This fall I started working in the offline world, outside of the house for the first time since this blog started. Crazy hours and I’m still not used to wearing pants. As many have probably noticed, the posting frequency has suffered. Still working on finding my time management footing. I mean, I haven’t even had a beer or bourbon since Saturday. Just not natural.

There will be a liveblog for the game on Saturday. Gametime is 3:30, so you can expect the liveblogging to start around then.

Lots of stuff to hit, and still little time to do so.

Tremendous info-dump by Paul Zeise in a blog post. The O-line. DeCicco at LB and other possibilities with the strongside LB — including a call to consider letting one of the younger players get in there since Williams has continued to play poorly (I believe that it could reasonably construed as a carefully couched criticism of Coach Wannstedt’d preference to play experience over talent). The issue of Sunseri’s play. Future on the lines and at WR. And of course Dion Lewis starting over Ray Graham. Lots to plow through so read it all.

Coach Wannstedt has tried to downplay any running back controversy. It really hasn’t worked, but both Lewis and Graham continue to be supportive of everything.

But Lewis laughed when asked about a “running back controversy,” because he said his approach is very similar to Graham’s in that if one is doing well, then the team is doing well and winning games.

“I was really happy for Ray, he had a great game and I always support him,” Lewis said. “At the same time, I wanted to be out there running around a little bit, too. But we won and that is the most important thing.

“[We complement each other well] because we’re both different kinds of running backs and we both have a lot of talent. But I think we’re both able to take a little pressure off the other because teams can’t just focus on one style or the other, so we can help each other a lot.”

If it sounds like Lewis is toeing the company party line, understand this — he is not. He and Graham truly are friends, and they do root for each other to do well and believe that they benefit greatly from the other’s presence.

Of course, who plays more is still the coach’s call. We will see if Coach Wannstedt follows his claim.

“We’re going to play the hot hand,” Wannstedt said. “They’re competing in practice. I wish we had the depth and talent to compete at every position like we have at tailback. We’ll see how it unfolds on Saturday, but there’s no plan designed to get one guy X amount compared to the other.”

A cynical, sarcastic bastard might just say that he simply meant “there’s no plan.”

The one area where Wannstedt freaks out is turnovers on offense. A close second, penalties. Pitt hasn’t had much in turnovers, but the penalties. Yeesh.

Wannstedt said the officials who work every Wednesday practice will inform the coaches of offsides, procedure, false start or interference penalties. Anyone who is flagged will run after practice.

“I think it’s just lack of concentration,” Wannstedt said. “You start talking about not being offsides the day you start playing football. There is really no excuse for it.”

Not sure, but there’s a chance Brandon Lindsey could end up doing the equivalent of a marathon in penalty runs by the season’s end.

Now, as for ND. Pitt has won two straight against Notre Dame. They have also lost two straight to Brian Kelly coached teams. One streak will end. In some ways, this is the best chance to get ND before the offense really gets up to, um, speed.

Wannstedt said the big difference between the Bearcats in 2007 and the Bearcats in ’09 was that they were much more comfortable with the offense two years later.

“Notre Dame is probably not playing at the same pace [as Cincinnati last year], but all of the routes, the formations and the plays are the things that Brian Kelly believe in,” Wannstedt said. “We went back and looked at the films and it looks like he is doing some of the same things that they did the first and second years at Cincinnati when he was there.

“Last year they were just so much more advanced in the tempo of the game and the plays that they ran, that if you compare the different years you do see some differences. But that is just because as the players grasp the system, you can add more.”

Wannstedt said the Panthers have spent a lot of time this week working against the no-huddle offense as well as trying to simulate the pace of the Irish game.

You can bet ND coaches saw what Miami did in the first possession against Pitt’s D by going no huddle. But Brian Kelly knows how to say the right things.

“We’ve had hard-fought games that have come down to the very end,” Kelly said. “You know that you’re going to be in a fight for four quarters against Pittsburgh.”

Kelly, who replaced Charlie Weis, brought both offensive and defensive coordinators from Cincinnati as he tries to return the Fighting Irish to their past glory. Notre Dame runs the same spread offense and 3-4 defense as Kelly’s Cincinnati teams, which went 33-6 in his three seasons.

“I think they know what we’re going to do offensively, and we kind of know what they’re going to do defensively,” Kelly said. “They’re like a conference opponent more than anything else.”

In everything but football.