Now this is a fun little thing. It’s called Pollspeak.com. Find out how they vote. For example, this is how AP voters picked Pitt.

Interesting breakdown. Love the Transparency.

Roger Clarkson writes for a newspaper in Athens, Georgia. He puts Kansas at #8. He only has 5 Big East teams ranked and Pitt was behind Marquette.

Lots that I have not gotten to for a couple days.

Working backwards, there was the Seton Hill exhibition blowout. A chance to play with the line-ups and give the new guards lots of playing time.

Gibbs, who started at point guard, and Woodall, who came off the bench, combined for 22 points, four assists, five steals and three rebounds. They shot 9 of 12 from the field, going 4 of 7 from 3-point range, while playing a combined 37 minutes.

“Both of them played well,” coach Jamie Dixon said. “They are both good players. They are great kids. …Both guys have got to get better defensively. But it was good minutes for them.”

Gibbs, a Seton Hall Prep product, started alongside sophomore shooting guard Brad Wanamaker, and finished with nine points, two assists and two steals. He had no turnovers in 17 minutes.

Woodall, who played at USA Today No. 1 St. Anthony’s, went 3 of 5 from 3-point range, with 13 points, three steals, two assists and two turnovers.

“I think I could have done a lot better,” Woodall said. “When Levance gets here, you know he’s not going to turn the ball over. So, I have to improve that. But I think I came out and did all right.”

Fields has returned to practice, but he won’t return until he’s full-strength.

Gibbs learned at the morning shoot-around that he would start.

“I think I did well,” he said. “I did all right. I’m just glad we were able to get in there and get some playing time.”

All of Pitt’s newcomers performed well. Freshman forward Nasir Robinson went 5 of 6 from the field for 10 points and junior college transfer Jermaine Dixon had five assists and four rebounds while playing turnover-free ball.

It seems to be partially necessity with Fields out, but also Coach Dixon’s comfort level with tinkering in exhibition rather than focusing on making sure a rotation is set and everyone knows their roles. Despite this being a veteran team, there are still a lot of open spots in the rotation and determining whether there will be an redshirts.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon cautioned not to read too much into the starting lineup he had on the court yesterday afternoon for Pitt’s first exhibition game against Seton Hill College. By the time the regular season rolls around, the starting five of Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker, Sam Young, Tyrell Biggs and DeJuan Blair could be ancient history.

Or, if things unfolded the way they did against the Division II Griffins, Dixon could be tempted to keep it the same. Pitt routed Seton Hill, 102-51, before 6,020 spectators who saw what Dixon described as his “tinkering” process as the preseason unfolds.

Josh (Merlin) Verlin at Oakland Zoo has a very good game write-up of the exhibition.

DeJuan Blair talked a little about his leadership role and offseason conditioning. Can’t wait for the first game on TV so I can actually see the difference.

Jeff Goodman at FoxSports.com and The Sporting News preview both peg Pitt at #9 in the preseason rankings.

Not surprising, are the concerns.

Pittsburgh’s season hinges on the health of Levance Fields’ foot and the development of a reliable perimeter shooter.

Plain and simple.

The Sporting News Preview from Mike DeCourcy is always interesting since he is the only national college basketball writer who has his roots back in the ‘Burgh.

So when the subject of that drought comes up — and it comes up often, because it’s pretty much an obsession with Pitt fans — folks want to know what the program needs to do in order to get past the Sweet 16.

And the answer is simple: Have more than one DeJuan Blair grow up in the backyard every 20 years.

Not that there’s ever been another DeJuan Blair. He’s darned close to unique as a college basketball player: a 6-7 bear who can handle himself as a center both offensively and defensively. But around him are guys from Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and New Jersey. There are as many scholarship players from the Bahamas as there are from Western Pennsylvania.

That lack of homegrown talent, as much as anything else probably had much to do with why Pitt pursued Herb Pope despite most observers not seeing him worth the risk after a point. One of those other potential local talents took a visit to another school last week. Tom Droney was in South Bend to visit ND and watch their scrimmage. Unfortunately he returned home Saturday morning. So, he didn’t get to see the football game.

Finally Big East Basketball Report pegs Pitt for #3 in the Big East and sees a 13-5 conference record.

Oh, the Sam Young playing small forward takes on greater importance with this news.

Sophomore forward Gilbert Brown, who played in all 37 games last season with 15 starts, has been diagnosed with a stress fracture in his left foot and will be out 10-14 days. That means Brown likely will miss the season opener Nov. 14 against Fairleigh Dickinson.

Brown did not mention the injury after Sunday night’s exhibition game against Seton Hill, but he had been experiencing some discomfort in the foot the past few weeks. Dixon said that the foot does not bother Brown when he plays, but he has pain the following day.

This is frustrating for all. Brown is only beginning to come into his own. He has shown glimpses, but has also struggled to stay injury free.

The hope was that this season, he would be a key player. Attacking from the wing on offense and being a shutdown defender on the perimeter. Well, Sam Young can probably give him some advice about dealing with the frustration of the body holding you back longer than everyone including yourself expects.

In some good news, Levance Fields’ latest MRI was good.

