Just as you make your own luck, I don’t buy into destiny. I prefer free will.

So, here’s the liveblog that should get underway sometime around 7-ish.

Since there has been something of a queue to participate, I’ve sent out some invites (near the max allowable) to those that I trust will be able to reasonably control themselves that should allow more participation. Hopefully that will help.

Here’s the Link to tonight’s liveblog.

Okay, one of the big match-ups in the game will be the Cinci secondary vs. the Pitt receivers.

That’s because the Bearcats (8-2, 4-1) feature three of the Big East’s best defensive players in cornerbacks DeAngelo Smith and Mike Mickens and safety Brandon Underwood.

The trio has combined to intercept seven passes and break up 19 others, and all three are among the team’s six leading tacklers. Mickens, who is a four-year starter and has been an all-Big East selection three times, leads the Bearcats with 65 tackles, 43 of them solo.

That the Bearcats can trust their secondary to go man, keys the rest of their defense.

“Having those types of DBs in the backfield not only allows us to have one-on-one matchups and blitz quarterbacks more,” Cincinnati defensive end Connor Barwin said, “but a lot of our sacks are coverage sacks.”

Mickens and Smith have combined for six interceptions this season and 26 in their careers. They also have 16 pass breakups between them this fall, which will force Pitt quarterback Bill Stull to make sound decisions.

“We’ve been talking all week about their D-backs,” Stull said. “They’re definitely a very, very talented defense.

“I just need to be smart. Maybe some throws I think might be there, they might not, and I have to hit a check-down. I have to make sure I don’t force anything.”

It might also help, not to stare down the receiver this game. It’s one of the legitimate criticisms of Stull. He does tend to lock on a receiver.

Zeise calls tonight’s game an elimination game, not a championship game.

That’s why tonight’s game at Nippert Stadium is probably more accurately defined as a Big East elimination game than a Big East championship game.

“We all know it is a big game and there is a lot at stake,” said Pitt fullback Conredge Collins. “But at the same time, it isn’t our last game and we have a few more big ones after it so we need to be focused on winning this one.”

Although the losing team will not be mathematically eliminated from title consideration, it would need so many things to go right in order to have a chance.

Well, Cinci would not necessarily get to the BCS game, but they would still have an excellent shot at claiming a share of the Big East title. Just have Pitt and WVU split their final two games. Either way, both teams need/want this game.

An interesting thing with Elijah Fields and the hard time for him to get on the field.

Q: I keep hearing rumors that Elijah Fields doesn’t get more playing time because he doesn’t know what he is doing (assignments etc.) out there. How can this be possible? He has been here for 3 years now. Is Bennett’s defense that much different that Rhoads?

ZEISE: That is not entirely true and it is more complicated than what it sounds like. Elijah Fields is being asked to play a number of different positions and coaches believe he can help them more playing a hybrid safety/linebacker type of position than limiting him to a safety spot. He has been asked to play a different position in all of the sub packages and different defenses and he has been used in different games with different matchups. They like his ability to cover and his ability to stop the run because of his size and they think they are wasting him if he is not doing more than just hanging back as a safety. So he’s being asked to absorb a lot of stuff and his playing time has increased tremendously over the past two games. I’d expect him to see the field a lot tonight because of the matchup with Cincinnati’s spread offense.

I know, why question success of a team with only 2 losses. Here’s what’s bothering me about this. Fair or not, Fields has long had his ability to learn to play within the system questioned. To know the plays and not just freelance. Whether it’s an issue of learning it, or not just relying on instinct. If that is true, wouldn’t the worst thing, would be to have him playing too many other positions other than safety? To have to know multiple assignments and responsibilities. Wouldn’t that be an additional hindrance to his development and getting on the field?

Special teams ace, Andrew Taglianetti gets a puff piece. Helps to have a relatively famous father in the area.

Cinci fans have been ticked at their local paper’s website this week, because apparently they’ve had too many pictures of Dave Wannstedt. This piece on Wanny didn’t help.

Bearcat fans excited like never before.

I’ll be getting the remaining Pitt-Cinci links out in a while. I’ve got to run the FanHouse chat around noon. Stop over to chat.

And yes, there will be a liveblog here for the game tonight.

Not the best effort in the second half. Hard to maintain that intensity when the game was so in control by Pitt. Akron had no size inside. Biggs, who seems to be getting a little more comfortable as a starter, grabbed a lot more rebounds — admittedly, more than a few came from his own misses (2-8). The big 3 were steady and as expected.

Jermaine Dixon after a great start to the season fell to the earth a bit in shooting. His defense on the perimeter stayed consistently strong.

Sprinkler problems before the game. I was unaware that Maurice Polen had transferred to IUP. So, there’s that along with former Pitt assistant, now HC Joe Lombardi, coming back to the Pete this afternoon.

Sam Young got ridiculous comparisons from Akron’s coach.

“Young reminds me of LeBron (James) a little bit,” Akron coach Keith Dambrot said. “Obviously, he’s not as good but with his quick-twitch ability and the way he gets to the basket. There’s some similarities.”

Dambrot coached James at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. Dambrot got to know Young last night.

Young scored a game-high 26 points – 16 coming during a dominant first half – as the No. 6 Panthers (3-0) surged to a commanding 18-point halftime lead and cruised from there.

“I was a little more aggressive offensively,” Young said. “I knocked down a couple three’s and that set up the rest of my game.”

I love Young, but that’s just being silly. You no more compare Young to James than anyone ever should Vince Carter to Michael Jordan or Adam Morrison to Larry Bird. Just crazy talk.

