Oh, what a day.

It has been hard to keep up. Exactly a week too late for this crap to start going down. Too much stuff coming to a head, and now this again? Okay, let me apologize in advance for the expected lack of coherence. It has just been too chaotic and too insane today.

I am a natural cynic. Just the way I have always been. Not sure how or why. I just am. Being lucky enough to have had a few years writing at the now defunct AOL FanHouse gave me the opportunity to observe many turns on the college coaching carousel. Everything from Dana Altman taking the Arkansas job and then running back to Creighton. Lane Kiffin napalming Tennessee. Yet, this one even blew me away.

Yet the Tennessee-Kiffin-USC situation is probably the closest parallel. You had a brash coach. One who critics would say was much more style over substance. Makes radical change to the program. Lots of people affected.  And for the most part the fans went with it because it may be a time to shake things up a bit more. A guy who struggled in the first year as the players transition to a new style. But at the same time, there’s hope because of the recruiting class that is coming.

Then the abrupt bailing — taking almost all of the new staff he brought in with him to leave a crater. Yet, somehow, as much as the “Fall of Saigon” chaos that ensued when Kiffikins bailed. He had the balls to speak to the players directly to tell them he was leaving, and to at least pay false lipservice to the media.

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I’m stunned. Truly.

It’s not that I buy into worship of a coach. I also don’t expect blind loyalty or to expect Pitt to be everyone’s dream job. I just never expected that Graham would bolt after only 1 season. Let alone having him take off after a 6-6 season.

Class all the way:

Pitt’s players were informed in a statement from Graham that was sent via text by assistant athletic director/football operations Blair Philbrick.

“I have resigned my position at Pitt in the best interest of my family to pursue the head coaching position at Arizona State,” Graham said. “Coaching there has always been a dream of ours and we have family there. The timing of the circumstances have prohibited from telling you this directly. I now am on my way to Tempe to continue those discussions. God Bless. Coach Graham.”

According to Paul Zeise’s tweet, when the DickRod assistants bolted, Graham called them “mercenaries.”

Right now, they are looking a lot better than Todd Graham.

I’m just hoping he gets June Jones’d at the last minute.

Feel free to vent. I’ll be drinking in a corner.

A sampling of Pitt football posts that would get a bigger hit count then mentioning the BBVA Bowl:

1. Recruiting
2. 2012 QB speculation
3. Tino-bashing
4. Speculating on new assistant coaching hires
5. Panthers in the pros
6. Mocking Hoopies
7. Mocking Nits
8. Expansiopocolypse updates
9. Paul Hackett retrospective

You get the idea. And it’s not that I won’t watch, and react. It’s not that I won’t be writing about it — both before and after. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s not even that the game is Alabama (this is a made-for-TV-bowl, after all). It is that it is 3 1/2 weeks away and against SMU. Still I have tabs to clear and I’m sick of seeing these.

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