Good news for modern man, our prime target picked PITT just after 0800 this morning .
For you non-military types that is 8:00.
Todd Graham really needs to step up if he wants to shake the ‘can’t recruit’ label. This kid is going to make a great linebacker.
Daddy, why am I late for school?
Because school drop-off is at 8 am. As much as your education matters, it falls short of daddy’s unhealthy obsession with the decisions made by teenage boys.
….Oh.
Yeah, Russel Shell makes his decision early today.
The WPIAL’s all-time leading rusher said he will announce where he’ll play his collegiate career during an 8 a.m. press conference at Hopewell High School.
…
Several reports have the hometown Pitt Panthers as the favorite to land Shell’s services.
Alabama is also rumored to be a contender.
When asked about Alabama on Thursday afternoon, Shell told Meyer that he “didn’t get the chance to go down there” for a visit.
When asked if that meant he was leaning towards Pitt, Shell cautioned, “Just because I haven’t been there doesn’t mean I don’t think it would be a good fit for myself.”
I get why he is doing it now rather than right before or after his school’s nationally televised game on ESPNU. Avoid the crap all day long of being asked and bothered. Just get it out of the way. But dammit, this is just inconvenient.
All signs point to Shell verballing to Pitt. Signing day is still almost 4 months away.
Great related read from Chris Harlan at the Trib on the thoughts of all of this by Andrew Johnson. The first time I’ve ever read a story on Johnson where he expresses anything close to regrets over changing his commitment from Pitt to Miami.
Here’s an interview with Shell from earlier in the week with ESPN-HS.
Guys, let me apologize for not weighting in earlier. I started a new full time job on Monday and that, combined with my disgust of the RU game, had me staying away from the computer this week.
Chas was on the mark with his last post. We have real problems at QB. Neither QB has played well this season save for one game by Sunseri.
As to the team ‘turning’ on him I don’t know the dynamics of the locker room but this isn’t the first time the offensive players have turned their backs on Sunseri when he was on the ground after a sack. It happened more than once last season also. The player’s vote of confidence aside, he had real problems with his teammates last year and it looks to be continuing.
It’s nice to see nothing has changed with the ‘play Myers’ crowd over the last week though.
I’m not going to spend much time banging on how bad the non-con is this year. I think everyone already knows it. Some of it was out of Pitt’s hands with the non-con tournament squeeze, deal falling through at MSG, and a team dropping out of the Philly Classic. Still the next 3 years of tournaments are already set.
Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said today Pitt will play in the 2014 Maui Invitational. It’s Pitt’s first trip to Maui since Dixon became head coach.
Pitt will play in the Philly Classic in November. In 2012, the Panthers will play in the preseason NIT in New York. In 2013, they will play in the Legends Classic In Brooklyn.
The preseason NIT is always a big deal, and the Maui Invitational is fantastic because of the ESPN backing and promotion. The Brooklyn game is obviously a new one, but considering that will be in the new NBA arena there, so I expect the promoters to get some really good teams to try and get some attention from MSG.
Add in the fact that Dixon and his wife have a history with Hawaii — where they met and Dixon was an assistant. Not that I think Dixon is going anywhere, but getting to coach his team in Hawaii in a few years has to be another enticing carrot.
Today was Pitt’s Basketball Media Day. If you want to see the Jamie Dixon opening presser, here it is.
College basketball officially gets underway at midnight Friday/Saturday. No midnight madness events for Pitt. As the practices loom, it is time for more preseason rankings and previews. Time to hit the links.
NBC’s Mike Miller puts Pitt at #10 in his preseason rankings. So do Jeff Goodman and Gary Parrish at CBSSports.com. The CBS rankings have 4 Big East teams in the top-10. All four happen to be football schools. Go figure.
Former ND player and their current color guy, Jordan Cornette, does an interview to preview the Big East. Not a lot regarding Pitt, until it comes to the issue of toughest place to play.
Going into the Oakland Zoo at Pittsburgh, their fans are nuts. You’re warming up before a game, and they know your little sister’s name, they know your ex-girlfriend from eight years ago, they know your mother’s maiden name. Those Pittsburgh fans are brutal, but they make it a fun environment. And Pittsburgh plays so much better at home then other teams in the country.
And thanks to Jeff Eisenberg for the link for Twitter.
For those eager to see what youth (and Talib Zanna) can do at the power forward spot, there will be a small window of opportunity. Nasir Robinson is expected to miss the next 3 to 4 weeks with a knee injury. Nas will have surgery on his right knee tomorrow — actual injury not yet disclosed. He may be back in time for the season opener against Albany on November 11, but Pitt may be extra cautious with him.
Last year, Nas missed several games when he suffered a tear in the meniscus in his right knee. The same knee he has injured this week. Given that it is the second surgery on the same knee within a 12 month period (albeit, both seem relatively minor), there might be reasons to bring Nas back slowly.
tah is not having an easy time in their first year in the Pac-12. They have gotten off to an 0-3 start in Pac-12 play. They were pounded by Washington (31-14) and Arizona State (35-14) in consecutive games. They are getting the questions about the transition and whether they are really up to the weekly grind at the BCS level. As you would expect, the Utes dismiss such notions.