Hard to believe Fields is saying he isn’t at 100% yet. He has looked excellent and like he’s been playing with the guys all through the fall.

While Coach Dixon wasn’t happy about the second half defense, he took the blame for it.

Dixon took some of the blame for the poor second half. He said his substitution patterns took the Panthers out of their game. Dixon once again liberally substituted his freshmen into the game at all times, which led to some of the team’s breakdowns in the final 20 minutes.

“I kind of took us out of our rhythm,” Dixon said.

“I took Levance out early. I tried something different. But to their credit, they just kept playing hard and kept battling and getting after it. They have tough kids.”

Young scored 16 of his points in the first half and led the charge to a 45-27 halftime advantage for Pitt. The Panthers built the lead to 21 points early in the second half before they lost their focus, according to Young.

“We played real good offense and defense in the first half,” Young said.

“It wasn’t until the second half where we got sloppy and lost focus when we were up by 20. We kind of lost our intensity. If the game was a little closer, we would have maintained our intensity and our motivation.”

That’s one of the reason the players have always played hard for Dixon. He will always do what he can to take the blame off of them. It’s been that way for him since he took over as head coach.

As for Akron, coming into the game their coach was already conceding.

”It is a good game for us. We will go in there, let our hair down and play,” UA coach Keith Dambrot said. ”We will try to win, but we are realistic. That’s one of the best teams in the country.

”It will be difficult to win. They are not going to lose many there. But in the long run, it will benefit us.”

Here’s the thing. There was a little playing up of the fact that Akron hadn’t beaten a top-25 team since the 80-81 season. The dirty secret is that Akron preferred not to play high majors. Even the Ohio papers knew that.

Too big, too strong, too quick, too fast. The No. 6 Pitt Panthers displayed all their wares to the Akron Zips Friday night in a disarmingly easy 86-67 victory that left Pitt undefeated on the season and the Zips literally and figuratively looking for a rebound.

It has been several seasons since Akron (2-1) has stepped up in class during the regular season to play a power conference team. Pittsburgh (3-0) was not a good choice to be reintroduced. By halftime, Pitt center DeJuan Blair already had 10 of his 13 rebounds, leading a board attack that left Akron behind, 29-9, by the break and 41-24 for the game.

Okay, that’s mostly it for b-ball talk today.

Well, the early signing period is over. Pitt had all of its commit sign NLIs.

The centerpiece of the class is 6-foot-9 power forward Dante Taylor, a consensus top-30 recruit from National Christian Academy in Fort Washington, Md. He is joined by 6-5 guard/forward Lamar Patterson of Lancaster, 6-7 forward J.J. Richardson from Missouri City, Texas, and 6-9 forward Talib Zanna, who is originally from Nigeria but is finishing his high school career at Bishop McNamara in Forestville, Md.

It’s a consensus top-25 class according to the recruiting services that do rankings. Hoopscooponline ranks Pitt No. 9, ESPNU Pitt No. 14, PrepStars No. 23 and Scout.com No. 24.

Well, ESPNU seems to have dropped them to #15. Scary when you look at their rankings. 5 of the top-15 classes are from the Big East. This conference is brutal in all facets of basketball.

It’s good to see Pitt steadily rising in profile for recruiting as well.

Now that the class is signed, Chris Dokish has Tom Herrion talking about each player.

Of course, we are greedy. It isn’t enough to have this class. We still want Dominic Cheek to choose Pitt. He’s eliminated Memphis from his list and will be at Pitt next week.

Cheek has been the subject of much attention. Including this video on his life so far (via ZagsBlog).

Hopefully not all the students will be home for the Belmont game on Tuesday.

Both teams do. Win their remaining games and they are headed to the BCS Bowl. Nothing like having that control. Nothing as scary as well.

Some good news. Lots picking against Pitt. Mandel at SI.com as well as most of the CBS Sports group along with Brian Bennett and Bruce Feldman at ESPN.com are going with Cinci. In a game that doesn’t seem to have a very clear favorite, I always feel a little better to see more going against Pitt.

Of course, Orson and Holly have found themselves under the spell of the ‘stache.

An advanced conversation with Coach Wannstedt and LeSean.

A Cinci columnist tries to justify the lack of interest by the city considering all things.

No one knows what the time frame is for converting pro football fans to college football fans in a pro football town. We could be about to find out. It’s wishful, in this economy, to think there are enough of both here to fill up two stadiums every fall weekend.

For now, here’s what Kelly has to deal with: a local affection for the Bengals that borders on delusional; a UC football history featuring middling results at best, in leagues nobody cared about; a two-year run on major success that still needs padding.

If you want a sold-out stadium, don’t win one Big East title. Win two in a row, three of five. Don’t just schedule Oklahoma, beat Oklahoma.

Change can occur here. Usually in geologic time. Certainly not in two years.

Admittedly the Cinci students and alum have a lot of blame. It just isn’t in their nature to care about the football team. The irrelevance of the team has been ingrained in them. Anecdotal evidence time. My  wife — Cinci alum — actually knows football and basketball. She could care less about Cinci football, though, but still loves her Bearcat basketball team. It isn’t changing.

In some ways, I agree with the column, but he’s shorting the fact that Cinci has been at the very least competitive under Dantonio as well. He’s also placing too high a burden on what the Bearcats have to do. He’s saying the team has to win — and win big — for quite a spell and only then will fans show up. All but just saying that Cinci fans are nothing but frontrunners.

If that’s the case, then you have to wonder why the Cinci administration is even trying.