The puff pieces and praise for individual players for Pitt is mostly centered on the two stars: Ray Graham and Brandon Lindsey. It’s a balance with one on offense and the other defense. Both had surprising breakout years coming in for relief of the injured star starter. Both were heralded recruits that found themselves backing up players that weren’t as highly recruited, but had emerged as stars. Now both are not only expected to be the star player for their respective side of the ball, but to thrive in the new schemes and system.

Not that there haven’t been growing pains.

Pitt senior defensive end Brandon Lindsey no longer has his hand in the dirt. Under new coach Todd Graham, Lindsey is standing up at the snap. It has taken some getting used to. “It’s more difficult to be explosive,” Lindsey said, “because you don’t have the momentum (from) leaning forward to get a jump on the snap. The first month, I fell about 10, 15 times. Just leaning forward, leaning forward on my feet. And then trying to jump the snap, you’re going to fall. My teammates will never let me live it down.”

Yoga. Yoga really helps with the balance — I’m told.

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So, so far behind. The 2-deep will be coming out in the next few days. I’m sure that won’t become a highly parsed document.

Hit the links and push them out so there will be a chance for all the other stuff later. The first of a couple link dump posts.

Weird bit of intrigue with one of Pitt’s recruiting targets in the WPIAL. Jaylen Coleman appeared to have his high school football career finished. Once of Peabody then at Gateway, he was suspended for the season by the Gateway coach. No explanation was given by Gateway, but Coleman’s reason is not at all vague: “just a family situation that just messed up everything.”

He is playing somewhere this season. Scout.com has it behind a paywall, but it would appear to be University Prep in Pittsburgh (Insider subs).

Three-star OLB Jaylen Coleman (Pittsburgh/University Prep) still has Cincinnati as his leader after he had to cancel his planned visit to Maryland last weekend.

Two weekends ago, Coleman dropped Pitt from his leader board in favor of Cincinnati after a visit to the university’s campus.

University Prep, for the record, is a magnet school in the Pittsburgh public school system. It is located in the Hill District. Granted Cinci now leads for the services of the 3-star linebacker, and it isn’t clear how whatever happened at Gateway impacts Pitt’s desire to recruit him, but I’ve wasted a week following this one and waiting to see what would happen.

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I mean, assuming no transfers or squeezing out anyone. Right now, Pitt has only two scholarships available for the 2012 recruiting class. Ashton Gibbs and Nasir Robinson are the only seniors on the team. One spot is going to New Zealander — and now the #8 recruit in the 2012 class according to Scout.com — Steven Adams. That alone has seemed like a big get, even though Pitt was the only one aware of him for what seemed a year before blowing up.

Well, the other open scholarship is going to a point guard. Truly. A legit point guard. James Robinson. This consensus 4-star player from DeMatha High. Is also a top-100 recruit for the 2012 class in every list: #94 on Scout.com; #56 on Rivals.com; and #49 on ESPN.com/Scouts, Inc. A true rarity, all three sites list his height at 6-3, and put his weight at 195-200 pounds.

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I hope Tino Sunseri has had some long talks with Bill Stull as he gets ready for the upcoming season. If there is one person that knows what is coming for Tino from the fans this year, it is Stull. An underdiscussed thing that Sunseri will face this year, is not the new system. It’s not the new coaching staff. It is the skepticism to outright hostility from the fans based on what he did last year.

There have been no shortage of stories on Sunseri working very hard to become a better QB and better leader for Pitt. This article was encouraging, because he openly admitted to weak spots in his game last year — that were completely obvious to every fan watching.

In July, Sunseri was tabbed to take part in the Manning Passing Academy. He was one of only 30 college QBs invited to participate. To serve as a college counselor to high school QBs and learn from Archie, Eli and Peyton Manning. Along with coaches like Jon Gruden.

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The insanely bizarre Next Media Taiwanese animation folk have their depiction of the Miami scandal.

This just keeps getting more entertaining.

There are several flaws with this:

Now that WVU will have about 50 drinking stations beer vending locations in their stadium, the Hoopie braintrust decided that they can curb bad behavior with 5 simple rules to ignore — 6 if you include the request for “respect.”

I’m real curious about #1. If you won’t allow “intoxicated fans inside or outside the stadium,” then I assume that all parking around the stadium has been eliminated and actual attendance will be somewhere in the low hundreds.