“We were up 14-13,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said of Saturday’s 35-14 loss to Arizona State in which the Utes committed five turnovers for the second game in a row. “We were going toe to toe and doing some good things. Do we need to keep recruiting and developing the roster? Yes. Everybody does and that has happened and will happen and get upper-echelon players. But it is apparent we can play with the guys in this league. We just have to play smarter and possess the football.”
Nevertheless, the Utes (2-3, 0-3) acknowledge that being out of a conference race before the first frost hits their practice field does feel odd to them.
However, this season’s slide is part of a larger trend. Since starting the 2010 season with an eight-game winning streak, Utah has gone 4-6 in its past 10 outings.
See? It isn’t that the Utes are in over their heads. It’s that they were already trending lower before joining the Pac-12.
I feel a little conflicted. As a Pitt guy, I know it is in Pitt’s best interest to get out of the Big East and to the ACC ASAP. Unfortunately, it increasingly appears that the only way that can happen is for the Big East to die, and die soon.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no sympathy for the Big East itself. Nor is this about the basketball schools. My conflicted feelings are for the football programs that will beleft behind. The ones that have no where to go or will have to wait and sweat a while. The ones that are just there waiting for the Sword of Damocles hanging over their head to fall and strike them down
We have been sweating this out for years. When the Big East was raided in 2003, it has been a countdown for when the end would come. It has lasted longer than expected. The conference Pitt is heading to is different from expected in 2003, but Pitt is moving on. Meanwhile, the Big East fault lines are being laid bare.
For yet another day, the Big East tried to have a meeting to discuss getting new members and other issues. And for yet another day, nothing came of it.
Need to get to the Utah game and some more basketball stuff, but too many tabs related to the expansiopocolypse that need clearing.
While the college sporting world waits on the decision of Mizzou, Boston College’s AD Gene DeFilippo felt like popping off a bit about how influential he was in the ACC realignment committee. The comments that got all the attention were the ones pertaining to how he and BC were the reason UConn didn’t get an invite, but Pitt did along with Syracuse.
While Syracuse presented no problem, UConn did — to BC, which was still fuming over what it perceived to be vitriolic comments made when BC was finally invited to join the ACC and started competing in 2005. UConn and Pittsburgh filed a lawsuit against BC, and Calhoun made comments about never playing BC again.
DeFilippo does not deny that BC opposed the inclusion of UConn.
“We didn’t want them in,’’ he said. “It was a matter of turf. We wanted to be the New England team.’’
The other was the role of a certain Mouse Monopoly in the decision on who to invite for expansion.
BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo, who was part of the 12-member ACC expansion committee, adamantly denied that the move was dictated by basketball interests, but he did concede that the effects of it may boost that sport more than football.
“It had nothing to do with basketball,’’ said DeFilippo. “It was football money which drove expansion. It was football money and securing our future.’’
…
The overwhelming force behind the move, DeFilippo insisted, was television money.
The ACC just signed a new deal with ESPN that will increase the revenue for each school to approximately $13 million. With the addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse, said DeFilippo, another significant increase will come.
“We always keep our television partners close to us,’’ he said. “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent football money. TV – ESPN – is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.’’
The UNC blog, Carolina March points out this creates a conflict in the narrative of the actual story. The story starts with a premise that the ACC expansion move was dictated in no small part because of basketball driven jealousy of all the attention the Big East gets. That, of course, would favor UConn over Pitt. Especially when you factor in the women’s basketball side of things as well.
I’m not saying the Sports Illustrated writer is picking Pitt to win it all — or even the Big East. Just a pleasant surprise to see that he ranked Pitt’s frontcourt (#15) and backcourt (#10) in his top-16 squads. These days, Pitt get’s ranked but the players tend to be overlooked. Nice for the kids to get a little respect.
Big East Basketball Media Day in a week. Just a memo to the Occupy Wall Street folk, it is Coach Jamie Dixon, not JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dixon. Let him be.
In related news, I will be attending Big East Media Day, in NYC. More details coming, but suffice to say that I cannot wait.
Is Tino Sunseri the answer at QB for Pitt? Of course not. Is he the best option this season? Yes.
The argument in favor of Trey Anderson is basically this: 1) Anderson knows this offense, because it is like what he ran in high school; 2) he showed more command of the offense, poise, confidence and efficiency late in the game against 1-AA Maine; 3) Anderson has more mobility than Sunseri; and 4) Anderson is not Sunseri.
After Sunseri threw two interceptions and took a beating in the first half, Anderson was given a chance to start the second half. Except those who choose to revise history, I think this was overwhelmingly met with approval by Pitt fans. The score was only 6-3, and it was hard to imagine Anderson doing any worse.
Anderson managed to pull it off. He was completely overwhelmed by the Rutgers blitz. The speed of the defense was clearly so much faster than he had expected. The O-line was not able to give him any more time than they gave Sunseri. It was obvious that he wasn’t able to read the action in front of him fast enough to make decisions. On the second possession of the half Anderson threw a pass right into the bread basket of a Rutgers linebacker inside the 20. That was the end of Anderson’s day.
