Bummer for Pitt football coverage.

This is my final day as the Pittsburgh Trib’s Pitt football beat writer, as I’ve been offered an opportunity to move into a new role within the sports department that includes writing a weekly column.

The new Pitt football beat writer is John Grupp, who has done an outstanding job covering the Pitt men’s basketball team the past three seasons and I promise will do the same with the Panthers in football. John also is one of the nation’s leading writers on horse racing and covered high school sports here for about two decades.

The Trib also has a new addition to our staff, Ralph Paulk, who started Monday and will join John in providing coverage of the Pitt football and basketball teams. Soon, they are expected to set up a Pitt-centric blog to continue the intensive coverage to which you’ve become accustomed.

I’d like to express my sincere thanks to all the readers of this blog who have passed along kind words. The pleasure was all mine.

This sounds great for Kevin Gorman. A definite step up in the food chain. I wish him luck and will miss his fine work.

Selfishly, I’m bummed about losing a quality writer that did solid reporting and provided fine observations on his blog. The Trib’s Pitt football coverage has been well done for some time. There was Joe Bendel before Gorman. The fact that both have moved up the chains does indicate some solid people in the spot.

I’m going to be curious about Grupp taking the football side. He’s been decent in basketball, but I can’t say outstanding. In his fill-in posts for the Gorman blog, they were rather devoid of any opinion. We’ll find out I guess about whether he’s comfortable to express his own opinions about what he sees.

Now for a little shameless note of getting love. From ESPN.com’s Big East writer, Brian Bennett’s chat today.

Jack (PA)
Are there any Big East bloggers that you would put on your Big East Message board MVP’s? (Most Valuable Posters) If so, who?

Brian Bennett
The ones I read the most are Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician, Bleed Scarlet, Card Chronicle and Pitt Blather. For what it’s worth.

[hyperlinks added.]

Can’t fault his choices. These are the ones I read regularly in the Big East blogosphere.

You know, if Coach Wannstedt doesn’t give Mason a decent amount of playing time after this, there’s a problem.

It took him about six weeks into the 2007 season before he acknowledged that, yeah, that (running back LeSean) McCoy kid is pretty good.

That’s why his praise of freshman middle linebacker Dan Mason, a Penn Hills High School graduate, has been surprising given that the season has not started yet and he has not made a tackle. Wannstedt referred to Mason as “the real deal” Monday during his news conference, and yesterday he took it further.

“He has Scott McKillop‘s playmaking ability,” Wannstedt said, “the seriousness of H.B. Blades and Clint Session‘s athletic ability. He is a combination of all three.”

Adam Gunn, the present starting middle linebacker is very much aware of the future.

After watching the freshman from Penn Hills play with the presence of a veteran, Gunn didn’t dismiss the possibility that he might end up playing next to Mason sometime this season instead of starting ahead of him.

“He’s a fast guy, he’s very physical and he has leadership characteristics that are ready to break through. When he gets the opportunity, I’m sure he’ll shine,” Gunn said. “It’s my job to take him under my wing and watch film with him and make sure he understands exactly what’s going on out there, make sure he’s in his playbook. It’s the whole mental aspect he’s missing right now. Once he gets that, he’s going to be a great player for us.”

Mason is one of those players who has to play right-away so that his time is not wasted. If he even comes close to what he has already shown, he will be gone before his senior year.

Don’t let those pieces of information about YSU being in 1-AA and not scoring a touchdown lull you into a false sense of confidence about this game. Pitt is taking this seriously. Manbearpig is a threat.

As is YSU.

“They are very similar to West Virginia and they’ve got a wide receiver [Donald Jones] that the NFL people are talking about. He’s going to be drafted. He’s a big kid that can run fast and has good size. We have to know where he is at all times.”

Wannstedt says that while the YSU offense concerns him, he has concerns also about the YSU defense.

“Defensively they have good players and from a defensive standpoint you’re trying to prepare for everything,” he added. “They will blitz. I don’t think they are going to blitz every down, but they may. They are a high percentage pressure team. You have to be concerned about that and be able to handle that.

