Rarely after a player decommits to reopen recruiting does he still choose the school he originally committed. Even if part of the circumstances included reclassifying to the following year.

With that, it is still hard to believe Jaylen Bond will re-sign an NLI with Pitt for 2012 after a year of prep school. When Bond first committed in April 2010, he was a tweener forward. Not quite a 4 or a 3. A strong physical player, that really didn’t have the outside shot (yes, sounds a lot like Nasir Robinson). But the perimeter game was something he was working on. It didn’t happen too much during his senior season.

It appears to finally be coming along.

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Yes, there is a looming dearth of news, so this gets posted with more than simply part of a round-up.

The NFL Lockout may continue, but LeSean McCoy carried forward with his second annual community day in Harrisburg.

McCoy’s second annual event was highlighted by the basketball tournament and other activities.

McCoy, who held a bowling tournament Friday night to benefit Alzheimer’s research, said he has been working out, mainly in Miami, under the direction of a trainer affiliated with his agent, Drew Rosenhaus.

“It’s so tough now, with the lockout,” he said. “I really can’t work out with my teammates. Good weather [in Miami], I’ve gotten some of that bad weight off.”

And in case you really thought the running back with two years in the NFL really had any influence with the Eagles in drafting Dion Lewis — no.

McCoy said he was very happy to see the Eagles draft his successor at Pitt, Dion Lewis, although he clarified he was just joking when he tweeted after the draft that he had advised Andy Reid to take Lewis.

The charity bowling took place in Palmyra, to raise money for ALS research.

If there is one story to read, this SBJ article on how Fox and ESPN teamed up to give the Pac-12 their huge deal, and keep NBC/Comcast out of the game.

Prior to that call, executives from ESPN and Fox were resigned to losing the Pac-10’s media rights to Comcast, which had told the conference weeks earlier that it would bid $225 million per year to pick up the rights for Versus and NBC. Neither of the current partners, ESPN nor Fox, had the shelf space to bid that much individually.

In early April, NBC Sports executives, led by Chairman Dick Ebersol, gave a presentation in New York, according to conference sources. Pac-10 officials left the meeting believing that Comcast viewed the Pac-10 as an important piece of its plans to build NBC Sports and Versus. Steve Burke, CEO of NBC Universal, also was present to meet and greet Pac-10 executives, but he left before the meeting started.

Despite the strong bid, the conference recognized its long relationship with the two incumbents. The Pac-10’s media consultant, Evolution Media’s Chris Bevilacqua, proposed an idea to Skipper: What if the two media giants joined forces and combined their bid?

The intrigue of that, and the concerted effort by the Mouse Monopoly and House of Murdoch to work together on keeping NBC/Comcast out of the picture is astounding. Beyond giving the Pac-12 control and content to have their own network on top of this, the Pac-12 also retained all digital rights to their games. That’s huge for inventory and future packaging.

But there is a lot more to this story , and bodes well (hopefully) for the Big East.

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It came up as it always does in the doldrums of the offseason. It gets picked up by desperate college football media looking for any little tidbit. It gets meaningless controversy going for 15 minutes. It is then forgotten until next year. Rinse and repeat.

I am of course, referring to Pitt-Penn State not playing in football. Usually it is when one coach or the other (and occasionally both) gets asked about it.

Todd Graham being the new guy, and Joe Paterno now a recluse, means Graham gets to get the question this year. Honestly, I don’t even want to read the article.

It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see Pitt and Penn State play annually in football and men’s basketball. It’s that it just isn’t happening for probably at least 10 more years. I see no point in wasting time in that pointless issue given the timeframe.

Big Pitt event the other night. Athletics at Pitt: The Forefront of a Century of Change.

Many former Panther greats were in attendance, including Tony Dorsett (Pitt’s only Heisman Trophy winner), Larry Fitzgerald (first sophomore to win the Walter Camp Award and a unanimous first team All American selection), and track star Trecia-Kaye Smith (15-time NCAA Champion).

Individuals such as Bobby Grier (first African-American ever to play in the Sugar Bowl) and Hugh Green (three-time All American; winner of the Maxwell Award) shared the red carpet walk from the dais to the main stage with more recent Panthers such as women’s basketball standouts Lorri Johnson (all-time leading scorer) and Jennifer Bruce Scott (second leading scorer in history).