Sorry, I had to stay off the computer the night after the game, and on Sunday morning we headed down to in-laws for an overnighter. No internet and no chance to get away to a coffee shop for wi-fi. Yesterday, I had to head right off to work, and it kept going through this morning. Now it is Tuesday afternoon, and the attention should be turning to the Utah game, but I am way behind.
Not sure what to say about the game. Check that, plenty to say, but getting it out without jumping all over the place and descending into sputtering frustration is the issue. To be clear, I have not given up on this season. Not saying BCS at this point, but I think it can still be a decent season.
First of all, Rutgers was flat out the better team. Their offense wasn’t really very good, but it avoided mistakes and eventually capitalized on the excellent field position and opportunities. The Rutgers defense, however, was hellacious. They attacked and attacked and attacked. They exploited the issues on Pitt’s O-line and got Pitt to make mistakes. The reason Rutgers won this game, the Syracuse game and nearly beat UNC was because their defense has been outstanding.
With an offense that looks so much and nothing like what we have watched the prior couple of years, Rutgers has that similar taste only blander. A little flat, but tolerable if you don’t think too much about it.
Game time and liveblog at 3:30 on ESPNU. Pam Ward and Dan Hawkins will be raping our ears with the call. Not sure what kind of turnout Rutgers will have on Yom Kippur, or how enthusiastic they will be. But at least the Scarlet Knight fans will have that excuse at the ready if the attendance sucks.
Sunset is at 6:57. It’s not like I have an alarm clock next to an iced-down Southern Tier Unearthly at the ready or anything.
Chas has put together a nice post with some news and links in it in anticipation of tomorrow’s match against Rutgers, “The USC of the East” according to some of their fans.
First off let’s get this out of the way. Rutgers’s football team has had some of the strangest nicknames of any team I’m familiar with. My two favorites are “The Queensmen” and later on their mascot was Chanticleer or “The Fighting Rooster”. This last led to a great quote from their football coach Harvey Harman, “You can call it the Chanticleer, you can call it a fighting cock, you can call it any damn thing you want, but everybody knows it’s a chicken.” He had his sexes mixed up a little there but you get his drift.
Harman later is said to have bought the first “Scarlet Knight” mascot costume for the 1955 season, which was to be his final season as football coach at Rutgers. Interesting, the first guy who actually does something to take the gayety out of the RU football program gets fired. They should have just compromised and called themselves “The Fighting Queens” or “The Queens Cocks”, both of which would fit perfectly today also. Oh, and Ozzie Nelson of Ozzie and Harriett TV fame was QB for the Fighting Cocks from 1924-26. Anyway, we should kick their asses based on the above alone.
I just know that between some other weirdness in expansiopocolypse, family and parent duties, oh, and that whole work thing; this will be the last chance to get a post about the Rutgers game before the liveblog tomorrow. So, I should make it count.
Rutgers running game has, well, sucked. The optimism of the presently starting running back would have you believe they are close. Real close. See if you can detect the doubt from the beat writer?
“I’m really starting to feel it’s going to happen,” Jamison, the Scarlet Knights’ leading rusher, said of the running game ranked 117th nationally and averaging 84 inches per carry. “We’ve been working hard at it and everything seems to be coming together.”
Against Syracuse, Jamison had 24 runs for 1728 inches. Breaking out may be a relative term.
In case you haven’t heard, and trust me tomorrow you will probably hear plenty, Rutgers linebacker Khaseem Greene and Pitt RB Ray Graham are half-brothers and close to each other. Puffery, family bonds and minor trash talking all come standard.
Against USF, Pitt’s tempo clearly had an effect on the USF defense. Players with hands on their hips. Looking gassed. Jesse Palmer excitedly pointing it out because even Craig James could notice that. We know that Rutgers is blitz-heavy, attacking defense. They also substitute players a lot, so this could effect a lot of things if Pitt executes like it did last week.
And for a Rutgers team that substitutes liberally on the defensive line — the Scarlet Knights used 10 players there last week against Syracuse — and in the secondary with a variety of nickel and dime packages, it poses an even bigger challenge than usual.
How does a team consistently make substitutions when its opponent is running a play every 16 to 18 seconds?
“It’s hard,” said Rutgers coach Greg Schiano. “It’s hard to do. You see what we’re doing. You’ve never seen me coach on the sidelines in practice. I’ve been on the sidelines the whole week (to simulate the game substitution patterns). My signal-callers have been on the sidelines the whole week.
“That isn’t what we like to do but we’re doing it. I don’t know if you can simulate it. I know you can’t simulate it with the scout team. We’re trying our best. It’s two sets of people and running (on and off the field) as fast as we can. But it creates issues.”
There’s something encouraging about seeing a coach like Schiano out of his comfort zone in the week leading up to the game. Keeping Rutgers off-balance and unable to substitute as freely will be vital in keeping Sunseri upright against Rutgers.
Powered by WordPress © PittBlather.com
