What? You haven’t joined the Pitt Blather Bowl Challenge yet? The bowl games start tomorrow at 2 pm.

Need your incentive other than the joy of competing by predicting the outcome of all the bowl games?

Okay, time to announce the prize for the winner.

You will have a choice. I have one pair of the customized Pitt Nike Zoom Huarache training sneaker, courtesy of Nike. Here are some more pics from the Pro Combat day. I would have kept the pair for myself, because I did get to try a pair and they fit nicely. Unfortunately the pair they sent me is not my size. So if you win and want the sneaker option we will find out if you have the right sized foot for this.

(Odd aside, of the ten programs to get the Pro Combat treatment this fall, four of them — Pitt, Florida, Miami and WVU — have coaching turnover.)

Now the other prize option is a schwag/regifting collection. All of the items are new/unused. I’ve ended up with them, and it’s time to dump them share.

Among the items in this are:

— 8 GB jump drive in the form of Nike branded military dog tags

— Padded black Nike drawstring bag

— Jim Beam branded flask

— Brewzkey bottle opener

— Flying Dog branded pint glass

And I’m adding this t-shirt in size Large

There may be some other items added, but I have to look what is accumulated.

How can you not be fired up to play now? Register, here.

During the press conference, twitter among Big East and Pitt fans had a nice surge and it was interesting to follow reactions there and of course in the comments on the blog. In terms of initial impact this was not Will Muschamp at Florida firing things up. Nor is it the emotional moment of Charlie Strong being introduced at Louisville. The general reaction, though, seemed positive.

I thought, though, that it was a solid performance. Nothing earth-shaking or even particularly revealing. He’s not a publicly firey guy. If you expected or wanted that, then you were disappointed. And man does he have an icy-stare when talking to the media.

I think that stare was part of why the Q&A with the media was so brief. He sort of intimidated them. He struck me as having a bit of Saban-esque contempt in his eyes when dealing with the media.

He’s definitely not Wannstedt in that respect.  Not going to be easily warm and cuddly with the media. Going to be an adjustment.

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