School starts for my kids this week. Between trying to get all the last minute stuff finished before they go back. Not to mention get stuff together for the quick trip to NYC, it’s been a little hectic.

Today has the first set of game notes for the season (PDF), along with the 2-deep. was the first pre-game presser for Coach Wannstedt. Not sure that anything truly ground-breaking was revealed. It was normal stuff, but still fun to comb through.

Let’s do this.

“We are excited about this week. The game won’t get here soon enough. Any time I think it’s the opening game, it always carries a lot of end-of-camp, beginning-of-season attitude and there’s that dead time in between when you’re practicing and it’s almost like a bowl game mentality.”

Oh, hell yeah. You and everyone else.

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A couple stories of interest with teams not involved with Pitt and a couple that do.

Really interesting article about Boise State and being able to keep up with the money part of college football. The school has been trying to get a $100 million stadium expansion plan launched so that they can generate more money. This on the heels on $48 million on new pressboxes/skyboxes and a practice facility.

At some point, the Broncos are going to hit a ceiling when it comes to raising money for football.

The Broncos have not found their T. Boone Pickens, an oil tycoon who has donated $400 million to Oklahoma State athletics. Or their Phil Knight, the Nike founder who has showered Oregon with nearly $200 million in gifts.

Boise State does not have a law school or a medical school, two professions that tend to produce wealthy alumni. It is still a young university. The local population/fan base simply may not be big enough to support the ambitions of the program.

And then there is a question of interest. Boise State, in the midst of a 14-0 season, sold out only two games last season. This season, only Oregon State is assured of being a sellout. Do the Broncos really need 53,000 seats, especially when the inevitable 8-5 season comes around?

They have had great success. At the same time the money they keep pouring into it is scary. It reminds me of public boondoggles in Cleveland (and plenty of other cities). Once they start the money flow to a project, the excuse for never stopping — even when it is clear how much of a sinkhole it is — inevitably comes down to, “well we have already put this much into it, we need to see it through and hope for the best.”

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Over the past ten years or so, it has become a little more noticeable that the talent level of high school football in Western PA has started to drop. It’s not a slam. It isn’t that there isn’t still plenty of solid players being produced and even stars. But there is definitely less big name talent than in the past.

Some of it is simply the population trends that has the area (and the whole state) losing population. Some of it is simply cyclical as there is a down time in the talent.

Still nothing drove the drop-off home like the P-G’s strange piece on the offensive talent in the region and its impact on college football. The players it hyped were Pitt’s Dion Lewis and Jon Baldwin, WVU’s Noel Devine, PSU’s Evan Royster and Terrelle Pryor of OSU. Of those players, only Baldwin and Pryor are actually from the area. Devine is from Florida, Lewis — New York and Royster is from Virginia.

If one of these players wins the Heisman, it would mark a return to a day when this part of the country turned out the best offensive skill players college football had to offer.

Between 1973-76, this region had a firm stranglehold on the Heisman

Penn State running back John Cappelletti won it in 1973, Ohio State running back Archie Griffin grabbed it in 1974 and ’75, and Pitt running back Tony Dorsett claimed it in 1976.

So, um, Western PA is now claiming Columbus and Morgantown?

There’s some excellent talent on the teams the P-G covers, and of course there is plenty of interest in Pryor because of his local ties. Yes, there’s a possibility of seeing the Heisman be tied in to the area this year. Still, couldn’t there have been a less awkward way to shoehorn them into a preview piece?