Time to review some player puffery and respecting achievements from stories of the past couple weeks.

Jabaal Sheard has done a great job starting at defensive end after Doug Fulmer went down in training camp.

Pitt defensive line coach Greg Gattuso said he never had any question about Sheard’s ability — he just didn’t think that Sheard, given what he’d be ask to do, would be able to play consistently at a high level.

“We like to rotate our guys, so that was the first thing — he, and Greg [Romeus] for that matter, played way too many snaps,” Gattuso said. “I think we have some other guys who are younger and will be more ready next year, but, this year, we just didn’t have a lot of depth. So to ask those two to play that many snaps and then expect them to be as effective in the fourth quarter as they were in the first — that’s tough.

“But the great thing about Jabaal is that he not only got stronger as the game went on, he also got better every week. He made a lot of mistakes early but he learned from them and he’d even learn within games — he might get fooled once, he wouldn’t get fooled again, that’s just the kind of kid he is.”

Sheard added, “yeah, at the beginning I was getting by on my ability and trying to figure out what I was doing. But I feel like I became a much better football player by the end of the season, I understood things better, I understood the position better.”

Gattuso still seems plenty of room for growth in Sheard’s game, and expects him to be worked over by Strength and Conditioning Coach Buddy Morris this offseason.

Scott McKillop gets the full-on puff piece from Starkey.

The senior middle linebacker is so destructive that he has torn through five facemasks and two helmets this season. As a last resort, late in the year, McKillop began wearing a titanium facemask (“If I ever bent a titanium facemask,” he said, “something’s wrong.”).

What’s next, a medieval suit of armor?

Actually, it wouldn’t be a stretch to picture McKillop riding a horse and wielding a battle-axe as he bore down on an unsuspecting tailback.

McKillop has earned the praise, but it still gets a little uncomfortable to read. The piece also has praise coming from a Pitt walk-on McKillop helped get through early drills. Scott Shrake plays on the scout team while pursuing his Ph.D in engineering.

The valedictorian of his class at Ingleside (Ill.) Grant Community High — he graduated with a 4.78 grade-point average — Shrake was a three-sport athlete who burned out on football and eschewed small-college interest.

He soon realized how much he missed the game, but the demands of completing his course work in the four years of tuition covered by being a finalist for the Chancellor Scholarship prevented him from playing. In one three-semester sequence, for example, he took 23, 19 and 22 credits.

After being accepted to Pitt’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation Program on a Pittsburgh IGERT Sustainable Engineering Fellowship — focusing on designing communities to become green and the conservation of energy and water — Shrake decided to give football a go. His persistence paid off when he was the only candidate to survive a tryout in January.

“People told me, ‘You’re going to be a tackling dummy. You’re just going to get hit.’ If I wouldn’t have done it, I would have regretted it,” Shrake said. “At least I bring up the team GPA.”

Shrake will have his Masters by next year and a doctorate in 3.

Pitt also has a finalist for the “Rudy Award” in Dan Cafaro.

Cafaro is a past recipient of Pitt’s Demale Stanley Award, which goes to the team’s most inspirational player. He earned the admiration of his teammates last year while making the Pitt’s squad as a walk-on and persevering through the various season’s regimens while simultaneously undergoing treatment for cancer.

As a Rudy Award finalist, Cafaro will be honored at a breakfast to be held in conjunction with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Convention on January 12, 2009, at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tenn. Rudy Ruettiger will personally present each finalist with an award and a collegiate scholarship. An overall winner will be announced during the event and presented with the top scholarship and first-place sculpture trophy.

The other two Rudy Award finalists for 2008 are Texas Christian University senior kickoff specialist Drew Combs and University of Oklahoma senior safety and linebacker Nic Harris.

Cafaro overcame Hodgkins lymphoma. Cafaro transferred to Pitt from Virginia Tech after the campus shootings that killed 33, only to have the cancer hit him. This season he’s seen action in 10 games on special teams.

A little love sent Derek Kinder’s way in El Paso as they recount his ACL injury.

Kinder finished the 2008 regular season leading the Panthers with 410 yards and three touchdowns on 35 catches.

“There have been a lot of ups and downs personally as well as with the team,” Kinder said after Pitt’s practice on Saturday. “We started off on a bad note (with a loss to Bowling Green), then we turned it around and we were able to finally get to a bowl game, the first one we’ve had in like four years. So it’s good to be here.”

Kinder enters Wednesday’s Sun Bowl with a chance to move into the top five on Pitt’s all-time receptions list. He is at No. 7 with 130 catches, while Dwight Collins and Gordon Jones are tied at No. 5 with 133.

Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt said Kinder has filled an important role as one of the team’s most solid senior leaders.

“Most skill guys, it takes them two years to get back (from a torn ACL). And Derek’s really had a great year, in my opinion,” Wannstedt said. “He hasn’t missed a game. He hasn’t missed a snap He’s done everything in practice.”

Raise your hand if you knew for certain that Kinder was the leading receiver this year.

The Oregon media got a chance to look at LeSean McCoy’s scar.

LeSean McCoy obligingly pushed down his sock to show several reporters the scar that doctors left when they put his right ankle back together.

The scar is long and ugly, but there wasn’t a pretty way to fix that injury.

McCoy’s suffered a compound fracture in the fourth game of his senior season at Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, Pa. When the pile untangled, he could see bone sticking through his skin.

The metal plate and screws the doctors inserted are still there. But as gruesome as the injury was at the time and as devastating as it was for his national recruiting profile, it’s turned out to be a lucky break.

“Everything changes when you get hurt,” McCoy said. “I decided I wanted to stay close to home, because when I was hurt my family always was there for me. I think I made the best choice, going to Pittsburgh.”

Definitely the best choice for Pitt.