A bunch of nice honors thrown to Scott McKillop after this past week.

Pitt senior middle linebacker Scott McKillop has been named the Walter Camp Football Foundation National Defensive Player of the Week for his performance in the Panthers’ 26-21 upset of No. 10 USF this past Thursday.

McKillop (Export, Pa./Kiski Area) collected a team-high 12 tackles – all solo -and had two quarterback sacks, three total tackles for loss and snuffed out a fake field goal against the Bulls. He played a prominent role in grounding one of the country’s most powerful offenses, including its dangerously elusive quarterback Matt Grothe.

USF entered the game averaging 464 yards in total offense, but produced just 245 against Pitt. Grothe was sacked twice by McKillop for losses totaling 24 yards with both sacks coming at critical junctures.

McKillop’s first sack went for a loss of 10 yards, ending a USF threat at the Pitt 43 in the third quarter and forced a punt. The second was a 14-yard sack with under four minutes to go on 3rd-and-3. USF was forced to punt and Pitt was able to burn the clock down to 22 seconds and ultimately claim the victory.

McKillop also snuffed out a fake field goal in the second quarter, stopping Gregory Grant for a one-yard gain on 4th-and-5 at the Pitt 29.

McKillop was also named The Lott Trophy “IMPACT Player of the Week” and picked up Big East Defensive Player of the Week.

LeSean McCoy grabbed the Big East Offensive Player of the Week honors.

Facing a USF defense that had only been yielding 58 rushing yards per game, McCoy ran for 142 yards and two touchdowns on 28 carries (5.1 avg.). His TDs covered six and three yards, the latter providing the winning points with 4:43 left in the game.

McCoy figured prominently in the winning drive — he set up his own winning TD run with a 19-yard burst through the USF defense to put the Panthers at the Bulls 3. It was his second consecutive 100-yard effort of the season and the ninth of his brief career.

McCoy is averaging 106.60 rushing yards per game to rank 18th nationally and second in the Big East. In five games he has totaled 533 yards on 117 attempts (4.6 avg.) and seven TDs.

A couple good weeks really brought his average back closer to expectations. In the past 2 games McCoy has had 291 yards. He had 242 yards in the first 3 games.

Who’s up for a couple things regarding the basketball team?

Lists? Here’s Jay Bilas ranking the top rebounders in college basketball.

6. DeJuan Blair, Pittsburgh
Blair is barely 6-7, but he has long arms and a great attitude about rebounding. He averaged 9.1 rebounds per game and just under 4 offensive boards per game. Everybody remembers his 20 rebounds against Duke in Madison Square Garden in December, but Blair had eight other games of 13 rebounds or more.

There’s some motivation for Blair. Bilas puts ND’s Luke Harangody ahead of him (though Paul Harris and Jeff Adrien are behind Blair). Bilas doesn’t even think Blair is the best rebounder in the Big East.

Brandin Knight is shooting for the big guys in his first year as a coach on Pitt’s staff. He helped make the pitch to Dominic Cheek with Coach Dixon.

“It was good, very good,” [St. Anthony’s Coach Bob] Hurley said. “Brandin Knight from Seton Hall Prep was able to give the perspective of a kid who played at Pitt. He gave Dom information that was helpful.”

Then he decided to take a run at another top player, Lance Stephenson.

“Kansas, Memphis, USC and UCLA are the schools Lance wants to visit within the month,” Stewart told JayHawkslant.com. “Brandin Knight from Pittsburgh is really pushing hard for a visit. He’s done a great job of providing a lot of information about the school to Lance, but I just don’t know at this point if a visit to Pittsburgh will happen.”

The story also notes that Darnell Dodson will be taking a look at Memphis (grumble, mutter, stupid NCAA).

Well, the player Pitt got a verbal from in place of Dodson gets, Talib Zanna gets looked at here.

Zanna, a 6’9” 220 pound forward dropped 15.0 points, 13.5 rebounds, 3.4 blocks, 1.5 assists, and 1.4 steals per game for McNamara, including individual season highs of 26 points and 22 rebounds. For his exploits, Talib, a native of Nigeria, was tabbed first team All-Prince Georges County (MD) and second team All-Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC).

Expect more from the quiet, thoughtful Zanna – who also possesses a good sense of humor – as he has worked tirelessly on his game, combining both rebounding and shot blocking prowess with an already decent shooting touch. Now, it is not uncommon to see him hit 15 footers, while also employing his go-to move, a nasty, almost text book drop step over his left shoulder in which he lowers his center of gravity and explodes to the cup.

The things that keep coming out about him is his potential upside and coachability.

Pitt seems to be getting very aggressive in the Balitmore-DC area. Another target for the 2010 class is Will Barton, a 4-star to 5-star SG. An impressive player (Insider subs).

He also has a well rounded skill set as he can put the ball on the floor, pass it, or make shots with sounds mechanics. While he is said to have been a very flashy player at one point, he plays the game very efficiently now and manages to get the majority of his points within the flow of the offense. While his first step is rarely enough to allow him to blow by a set defender, he is capable of creating his own shot at virtually anytime thanks to a mid-range pull-up with a very high release.

Not surprisingly, Georgetown and Maryland are after him. As are UVa, VT, Tennessee

Now for the main course of basketball goodies, head over to the Oakland Zoo. Josh “Merlin” Verlin is working the previews for Pitt. He already banged out the freshmen previews and has half the sophomores complete. Solid work and a vital read.