Short films narrated by broadcast pioneer Jack Whitaker and CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield – who was in attendance – and former Panther star Mark May brought to light the path of African-Americans in sport at Pitt. Costas conducted a question and answer with several former athletes, including all-time leading men’s basketball scorer and shot blocker Charles Smith and two-time Olympic gold medalist Roger Kingdom.

All former athletes in attendance were asked to sign a commemorative banner which will be placed on display in the Petersen Events Center.

The event culminated a dream for dinner chair Herb Douglas. The 89-year old, the oldest living former Panther athlete, had a vision of gathering as many generations together for one evening to celebrate the past 100 years and embrace the future. Douglas was the 1948 Olympic bronze medal winner in the long jump.

There’s a list of some of the former greats of Pitt athletics who attended the event. The collection of photographs could stand to have some captions, but I’m sure you can recognize plenty of people in the images.

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Yesterday, SI.com had a big feature on Todd Graham taking over at Pitt (hat tip to the many, many who e-mailed and linked it in the comments).

“We’ve gotta take the good and make them great, and the great and make them outstanding,” Graham said. “We’re striving for perfection. We’ll tolerate excellence.”

After a year flush with misfortune, a spring full of such unbridled optimism may be just what the Panthers need. In 2011, it might also serve as a harbinger of things to come.

The Big East appears weak and wide open once again, with South Florida juggling quarterbacks B.J. Daniels and Bobby Eveld, West Virginia testing a partnership between incumbent coach Bill Stewart and coach-in-waiting Dana Holgorsen and TCU still a year removed from its conference debut. While early nonconference tests at Iowa and against Notre Dame will be challenging, Graham’s rebuilt, under-the-radar squad could make a run at the Big East’s guaranteed BCS bid.

We’ll see. But it is nice to be optimistic.

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Well, it’s time to update the non-news of Big East expansion.

Villanova is still trying to recover from their powerpoint presentation to the Big East last April. Underpants Gnomes, man. Underpants Gnomes.

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Lots that needs to be touched on — expansion, Graham puffer, and the Century of Change — but I’ll hit this first.

The minor stir caused yesterday by reports that Dorian Bell would be transferring to Pitt has quickly fizzled out. All last evening, Chris Peak of PantherLair had tweeted that any reports of Dorian Bell transferring to Pitt were foolish. That it wasn’t happening.

Paul Zeise also backs that up.

Former Gateway standout Dorian Bell may indeed leave Ohio State, but there is absolutely zero chance he will end up at Pitt. I was told tonight by several sources that Pitt coach Todd Graham will not even consider taking Bell, who is suspended for next season for unspecified rules violations, or any player who has been in trouble elsewhere.

The three transfers to Pitt so far have been clean players. Not suspended or kicked off the team. Bell is on his third violation for what is believed to be drugs/alcohol violations. Even if Graham wanted to take the guy (which he apparently doesn’t), you have to believe that the Pitt AD and President would not sign off on this.

I can’t blame Pitt for saying no thanks. As much potential as he may still possess, it doesn’t seem worth it.

Now this is the kind of news you expect in a quiet offseason.

University of Pittsburgh head football coach Todd Graham announced a change regarding the coaching staff’s positional assignments for this year.

Tony Gibson, whose previous positional focus was on the cornerbacks, will now coach the entire secondary and serve as pass defense coordinator.

Randall McCray, who was initially assigned the safeties, will now coach the outside linebackers. McCray will continue to coordinate special teams.

Additionally, tight ends coach Tony Dews will add the role of recruiting coordinator.

“We always want to ensure our staff is operating at the highest levels of efficiency and effectiveness,” Graham said. “Based on our experience this spring, we felt these changes would significantly enhance our teaching and coaching on the defensive side of the ball.”

I have to admit, the distaste that Michigan and WVU fans have expressed for Tony Gibson’s coaching acumen has me a touch nervous. It is along the lines of the way Pitt fans felt about Jeff Hafley’s ability to coach the secondary the previous couple of years. And now he goes from just handling the cornerbacks to the entire secondary and scheming the pass defense? Erp.

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Reports are that former 5-star linebacker from Gateway, Dorian Bell, might be looking to transfer to Pitt from Ohio State (hat tip to DeVanzo and others who have shot me msgs about this). Given all that is swirling around Ohio State’s program and Jim Tressel, this might be considered a situation where a player just wants out of what could be a really messed up program.