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The Tony Gonzalez experiment continues into yesterday’s practices and it looks more and more like both he and the staff are getting comfortable and excited about what he can do there.  The P-G Red Shirt diaries has a photo of him on a blocking sled and the Trib has a more detailed article about the QBs and of the trickledown effect this move has started.

Gonzales himself has duct tape over his mouth because of his suspension but his TE coach has this to say:  ‘Tony Dews admitted Gonzalez “had some reservations (about the move), but excitement at the same time.” “It was one of those things,” Dews said. “(He said) ‘I’ll try it and see, but my heart is at quarterback.’ He still wants to be a quarterback. It’s hard to give up.” Dews is excited about Gonzalez’s potential at H-back. “He has the potential to be one of our best athletes on offense.”  Could this be a Dorin Dickerson type move without the three years of indecision first?

Anderson and Myers still rotate at #2 it seems and Myers had a good day throwing in practice but Anderson did some exciting things with both his arm on deep throws and his legs on running plays.   That #2 spot going to be a very interesting thing to look for when the team comes out of seclusion before the Buffalo game.

The Mystery of Dan Mason continues to play out.  Either he’s in going to be watching football instead of playing it for the rest of his life… or we may see him play this season depending on what day of the week it is.  “While the ligament damage was certainly traumatic, the stretch in his peroneal nerve is what threatens to keep him on the sidelines permanently. Because of damage to that nerve, he cannot lift his foot up. Until that function returns, doctors cannot clear him to play football.”  Yet the staff allows him to dress, be on the sideline and have watched him sneak onto the field.  Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen if things go south on one of those plays.

Coach Graham had nice things to say about the new RBs on the roster so what was a real concern going into spring practice maybe a strength once the season gets underway.  ‘“Corey Davis had an outstanding day; he broke about an 80-yard run. Isaac Bennett had an impressive day too and also broke about an 80-yard run. We left both Corey and Isaac with the ones today and I was really impressed. They both stood out and are really getting better.”  Ray Graham and Zach brown will be the workhorses no doubt but some others will see the field also.

He’s also happy that his second string WRs are rounding into shape;  Salath Williams especially.

Wow. Just. Wow.

There were so many topics I wanted to post on in the less than copious spare time, I have, but the bomb Yahoo! dropped in the college football world moves that to the front of the line.

I won’t lie, given Miami’s history. Given what happened with their departure from the Big East. I had a fair amount of bitter cackling laughter over this. I deeply mean this. I have been giggling like a school girl every time I look at that picture of Nevin Shapiro bowling with Frank Haith, while Miami Pres. Donna Shalala is greedily examining the check Shapiro gave her.

When you think of the possible consequences Miami faces for this. When you also think about the still ongoing mess with UNC football. Plus the penalties that were put on Georgia Tech over the summer. Well, it is clear that while the ACC may not be matching up with the big boys of college football on the field, they are overcompensating more than a little off of the field.

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There is some eye opening news being reported by Zeise about some position battles in his RedShirt Diary this morning.  Perhaps the more unusual news is that Gonzalez has seemed to find a home in that hybrid “3-Back” position.  “…both Dodge and Graham said he is the third quarterback but he has taken almost every rep at the three back or receiver spots over the past few days and he is going to play somewhat of a “slash” role according to Graham. “  DiPaola over at the Trib touches on this move also.

Trey Anderson has apparently moved ahead of both Gonzalez and Myers into the QB2 position.  The fact that Myers has dropped down the chart should surprise no one who has been reading this blog since the Spring Camp.  We’ve stated all along that Graham has a specific idea of what he wants at QB and Myers, being recruited by Wannstedt as a pro-set quarterback, doesn’t fit that image.  Myers is talented as hell but nowhere near as mobile as what is needed for the QB in this offense.   “The one thing I will say is that he was going to be in a fight with Gonzalez – who this new coaching staff really likes – so it wasn’t a given (like it would have been had the old staff been in place) that Myers was going to be the guy.”

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One feature we can look forward to seeing in Pitt’s offense this year is use of just about every eligible skill player of offense to catch a pass.

Having three experienced, game-ready wide receivers is not enough for him. He wants six to eight capable catchers.

Fortunately, he has a healthy crop of young receivers that have shown promise in the first week of camp.

Juniors Mike Shanahan and Cameron Saddler and sophomore Devin Street are firmly entrenched starters at the three wide-receiver positions in the Panthers’ new offense, and rightfully so.

Shanahan was second on the team in catches behind the departed Jonathan Baldwin with Saddler, who missed much of last season because of injury, getting seven receptions and Street getting 25 in 2010.

