make the play — and he did.

Urrutia frustrated Cardinal fans while Douglas was embraced and beloved.

On the subject of Bill Stull going deep, he somewhat defends him.

Q: Do you think the reason why Pitt doesn’t throw the ball downfield more, is because Stull is not an accurate downfield passer? The deep balls that he did throw weren’t even close.

ZEISE: No, they didn’t throw down the field that much before Stull was the quarterback, either. Certainly it is not his strength and I agree that the deep balls have been atrocious, but a lot of that had to do with timing and that is something that can be corrected. Stull just threw them up for grabs, didn’t set his feet, didn’t wait for his receivers to get into stride, just chucked them. This is something they need to work on obviously but they have two weeks to get the timing of these things down. But he threw one to Jonathan Baldwin last Saturday that showed he can do it (even though it was a half-yard out of bounce). He just needs to work on it.

When you expect to throw one deep ball per game, how much can you work on it? Given the accuracy issue, I don’t know why they don’t at least take a chance with going more to the middle on a deep pass. Well, actually I do know, the fear of the interception. Still, if you send Baldwin or even Dickerson their natural athletic ability combined with a little more room might give them more of a chance and give Stull a little more confidence in throwing deep. Plus, since Coach Wannstedt loves the field position issue, an interception on a deep ball might be as good as a punt.

The mystery of Dave Wannstedt’s personnel decisionmaking is an ongoing debate.

Q: What is the coaching staff’s aversion to playing the younger talent (ie. Ransom over all the other lb’ers)? There seem to be several options I have considered, a) loyalty to upperclassman, b) young players are not smart enough to learn their assignments, c) players were overrated as recruits or d) coaches don’t seem to be able to coach up their younger players. How do other schools across the country seem to be able to untilize freshmen in multiple roles but Nix can only play limited minutes and Baldwin is only able to run a fly pattern once or twice a game?

ZEISE: I think this is really rather simple and we’ve been through it before — everything we know about Dave Wannstedt’s football philosophy can be summed up in a few words “always err on the side of caution.” That is just how he is built and what he believes in. It is why his teams are always so seemingly conservative, it is why he punts twice from inside the 35 against Bowling Green and plays for field goals and field position — that’s just what he believes in. And the extension of that is when it comes to personnel — he favors experience because theoretically experienced guys make fewer mistakes. But that’s an NFL thing too, as you don’t, in the college, have the luxury of reloading with experienced guys since you only have them for four years (or five). I do think it is puzzling what is going on with both Baldwin and Lucas Nix but by the same token, it isn’t anything that is new or that we haven’t come to expect. It is just one of those things — if you look at the coach’s football philosophy, it is easy to understand why he’s hesitant to green light freshmen playing time.

Yes, it’s the most logical explanation. I think most fans know it. It doesn’t make it right, and the stubbornness of Wannstedt on this along with so many other things — even as he keeps losing support and games — defies reason. You would think at some point he’d actually take a look at his record at Pitt. At Miami. At Chicago and say, “Hmm, maybe it wasn’t all just injuries, bad luck and not ‘catching break.’ Maybe I need to change some things.” Apparently not.