Coffee, bourbon, beer and I’m grilling some skirt steak along with onions and peppers somewhere around Heinz Field. It’s our own trial run for the coming season of football and tailgating.
Well, more like a taste of what will be. Family in tow so the kids can have some fun and get positive reinforcement about Pitt football. Maybe dim those memories of daddy downstairs yelling at the TV, typing into the laptop and drinking. Yeah. When I put it that way it will be amazing if either of my kids will come to a game with me this year.
If you are watching at home on the NFL Network at 2pm tell us what you see. I have it on DVR to watch for a different perspective later. If you went, add your thoughts later.
2) Cross, Street, and Saddler should be very able back-up WRs, and Cruz looks to be a decent receiver at WR
3) while the offense may have struggled, it still looked much better than it in last year’s spring game … and you may remember by fall, the offense probably was more productive than the defense
4) while Turnley didn’t play, the back-up OL looks to be a major work-in-progress
4) I got a big kick at Wanny admitting his offense was a dinosauer
5) great to see all the former players return
6) a note about Chris Burns who reportedly had a really good sprong and showed a flash or two today. You may remember that he was the heir apparent to Shady but ended up 3rd team bhind 2 natyral freshmen. But instead of giving up and transferring to IUP (or his hometown Westminster), he came back with some resolve. Since the RB position is vulnerable to injury and Dion may well be gone after this year, I’m glad Burns is still a Panther.
no questions that sunseri is the starting qb. he clearly deserves it. Bostick looked horrendous today. He looks like a small version of an offensive lineman back there. He doesn’t have the arm to make the deep out and throws to the sidelines and also threw a couple of picks.
was impressed with cross. after seeing him perform today I expect him to be a contributor this season. he and antwuan reed were awarded most improved players of the spring.
Don’t really agree with Zeise at all. While I do think the defense played well I wasn’t really disappointed with the offense. I actually came away feeling comfortable with Sunseri. Perhaps more importantly, Baldwin did not play much at all. When he is in the game he completely changes things with how he can stretch the defense and make plays. With him and Lewis in the game and then packages that include cross, saddler and graham this offense will have plenty of playmakers and put a lot of pressure on opposing defenses.
I will have to hope that someone posts it in Ten Yard Torrent
I also agree that the offense wasn’t that bad yesterday, and certainly the OL wasn’t dominated nearly as much as last spring. Plus, the two big playmakers, Lewis and Baldwin, saw limited time. There is certainly work to do, especially on the OL, but I feel much better about the offense now than a year ago.
I disagree that Lewis must stay another year … I have been reading aguments both ways, but I heard yesterday on TV (it may have even have been Pompeani on the telecast) that not only is Lewis eligible after this year, he seems to be leaning that way.
On the radio pre-game they mentioned that a lot of star high school players were visiting on their own dimes. Sounded very encouraging.
Would someone please actually come up with Tino’s height? He looks all of 5’9″ to me.
He is a legit 6’0″ I stood next to him a few years back during his senior year in high school (I’m a CCHS 77 grad) and I also think Reed has been close to him and can verify his height.
He did move well on rollouts and scrambles though and made some real nice out pattern completions.
Lewis is eligible to leave after this season – his extra year was a repeated JR year in HS – and I’ve heard the same as wbb – that Lewis and the PITT staff are preparing for him to blot after this season.
All in all it was a disappointing day for the offense yesterday – we are one injury on the OL short of a disaster IMO. I haven’t been convinced that we’ll get the same production out of the QB position as we had last season and yesterday did nothing to alleviate those fears. All this talk about “keeping it vanilla – and they led off with a WR pass by Cross, so it wasn’t that vanilla – they offensive line got their asses handed to them and the LBs ate up the RBs.
It was cold as hell there also.
Also, I want to again remind everyone just how dominant the defense was in last year’s spring game as well as apparently the first two weeks or so in last August pre-season camp. While this is no guarantee that the offense will be as productive this coming year as last season, I think it way too early to predict doom and gloom.
Same as Shady, we’d love to have him stay but if he goes and does well it ends up being good for the program. Not to mention Ray Graham is pretty damn good himself…
And the big name RB from New Jersey came to watch the game, looks like he’s VERY interressed.
“No player shall be permitted to apply for special eligibility for selection in the Draft, or otherwise be eligible for the Draft, until three NFL regular seasons have begun and ended following either his graduation from high school or graduation of the class with which he entered high school, whichever is earlier.”
It’s the latter half of the rule that supposedly makes Lewis eligible next year. His HS Freshman class at Albany Academy graduated a semester before he did, because he played at Albany Academy as a Junior and then at Blair Academy again as a Junior and a Senior. He had enough HS credits to enter Pitt early, before his Blair Academy Senior class officially graduated, which really confused things in fans’ minds. It seems like a fine line technicality, but apparently everyone thinks it will hold up.
I do realize that the 2nd team OL was getting blown off the ball all day long and that it certainly didn’t help Bostick. That being said, on the few plays he does get time to throw you can see the weakness in his arm and an inability to zip the ball to the sidelines on deep outs/flag patterns. In my opinion, that is what really separates Sunseri from Bostick.
Lewis’ situation is as wbb and TampaT say – his extra year as a junior in HS when Blair Academy required him to repeat it as a condition of acceptance is the key here. Leaving in January and coming to PITT a few months before the other players has no bearing on anything – his clock started when he entered HS. Regardless of whether he came in January or would have gotten here in August doesn’t impact how many seasons he’ll have after the time graduation of the class with which he entered high school with.
Not only did the radio guy mention this – we’ve had a star recruit talk about it publicly after he has been told by the PITT staff that it will probably happen (Lewis leaving after this 2010 season).