Fields is cleared for all-out practice, Dixon said. The senior point guard is expected to practice two days and take one day off.

It’s undecided if Fields will be in uniform when the Panthers play host to La Roche on Sunday in their final exhibition.

Keep him coming back slow. Let the kids get some more work and just play it safe with Fields’ health until December.

Considering Pitt is 2-2 at home this season. They haven’t beaten Louisville since 1983 and currently has a 7-game losing streak to the Cardinals. Plus the Cards just tanked against Syracuse. That has me in an already agitated state about this Saturday’s game. So why not look back one more time on the ND win?

It is kind of nice to read of some other program being plagued with questions and doubts.

But the plain, sobering fact is that over the last two years, Pitt has risen to the occasion with enormously more regularity than Notre Dame, which has fattened its record artificially this season by drumming doormats. Wannstedt’s team beat West Virginia to conclude last season, went on the road and knocked off 10th-ranked South Florida a few weeks ago, and on Saturday came into Notre Dame Stadium and stopped the home team’s 2008 progress absolutely cold.

On the Notre Dame side, this is a disturbing loss because it feels like it essentially wipes out whatever self-discovery was supposed to have come out of a locker room soul-search after the difficult North Carolina loss just three weeks ago. Never again, the world was told then. Never again would the Irish let a victory slip away the way they had that night, a turnover-fest they still had a chance to win at the end.

Against Pitt (6-2), the Irish led 17-3 at halftime and it felt very much like the blowout would be on in the third quarter. Then, through a numerous series of events, Notre Dame (5-3) let yet another team back into the game.

“It’s not a good feeling at all right now,” said wide receiver Golden Tate after Saturday’s loss. “It definitely hurts because we expect more of ourselves.”

Maybe they do, but you probably shouldn’t. Not by now.

Because how much emotion do you really have left to give to a team that never seems to pay it back? When the season began, 7-5 seemed like a reasonable expectation for a young, developing team coming off a dismal 2007. But these games have been winnable, and without a win over Boston College next week or a convincing bowl victory, this is going to have felt very much like a four month-long lost opportunity.

Ahh. The doubts.

And Notre Dame’s apparent attempt to put the game away? Let’s go away from the strength of the team and pound it instead. And the Irish got pounded, three three-and-outs worth of pounding on offense.

If play-calling is to blame for a third-quarter in which the Irish were outgained 92 yards to seven, then the blame starts at the top. And if it was a lack of execution that caused the offense to look oh-so 2007-ish, the responsibility is at least a shared one, with the coaching staff still owning most of that.

You can throw out all kinds of statistics that show how far this team has come since last season and how promising the freshmen and sophomores make 2009 and beyond look. But if you do that, you also have to throw in the bottom line after 45 games, and that is that Weis is 27-18.

The same as Bob Davie after 45 games.

It’s all Ty Willingham’s fault.

On the Pitt side, Paul Zeise had his Good, Bad & Ugly. I was really going to point to the good stuff. Especially regarding the O-line, Mick Williams, Wildcat offense and the second-half coaching. But, I have been waiting for any explanation with Kevan Smith getting tossed out there in the first-half.

I get it, have Kevan Smith come in on first down and throw the ball deep to Baldwin because he has a stronger arm than Bostick. Of course, the pass was so far off the mark it never had a chance, but it was a good thought and that should have been the only play Smith was in the game. But it wasn’t, in fact, as Pitt takes over at the 25 or whatever after a blocked punt and Smith went back in and let him throw it twice? That made no sense, particularly since his one throw was nearly a pick six and his second one he turned the wrong way and got sacked. There was no reason to put him in there at that point in the game.

Those decisions to play quarterback shuffle early probably hurt Pitt’s chances to get at least one touchdown out of that great early field position.

Yeah, sure it looked like some sort of panicked move by the coaches at the time, but apparently that was the plan to put Kevan Smith in there. Unlike Greg Cross, they planned to use him and did.

“We had worked on some things when we were going to use Kevan a little bit,” Bostick said. “And like I said, it is a team game and whatever the coaching staff deems appropriate at the time, I am fine with it. I just try to keep my head in the game and when they called down and said, ‘You have to win this game,’ I said, ‘I’m looking up and have 10 guys around me to help me do it so let’s go do it.’ “

Of course, there’s always LeSean McCoy.

It marked McCoy’s fifth consecutive game with 140 or more yards this season. The sophomore sensation became only the third Pitt rusher – and first since Curvin Richards in 1988-89 – to surpass the 1,000-yard mark in successive seasons. Tony Dorsett had four consecutive from 1973-76.

“Great players do a lot of things that you don’t coach,” Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said. “That’s LeSean.”

The performance before a national television audience might have helped McCoy enter another race. If he can continue at this torrid pace, McCoy should be a lock for All-American honors, should become the frontrunner for the Doak Walker Award, presented to the nation’s top running back, and could emerge as a darkhorse candidate for the Heisman Trophy.

Maybe. There’s still Javon Ringer, Knowshon Moreno, Shonn Greene and Kendall Hunter. If Pitt keeps winning, then yes, he’s going to be up there as a favorite.