[EDITOR NOTE: Reed is going to be helping with spring football. So much happening. Even I have a finite amount of time available. Reed has been a longtime commenter here at this blog and has a great love of Pitt football. Much thanks to Reed for jumping into the breach.]

Hello folks, Chas has asked me to chip in and help out with this Blog’s coverage of the PITT football team’s spring practices.  Chas is busy with PITT basketball team’s NCAA tournament coverage and since we all hope that goes into April, I readily agreed to do so.

Some of you may recognize my name from other message boards.  I’m pretty opinionated but will try to make these entries as entertaining and helpful as possible without too much personal input — however, I am unemployed at the time and have nothing else to do so I can’t guarantee anything.  One other point — I have no access to any actual practices or meetings and I live 250 miles away from PITT, so whatever I pass on is gleaned from other published sources — news media, blogs, videos, etc.  No inside info here and if I state my opinion I’ll say so.  That said, here goes nothing…

PITT held their first spring practice yesterday, Tuesday March 15th.  A day that will live in infamy in PITT football lore, we hope.  At the very least it was an awakening to a different culture and style of play for the team itself.  Coach Todd Graham has advertised “High Octane” football and while we think we know what that means — one can’t be too sure with coachspeak — it is evident that the pace will unfold much more quickly on the offensive side of the ball at least.  That was the theme from his hire until now and yesterday they put that into action.  Graham filmed a nice five minute video presentation about Practice #1; it is on PITT’s new Spring Camp Insider website.

What is evident from the pre-spring interviews and from this video is that there are going to be some new faces in the two-deep lineup.  How many is anyone’s guess however, but it looks like the new staff has followed Wisconsin’s lead and busted the Player’s Union that held sway before Graham was hired.  There is a general feeling that the staff will hold true competitions at each spot and will allow talent, regardless of age or past playing time, to rise to fit the staff’s idea of how the game should be played.  It is a refreshing idea whose time has come.

There are some positions that bear watching closely; QB, RB and LB come to mind.  We have four QBs who bring different things to the table and each has strengths and weaknesses.  Sunseri has the experience but one wonders if that would mean much given that a totally new system is in place.  Myers apparently impressed yesterday; he throws the best deep ball of them all and PITT wants to make that a staple of the offense this season – to the tune of ten deep passes per game.  My opinion is that the QB who grasps the new offense the best will have an advantage over the others in the competition.
At RB Ray Graham is obviously the starter, and a good one, but who rises to the second RB after him may be one of the more intriguing developments as we approach September.  We probably won’t know anything until after summer camp — but if Derrick Burns impresses in his new position this spring it could get interesting.

LB is, IMO, a mass of confusion.  Mason most won’t be ready to practice until summer if that. I think we should take his name off the table for 2011.  This leaves us with the returning LBs from 2010, which is another disaster waiting to happen if the defense is to be predicated on explosiveness and speed,  and then some untested young talent.  This, to me, will be one of the more important and interesting developments of this camp.

Throw in TE with the departure of Mike Cruz yesterday.  He “chose not to be a member of any club that would have me” (to quote Groucho Marx) and refused the suspension Graham imposed by quitting the team.  Interesting that on the first day of practice the HC suspends a returning starter. Hmmm, a new sheriff may actually be in town.  Since Devlin is out of football (injury) and Virbitsky has been moved to the OL we’ll watch how Hubie Graham and DeCicco fit in.

So, Coach Graham has spoken out in praise of a lot of players that we hadn’t heard much of before this year.  Eric Williams (one of five Williams we have on roster!), Murphy, Fleming and Shane Gordon at LB, Kolby Gray at QB, Tinker, Witherspoon and Salath Williams at WR, and Ifill and Jackson at DB just to name a few.

I’ll try to keep up with the happenings, hopefully I’ll post once a day and I’ll try to get more links in so that you can get a better overall view of the team’s progress from other sources.  Next practice Thursday, March 17th.