But newcomers and younger players, highlighted by redshirt freshman Salath Williams and true freshman Ronald Jones, are part of the list of players that could see playing time this season.

And not just to give the starters a rest.

“If they can’t play a substantial amount, then they won’t,” Graham said. “But all of them are competing right now to play.”

In addition, Ed Tinker, Josh Brinson, K’Wuan Williams put the number up to 8 receivers who will get opportunities to contribute. Lots of possibilities, configurations and combinations.

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We went and visited family in Eastern PA this weekend. The drive back was excruciatingly long. It wasn’t traffic. It wasn’t the weather. It was just one of those trips — if you have kids you probably have a better understanding — where there was always another reason/need to stop. Continual bathroom breaks. Breaks for lunch and ultimately dinner. Little things that just kept adding to the length. Then there was all the complaining inside the car about how long it was taking to only make it worse.

So, I’m a little off today. This means, short bits before I can put my mind all the way back to work.

Brock DeCicco is transferring. Old news, but I wish him the best. If his choices are indeed Iowa, Wisconsin or VT then I hope he chooses Iowa. Given the way Iowa has tortured Penn State in recent years, I’d like to see DeCicco be a vital part contributing to that.

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The intern, Charlie McGovern, over at the P-G is doing yeoman’s work in Zeise’s absence with a two Red Shoes Diary entries for yesterday’s practice plus and in-depth article on the WRs on the squad.

In Part Two he discusses Brock DeCicco’s decision to transfer.  Again, I have to say this was kind of expected after Graham was hired and laid out what offensive positions he was going to field.  Mike Cruz saw the handwriting on the wall earlier and it took DeCicco a bit longer to figure it out.  It was great when he committed to PITT and I’m sure he and his parents would have wanted a full career here – but if he wants to play starting football it has to be somewhere else.

In his other article McGovern writes that our special Teams weren’t so special in some areas:  “Moving on to this evening’s practice, we got our first taste of the punting game during the special teams, and I must say that Plum native Chris Yankoski (below) was pretty erratic. He had a few bombs, but also had a few short, end-over-end punts that didn’t go too far. He’s a veteran, though, so I’m sure he’ll get things straightened out.”

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While it looks near certain that Texas A&M will bolt if the SEC decides that they want to take the Aggies, the unknown is who the SEC would tab if they went to 14 or even 16. The names are obvious and have been bandied about: Mizzou, Oklahoma, FSU, Clemson, VT and/or UNC.

Forget the denials that have emanated from other programs. I think we all know that this is like a coach search. No one has been “contacted” but everyone is in touch. So, if you want to say, but FSU has denied any contact or VT has said they have no interest in leaving the ACC. Or that Mizzou is pretending to be content in the Big XII — it means nothing.

The aspect I’m trying to look at in this post is the impact/survival/attractiveness of the Big XII vs. the Big East.

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In a development that should surprise no one Brock DeCicco left camp to contemplate his future with the Panthers and Graham’s offense.   We talked about transfers in the Spring Practice articles and mentioned that the TEs were going to have to fit the mold of the H-Back Graham wants.  Hubie Graham actually played this position during his freshman year at Illinois so he’s comfortable with it.

In a continuing show of interest and support by the Post Gazette as a whole the Red Shoes Diary was written by an intern who three days of experience with the program.  To make up for his inexperience he loads photos to fill space.  Did an alright job though considering the paper sent Zeise out of town to cover the Buccos.

He does like the QB & receiver corps though:

Sunseri and Street have looked good every day that I’ve been here, though. What really made the offense stand out was the play of the younger receivers, who are all vying to be part of the top six to eight players used in the offense this season. Freshman Ronald Jones (below), sophomore Ed Tinker and redshirt freshman Salath Williams all saw time with the first team and should provide some great depth to the receiver position. Tinker and Williams were both used in the vertical passing game and Jones appears to be a good fit to at Cameron Saddler’s position.

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I have been following the Texas A&M hissy fit over the Longhorn Network with some amusement. It’s like they spent the last 11 months pretending it was not really going to happen, and then as it draws within a month of actually debuting, the Aggies as a whole looked around and said, “Oh, f**k. This is the last straw.”

And last week, the unsourced rumors started that Texas A&M was ready to go to the SEC, and the SEC would take them. No substantiation seemed to be coming. Just non-denials and everyone basically saying that they have heard the rumors but don’t know much beyond that.

Then tonight came and there was this:

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