Paul Zeise has some thoughts from Todd Graham this morning as to the state of the coaching staff, players and the season so far, found in this article. While discussing the rather sordid state of affairs he finds his team in Graham chips in with this observation – not a new thought by any means but just as deflective as always:

“We only had two weeks to recruit this past year, and I thought we did a good job given that,” Graham said. “This year is very critical for us.  “We really need to upgrade the volume of players, and the biggest thing that we need is speed. We need more speed and explosiveness at every position — and you can get faster by either recruiting speed or developing speed. But we have good football players here.“

Smashing backhand drive to the far corner – he follows up with a strong forehand topspin!

“As you come to a new place, there are so many things that are different in your program. It takes some time to master that, and sometimes, it takes longer than others.”

Asked if Pitt will be a different team in three years, he said, “Oh, I think there is not any question.”  Graham said the challenge will diminish with each season.  “It will less challenging a year from now,” he said. “It will be less challenging two years from now, when every year it’s just ingrained in them: This is how we do it. This is the system.”

Hmmm, OK.  We got our asses kicked in the last two games because RU and Utah had faster players than we did?  Not because out QBs played like crap or the OL pirouetted instead of blocking or the WRs put on cement gloves before the game, or… perhaps most importantly, you put a horse collar on our best offensive threat in the Utah game? What about that Todd?  I can just hear it now…

‘Of course not.  We do need more speed to win these games, that’s for sure, but hey… the players we have are just great.  Really, they are and I wouldn’t kid you about that at all.  Closet was bare?  Who said that, I didn’t say that!   This is the best group of players I have ever had (remember that one?) and I’ll march through hell with them.   Except at QB, I ain’t marching anywhere with them two.  It’s possible we may have a problem there but we need consistent play out of  ‘the shorties’ as we call them, buy. you know, you dance with who brung ya…’

DiPaola of the Trib has an in-depth article of Graham’s thoughts also.  Here it is.  I’ll let you guys read and decipher it – I began having vertigo when Graham starting linking death to winning football games.  Funny thing that… for PITT fans the opposite seems to happen; we start losing football games and we either threaten to pull our eyeballs out of the socket and bleed to death, or we turn to the person sitting next to us and say “Buddy, I’ll give you a five second head start…” .

Todd Graham did expound on the QB situation a bit.  He didn’t address Mark Myers by name but we can infer he’s been a topic of conversation with Graham…  “I know fans are upset, and they should be — I’m upset, I go home my wife is upset, my mom is upset and my brother is giving me input on who the quarterback should be.”    I though Todd Dodge was doing that, but maybe he’s referring to Dodge in the street slang sense like “Hey my Brother, who we got slingin’ and shufflin’ back there today?”.

Who knows what is really going on or going through Graham’s head at this point in this most disappointing season?  In what may be Dante’s tenth circle of Hell: False Hope, we fans have an extra four days to ponder and discuss PITT football before the UCONN game.  That in itself primes the pump for reaching out to get the eyeball scoop.

Anyway, before I start crying, here is a positive thought to end this on, written anonymously and abridged here …

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
… When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must—but don’t you quit.
… Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup.

 We PITT fans can but hope.

Note: For us Blogger commenters and Message Board posters we have these Circles of Hell.