The defense is starting to overtake the offense in the Spring Camp which isn’t unusual in these early year sessions. Both Sunseri and Gonzalez were pressured heavily by the DL and perimeter blitzing. Sunseri was pretty much ineffective and a turnover machine. Gonzales completed more than he missed, his 2nd string offense scored some points and he was the ‘offensive MVP’ yesterday. Take that for what it’s worth at this point in time. Myers sat out the practice with a jammed thumb from Thursday but will be back soon.
The offensive line gave up 12 sacks and nine tackles for loss. Yikes. At this point we roll out the old question “Is the defense that good or the offense that bad” and the answer is “It’s still April and this doesn’t mean anything”. Graham states in his post-game video that the scrimmage was scripted so that Sunseri had a lot of adversity and pressure. This was done under the guise of having ‘teaching points’ for Tino to look at on the film. I think it was done just to give us fans another thing to worry about. All of these questions about the team are trivial compared to the fact that I landed a job on Friday afternoon. I suppose PITT fans may care how the team is doing… but really, isn’t this all about Reed anyway?
DiPaola of the Trib writes that Graham decided to let the defense show some things the offense hadn’t seen yet. The result was as stated above and didn’t make Graham too happy.
I love this quote from the Trib article: “Sunseri, a rising redshirt junior, has a clear advantage over rising redshirt freshmen Anthony Gonzalez and Mark Myers after starting 13 games last season, but that takes him only so far.” What is this ‘rising’ he speaks of?
Then there is this…”The biggest change for Sunseri involves not having the luxury of strolling out of the huddle, surveying the defense and gauging who might be rushing.” DiPaola forgot this one important point; another big change is that Sunseri’s benefactor and protector who would never pull him off the field no matter how poorly he played isn’t on the sideline any longer. Let’s hope Graham realizes just how important that QB spot is and doesn’t feel like he has to live with only one possible choice there.
As Paul Zeise states in his scrimmage wrap-up the OL was Lucas Nix at right tackle, Cory King at right guard, Chris Jacobson at center, Greg Gaskins at left guard and Jordan Gibbs at left tackle. That is probably who we’ll see out there against Buffalo on September 3rd.
His article also details some of the thoughts regarding how well Graham is going to do. We fans assume that the RB position will take care of itself and that may be. I’d like to read someone take a good look at who we have playing the running back position other than Ray Graham. So I’ll do that now: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
There, hope that’s been informative.
All in all,there really isn’t much news coming out of the coaches regarding what went on yesterday.
Odds and Ends:
In the “Buddy Jackson rises like a phoenix from the ashes of his career” vein, rsSR Justin Hargrove is being talked about in glowing terms on the Southside. Tony Greco of Scouts.com has written a good piece about Hargrove and has this:
All the perseverance paid off, and has carried through now to his final year. With a new coaching staff, Hargrove has picked up where he left off at the end of the 2010 season. He’s had a very good spring working with the first-team unit at defensive end for much of the spring. Co-defensive coordinator admits that Hargrove is a player that you don’t hear about too much. He feels at the rate is going, he has a chance to not only start in 2011, but also be an impact player.
“Hargrove is rock solid,” Patterson said. “There’s a guy we hardly talk about, because he’s just solid. I feel very good about Hargrove.
Well, that would be a hell of a jump considering we’ll only have one DE on the field and Clemmings is trying for that spot also. Throw in the fact that both Bryan Murphy – the new defensive Wunderkind apparently and Shane Hale are going to be behind Lindsey at the Panther – they may very well fleet up to DE to get them on the field, especially Murphy. Again, just like with Jackson, I’d love to see Hargrove get that playing time in his senior season, but I may want to see Lindsey and Murphy on the field at the same time more.
Bill Hillgrove was feted by having a “Day” named after him in Allegheny County the other day. Hillgrove is the long time voice of the Panthers and an all around good guy… and he’s way shorter than you would think. Here’s a video of some of the affair (upper right hand corner of the webpage).
In addition to the BCS Bowls they have been to and won, WVU has another thing they will be able to lord over us. We’ll see if beer sales pass though – they may be crazy to allow the Hoopies to get even more likker’d up than they usually are…
“We believe we can improve fan behavior with the controlled sale of beer inside the stadium,” Luck said Friday in a prepared statement.
Honest to God, who is he trying to kid with that drivel? It’s not like this won’t happen with regularity, is it?
Who is the Author? ~~
The BCS Bowl berth swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung… All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and football and even all thought; all evil, to crazy Wannstedt, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in both Dave Edsall and Brian Kelly. In his interviews he piled upon his players the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it and “resigned”.
Next Practice: Tuesday, April 12th.
I don’t see the big deal bout beer sales at wvu…they all get wasted b4 the game anyway….might as well makw a few bucks off em
Thanks for the congrats on my new job guys. I have to say that I am in a bit of a different situation than most job hunters as I retire from the military with a pretty nice pension so could afford the unemployment if it came to that. But, just the whole process of applying, interviewing and waiting really opened my eyes as to what families who aren’t in my position go through. I always figured it was tough – now I know what if feels like. My commute has gone from 3 hrs a day to 30 minutes a day so I’m ecstatic.