There have been some changes to the BlogPoll (as the logo attached may suggest). Now I need to have a draft on Monday and a final ballot by Wednesday. The idea being that bloggers can be influenced by rational arguments for and against teams. Note that, “you are a flippin’ moron, how can you…” is not an argument that I will find persuasive.

I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on putting Pitt in the ballot. I thought about it, and they are close. Still the body of work so far has not done it. The loss to BGSU is still huge — especially given that they are 1-3 since then. Add in Iowa going from 3-0 to 3-3 really fast.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oklahoma	—
2	LSU	—
3	Missouri	1
4	Alabama	1
5	Texas	—
6	Penn State	1
7	Georgia	1
8	Southern Cal	2
9	Texas Tech	3
10	Brigham Young	1
11	Florida	2
12	Ohio State	2
13	Vanderbilt	5
14	Kansas	1
15	Utah	1
16	Virginia Tech	3
17	South Florida	11
18	Auburn	7
19	Boise State	1
20	Ball State	1
21	North Carolina	5
22	Northwestern	2
23	Wake Forest	—
24	Michigan State	2
25	Georgia Tech	1

Standing by/In the discussion: Pitt, Notre Dame, Oklahoma St., Florida St.,

UNC has really impressed me. Especially when you realize they have kept rolling without their starting QB.

Oklahoma St. may be unbeaten, but good god, when your best win is probably over Houston well I’m not buying.

Yes, I know there are plenty of teams that are rated too high. The problem as always is finding teams that legitimately deserve to be ranked ahead of them.

UPDATE: You can see the full draft poll (Pitt is unranked) and links to all voters, here.

Hello, all. Sorry for the gap. With a weekend of no games I owed the family some time, and so I we went to the in-laws Friday night for the weekend.

Lots of stale story links that everyone has likely read. So, I’m just getting rid of the tabs from Friday.

Ron Cook now believes Pitt has turned the corner under Wannstedt.

Former Pitt players Torrie Cox and Antonio Bryant (now of the Tampa Bay Bucs) were on the Pitt sideline for the game. Pitt basketball coaches Jamie Dixon and Tom Herrion were also in attendance. Question, does that make Coach Dixon now Pitt football’s good luck charm?

With USF’s spread, safeties Dom DeCicco and Elijah Fields were actually on the field together for much of the game, as Pitt was using three safeties — whether it was nickel coverage or called something else.

The team played well on both sides of the ball.

Carry the ball 28 times for 142 yards and 2 TDs and you too can be the lead player in the coverage. Whether in Pittsburgh or in Florida.

Now, taking a bit of time from the links to mention some complaints that USF Coach Jim Leavitt was not respecting Pitt by talking about how his team made mistakes to cost them the game.

”I thought we tackled poorly,” Leavitt said. “A lot of that is [McCoy] but a lot of that is us, too.”

USF quarterback Matt Grothe completed just 11 of 22 passes for 129 yards, but his 22-yard touchdown pass to Jessie Hester, giving the Bulls’ their brief fourth-quarter lead, was a thing of brilliance. Grothe scrambled left, looking off defenders, before turning to the opposite side of the field, where Hester was wide open.

But USF’s defense allowed Pitt to retake the lead with a three-play, 60-yard drive that lasted just 1:14. McCoy’s 3-yard run put the Panthers ahead to stay.

”We broke down in the secondary too many times,” Leavitt said. “Between our linebackers and our secondary, our pass defense has been very poor.”

Pitt quarterback Bill Stull finished with 228 yards and a touchdown. He completed 16 of 27 passes, none more important than a 38-yard completion to Oderick Turner on the first play of the Panthers’ game-winning drive.

South Florida’s cornerbacks, particularly Tyller Roberts, were exposed throughout the game.

”We were real poor at the end,” Leavitt said.

…

”There were a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes,” Leavitt said.

This was his press statement right after the game.

Opening Statement:

We just made a lot of mistakes. We were fortunate to be in that game that close to be quite honest with you with all the mistakes we made in this game. I thought Pittsburgh did a really good job. I thought their coaches did extremely well in getting the team prepared. Defensively, we did not play very good. We did not play real good offensively either and special teams were not very good. Anytime that happens, you are probably not going to win the game. Nobody has gone undefeated through the BIG EAST since we have entered the league and we have to find a way to put this behind us, move forward and get ready to play.

Frankly I’m not seeing too much to be upset. Leavitt is the coach of the Bulls, not Pitt. He has to get his team to play better and respond. He has to focus on what his team is and isn’t doing. Nothing else.

Take a look at Coach Wannstedt’s post-BGSU comments. Should Bowling Green have felt disrespected? That they weren’t getting enough credit for their performance. Instead it was all about Pitt’s mistakes and inexperience.

The Tampa perspective on this game is that this is familiar. Very familiar.

Maybe USF just wasn’t meant to play football on Thursday nights.

For the second year in a row, the Bulls went into a primetime ESPN Thursday game with an undefeated record and big hopes, only to fall to the same weeknight weakness. This time, the No. 10 Bulls overcame poor play to take a lead with six minutes remaining, only to give up a quick touchdown and lose 26-21 to unranked Pittsburgh.

It was an easy storyline and the beat writers ran with it. So did the national writers.

And of course the USF-centric coverage would focus on the Bulls’ mistakes. Whether it was the offense doing nothing, or simply that the team crumbled under the attention.

The NFL and Bowl scouts came to Tampa — ostensibly to see USF. Pitt would like to thank the Bulls for hosting and wining the bowl scouts for them.