“You really have to be concerned about your opponent, what they are going to do, but you really have to focus on your football team. You need to go out there and not commit penalties and not turn the ball over and tackle well. The rest will take care of itself.”

Meanwhile YSU is just trying to look better than it has in past games vs. 1-A foes.

”We didn’t handle ourselves very well at all – from coaches to players, just the whole scenario,” said Heacock of the Penguins’ first trip to Pittsburgh. ”We were all caught up in where we were playing and who we were playing and all those things. The reality is that it’s about how you play.”

The Penguins have had some experience against top-of-the-line FBS schools such as Ohio State and Penn State since their last showdown with the Panthers. Unfortunately, the results have been the same, with YSU yet to score a touchdown in its four games against FBS schools in the last four years. If that trend is to change on Saturday, Heacock said his team needs to not worry as much about where they’re at as they are what they’re doing.

Baby steps, guys. Baby steps.

It’s back to school week here. Needless to say, getting readjusted to things is a process.

As Paul Zeise noted, one of the things from the Coach Wannstedt press conference was how much Wannstedt stressed that the players behind the starters on the 2-deep would get a shot. I wanted to give voice to the skepticism of that, but Zeise beat me to it in his Q&A.

Q: How diligently do you expect Wannstedt to stick to his depth chart? In his defense, he has left himself a degree of flexibility, but do you feel like any of those aforementioned guys will get legitimate playing time (Sunseri, Jacobsen, Mason or Fields)?

ZEISE: What have we seen from Dave Wannstedt in four years? A lot of guys are “going to get into the game” and yet never seem to because the “flow of the game didn’t allow us a chance to get him in.” So while I can appreciate his desire to keep everyone happy and give everyone hope, I am not going to buy the “our depth chart is 55 players deep and everybody plays!!!!” approach he took yesterday at the news conference. Perhaps this week everyone will get into the game but that’s only because I expect Pitt to smash Youngstown State and thus in the second half it will be “empty the bench” time. I do believe that Elijah Fields will split time with Andrew Taglianetti. But when it comes to Sunseri, Jacobson and Mason, well, let’s just say we will have to see it to believe it.

Um anyone else remembering the response seemingly every week to one particular player’s time in the game? Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross, Greg Cross. There I think I got that out of my system.

Offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, a Panther Nation turns its jaundiced eyes to you. Give us some reason to believe that this will be different. That it was simply the groupthink of Wannstedt and Cavanaugh that reinforced each other’s world view on the offensive approaches and use of personnel.

Now I actually have faith that Dan Mason will see action. Everything about him that has been written and observed says that he is too good not to be out there. It’s at that QB spot, where the curiosity lies.

Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt vowed to get Tino Sunseri into “as many games as we can,” but one detail remains in the air.

When, exactly, the redshirt freshman quarterback will play.

“Nothing is scripted out,” Wannstedt said. “We will see how the game unfolds.”

/deep sigh

Remember last year’s team motto? “Prove it.” Turned rather painful after losing to BGSU in the season opener. Players to a man swore they didn’t take the game for granted. Welcome to (almost) revisionism.

“I can almost say we overlooked (Bowling Green),” Gunn said. “We’re making sure we don’t do that against Youngstown State.”

Added Stull, “After that happened, it really struck some light onto us. We want to finish each game and focus on those little details.”

Credit to Coach Wannstedt. He isn’t buying that.

“We’ve talked about that,” Wannstedt said. “I don’t think it’s a matter of taking anybody lightly. It’s a matter of going out there and being focused and playing as good as you can play. We lost to Bowling Green last year because we turned the football over. We didn’t tackle well. We’ve got to go out there and protect the football and we need to tackle. If you do those things, you’re going to have a chance to win every week, whether it is Youngstown State or West Virginia.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of taking anybody lightly. It’s a matter of going out there and … playing as good as you can play.”

Stopping the aggressive offensive playcalling after going up 14-0 and poor defensive schemes to a team that was entirely reliable on the QB running and passing didn’t help.

Johnny Majors will be in town for the kickoff luncheon and will sign autographs on Saturday. (Okay Pat, I’ll say it) Remember, Sharpies and markers don’t stay on non-porous surfaces like metal flasks and bottles of Jack Daniels.