That’s not necessarily the case with Dorian Bell, who was suspended for the entire upcoming season for the always nebulous “violation of team rules.” This was his third violation of the unnamed rule. It cost him the Sugar Bowl this past season. Yes that’s right, Pryor and all the other tattoo boys made it to the Sugar Bowl but not Bell and his rules violation.

Obviously this is not a  player that has shown good judgment to this point. The talent is mostly undeniable, but the decision making has been poor. I’m not sure about this one, from a character standpoint. His talent suggests taking the risk, but with three failures at Ohio State it isn’t so clear-cut.

Bell would have been a redshirt sophomore this season. Sitting out if he transfers would still give him two years of eligibility.

This year, didn’t even rise to a level of “will he at least listen?” status. NC State, Mizzou, and now Maryland didn’t even make it past the wish list stage. There never was a moment this entire spring when it even seemed plausible that Coach Dixon was going anywhere. This despite being on all of those fanbases wishlists.

Part of what made filling the Maryland job so much harder was the timing of Gary Williams’ retirement. Convincing any coach like Sean Miller (who now swears he’s not going anywhere), Jamie Dixon, Jay Wright, et cetera to up and leave in May does not happen without being a top-5 job and big, big money in play.

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Between Mother’s Day, weekend house projects and family activities, I had another weekend mostly without computer time.  I got a little lucky because I checked Twitter Saturday evening on my cell to see that Ashton Gibbs had pulled out of the NBA draft and was returning to Pitt.

A more cynical person would have immediately noted that he made the decision within a few hours of his NBA group workout in New Jersey. Not that he will talk too much about what he was told — or how he actually performed against other hopefuls.

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With the lock-out reinstated over the course of the draft, there is no free agent signings taking place. This means whether an NFL player is a free agent or if it is a kid out of college that went undrafted, there is nothing. No signings can take place. So for Dom DeCicco, Henry Hynoski, Dan Hutchins, Nate Nix and even Ricky Gary: welcome to limbo. Stay in shape. Keep working out and not have a clue about where when or how you will play football. Good luck.

Well, Pitt had five players drafted this year. As the Pitt press release notes, its the most players drafted from Pitt since 2004. By a remarkable coincidence, the 2003 season was one of Pitt football’s most disappointing seasons based on the expectations and talent until this past 2010 season. Heck, there was even a WR from Pitt taken in the first round in both drafts (please note, that is the extent of the similarities with which anyone should ever compare Baldwin to Fitzgerald).

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News of this started showing up on Monday. Yet another DB transferring to Pitt.

This time it is Brendon Felder from UNC.

Felder came out of Gateway High. He plays both WR and cornerback. He redshirted last year, but was a highly sought after recruit as Bryan runs down the recruiting rankings when he came out of high school.

The reason for his transfer is not the lack of playing time or some coaching turnover. It’s personal.

Former Gateway wide receiver Brendon Felder said he has left the University of North Carolina and will return home to help care for his ailing grandparents and enroll at Pitt.

“They are very important to me in my life,” Felder said Tuesday night while waiting to board an airplane for Pittsburgh. “My grandmother would take care of me when I was little and being close to home will enable me to focus (on college).”

Felder, 6-foot-0, 180 pounds, was redshirted last year during his freshman season at North Carolina. He said it was difficult to leave.

“I teared up a lot today,” he said of saying goodbye to his friends. “It was an emotional day. North Carolina was a place I grew to love.”

That is honorable of him, and I know everyone is hoping that he is able to help them.

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In the annual spring/summer effort to make it up to my wife for not doing things for 8 months because of Pitt football and basketball, most weekends are now heavily occupied with either family activities or house chores. This past weekend involved building a 4×8 raised garden bed. All went well until I started driving stakes into the ground to help anchor the bed. Whacked my thumb with a mallet. Glancing blow so I managed not to break it. Instead took out a divot of flesh at the top of the thumb. Suffice to say I didn’t feel much like typing for a few days. Still hurts.

Actually a good deal to get to, but the big news is the pending Pac-12 media rights deal. It’s a whopper.

The Pac-10 Conference has agreed to a media rights deal with ESPN and Fox that is worth more than $2.7B over 12 years, according to multiple sources. A formal announcement could come as soon as tomorrow. The deal, which averages out to more than $225M per year, includes football, basketball and Olympic sports rights. It is more than triple the conference’s current deals with ESPN and Fox. The conference is holding some rights back that it still hopes to use for a dedicated channel.

Now the offices of the Pac-12 get their cut, so it isn’t like each team will get $20 million per year, but it will be up there.

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