BC – I’m not sure there is any real “QB” controversy although I’d actually like for there to be some. I’m getting nervous with Graham giving Sunseri all the QB1 snaps. I hated it last year when DW did it, especially for an open starting role, and still don’t like it even though we have an incumbent in the position. I think it creates problems if a true competition isn’t held.
If there is one thing I’ll say that disappoints me about the HC so far that is it. If Graham does this through training camp then I think it would be a mistake.
In the back of my mind I think Graham is also trying to keep both Myers and Gonzalez happy and on the roster for the 2011 season.
Again .. pure conjecture.
On a side note: That quote from WVU’s AD is golden. I’m already anticipating the vast amounts of articles being written on how some idiot WVU fan threw their beer at an opposing player.
Nonetheless, and I am very serious about this, I am much more fearful about the safety of opposing fans than I am the players.
And I’ve been really enjoying your spring write-ups, thanks!
But why do I have recurring nightmares about the coach who took over during my days at Pitt, Dave Hart?
Pittdom, I guess.
Fact is that except for Majors I and Sherill, Walt and Wanny were on the next level of successful coaches in my lifetime which goes back to Michelolsen. I’m not immplying that they shouldn’t have been released, I am implying that they deserve a bit more respect. Surely, Graham has a lot more to work with than any new Pitt coach since the 80s.
But, here’s something to understand. Both of those coaches were ‘let go’ due to things that happened off the field in addition to their W-L record. Which is pretty unusual on the face of it. PITT may be the only school I can think of that basically fired their two most successful coaches in the school’s recent history.
The fact is that this was a ONE year thing and not a trend with Wanny whose players were pretty well exemplary and graduated. Don’t let that crap after-the-fact story by Kevin Gorman sway you … I’LL GUARANTEE YOU THAT IT WAS BASED ON TOTAL AFTER-THE-FACT BULLSHIT GIVEN TO HIM BY AD PEDERSEN BECAUSE THAT IS EXACTLY HOW PEDERSEN OPERATES ALWAYS TRYING TO MAKE HIMSELF LOOK SO GOOD … EXACTLY!!
You or anyone else here can argue with me 24/7 but I consider myself much too intelligent to buy that crapola!
one out of six!!
wbb, well stated. With the recruiting class DW had coming in, from my perspective, Pitt’s future looked very bright. I was very disappointed that Walt Harris got terminated since I remembered the order that he brought to the program after the utter chaos of Majors II. Walt Harris deserved much respect.
Vocal alumni and Pedersen have spoken. Best wishes to Todd Graham although the spread is not my preferred offense.
HTP
PS. My guess is it was also his boss who would not endorse hiring Graham the first go around which is why SP is still around. A fish rots from the head even in college athletics.
And at this point in time, I almost want to put my earplugs in whenever I hear TGrahams talk. I know the baseball season just got here ([don’t] go Bucs!), but hell, after today’s 80 degree weather I want some football.
Harris gets also fired after taking the team to a BCS bowl.
What do the two have in common other than successful on the field runs? What precipitates firing two coaches who have been more successful than all of their predecessors going back to Jackie Sherrill? Major off the field problems that embarrass the University on a national basis.
You seem to have wholeheartedly bought into the “Next Level” approach that the University rolled out after they refused to talk with Harris about extending his contract. That’s a supremely romantic vision of PITT football and if there is any propaganda involved, this is it. Man, we were actually at ‘the next level’ when you compare both 2005 and 2010 to the 1990s and 2000s.
You don’t have to believe this if you don’t want to. But when, and if, we meet we need to sit down and talk about this. It is one area that I actually know a little about… more so than my football stuff.
I personally am under no illusion that Pitt will one day make a glorious return to the upper echelon of college football, competing year in/year out for a National Championship. That being said, I think we should at least get a whiff of it every few years, and I feel that we should be far more competitive in what has become a relatively weak conference. Again, most of the fans I talk to seem to share that sentiment.
Lastly, I liked Harris. I don’t think he was the “next level” guy that some hoped he was, but you have to admit that it was pretty exciting during much of his tenure. Yes, there was the occasional botched/perplexing play call, but by and large he did a lot to turn the team around from utter chaos. I would have liked to have seen him return in some capacity (QB coach) but I think that goes to show that there were probably other factors leading to his dismissal than simple on-field performance.
I have a lot of confidence in Ray Graham but realize that just having one good, reliable RB is not a good situation.
I personally am not disocuraged by the defensive domination since it appeared that the unit has had serious issues in previous sessions. I’m old school and still believe that while you can be pretty good, you still need a solid defense to win the big games. (Just look at the Big 12 a few years back when they threw up all those big numbers but pretty much got dominated come bowl time.)