One of the stranger subplots on PittBlather this past year has been the beatification of sophomore quarterback Mark Myers. At times he has been treated as the savior of the quarterback position, but for the coaching staff’s irrational love of Sunseri and/or hatred of Myers.
Some of it is understandable as ABT (Anyone But Tino) reached new heights this year. Sunseri Fatigue was definitely a factor. But other aspects seems to simply be that he is unmolded clay. All there is to know for sure is that he has some outstanding YouTube clips. A strong arm. Glowing reviews from recruiting sites 2+ years ago — though, more of a sleeper than a sure-fire stud. Someone upon whom the hopes and dreams can be projected.
It hasn’t mattered that none of the people that regularly cover Pitt, see practices, talk to the coaches, etc. have even hinted that Myers should have been the guy. Not Zeise. Not DiPaola. Not Greco. Not Peak. No. It has to be something dark and evil to explain why Myers hasn’t played.
The previous year, it was because he was a freshman, and Wannstedt would never throw a true freshman out there. Especially after what happened with Pat Bostick. This season it has been that Fraud Graham would never play him even late in the season out of fear that Myers might actually perform well and make him look bad.
Reed has tried to explain many times that Myers didn’t fit at all in the offensive system that was run this past season, but for many that wasn’t even sufficient a reason. That Myers future at Pitt under the brief spread experiment looked shaky. It has been stated by Reed and Zeise, that Myers did no work over the summer to learn the system or put an effort into being ready. That was pushed away as spin to justify his not playing.
Well, it’s 2012. It’s a new head coach (again) coming in. The offense will be more of a fit for Myers’ skill sets. There’s no reason that he won’t have a chance. Assuming he wants it.
Paul Zeise:If Mark Myers ever decides he really, really wants to be a Division I starting quarterback, I believe he has the talent to do so. I have yet to see much evidence that he really wants it, though. It isn’t easy, it doesn’t come easy, you have to fight and work your tail off every single day and be a grinder and improve and you have to love it, you have to want to be in the film room and you also have to make sure you take care of business in the classroom and everywhere else. It isn’t always about talent – Tino Sunseri is a grinder, he wants it, he works for it, he goes after it, Pat Bostick did as well, Bill Stull did as well, Tyler Palko was the ultimate grinder. If you aren’t willing to work for it, if you don’t love it, your talent is only going to get you in the door but you will get eaten alive. Mark Myers has to decide how much he really wants it and then go get it. The ball is really in his court on this one.
That’s about as blunt as we’ve seen. If Myers wants to be a starting QB at a BCS school in 1-A he has to do something about it. Not wait for it to be handed to him.
The biggest mistake Wannstedt made with Sunseri was declaring the competition over before the spring practices began. He handed the job to Sunseri. Whether you think it was cronyism. Whether it was Wannstedt actually believing that Sunseri was the best QB option with Stull graduating. Whether it was Sunseri’s actual performance during practices all season while backing up Stull. He handed the job to Sunseri and all actions taken subsequently backed that position — even as Sunseri showed little reason as to why he earned it.
There is no doubt Tino Sunseri, once again, opened the door wide for competition in the spring and summer. The question is, will anyone take advantage of it. As much responsibility as the coaches bear to develop the talent, the players have to show something more than potential.
While that is not exactly getting a scholarship to Ohio State, Stanford, or even a Wake Forest, it shows that he wasn’t chopped liver either.
I don’t think there are too many instances where a younger player beats out (what I presume) a successful upperclassman. See Joe Flacco/Tyler Palko.
no that did not come from ZEISE he is MIA
Let’s move on and hope Voytik is poised enough to handle the position next year or that we find a transfer to hold it for him for a year.
most with the 6 places we have left is at least one more QB if not two and two OL men and WR
It seams we have enough DB at least 4 in this class plus 4 transfers and i think we have 3 LB COMMITS already even with out rippy.
but we have no TE commits so we need at least one.
.
But please, please, please can we end the Tino experiment.
that is not hard to under stand.
At this point, though, I’d rather put our eggs into the development of a highly regarded and skilled recruit (Voytik) than a guy with a few noteworthy tools (arm, size). It should be an interesting Spring, though, since Voytik won’t be in yet.
FWIW rumors were flying that Myers was not an all-star in the classroom. Mr Myers needs to show some maturity (he is no longer completely wet behind the ears). If, indeed he has talent he has to apply himself and convince Coach Chryst and his staff that he can and WANTS to play.
The job is W..I..D..E open after Tino’s 2011
debacle!!
1. He was stuck behind Sunseri for 3 years
2. He did not fit Graham’s system, so would not get on the field
3. Anderson was brought in
With zero hope of playing, he was not the type of person to work hard anyway. He was probably hoping Pitt would release him so he wouldn’t have to sit out a year somewhere else. Graham was too stubborn to give him that satisfaction.
Wanny in both Pro and College never and I mean never put much stock in the QB position (please see Erik Kramer Bears/Jay Fielder Dolphins).
Fast forward to being a college HC and he has no problem naming Tino starter before the spring game.
It is as simple as knowing he never put a premium on QBs……Kramer, Fielder, Sunseri now there are some fine QBs and some really great play makers for sure NOT.
And some wonder why Pitt fans long for Myers. Oh to have an actual play maker who can make his progressions and thrive as the signal caller…
Point taken about the special high school players being a stud for multiple years. However, just to play devil’s advocate, Big Ben only started during his senior year of HS. Weird things can happen in high school and kids develop differently.
Perhaps it is because he throws a nice ball and maybe it has something to do with his size.
In any event, he has the next two months to make something out of his college career of he will make Larry Wanke (another Cleveland area QB)look like Peyton Manning.
Once Wanny signed Sunseri it was downhill. We’ve not been able to get a decent QB since. 2009…nothing. Paul Jones saw the Wanny nepotism writing on the wall with Sunseri and went to the QB grave yard in 2010. Insert Myers as a poor Plan B. Wanny had his eggs in one basket and it blew up. Here we are as a result.
Too bad Eubank didn’t come last year….he might have saved our season. Ironic that he’s with Graham at ASU now.
Just having a bit of fun. Chryst is an offensive coordinator with a reputation of gearing his offence to the talents and abilities of his players. Also the blocking schemes in a pro-style offence are more in keeping with what our guys were accutomed to doing. They should be able to do a much better job protecting the quarterback in a pro-set. The recievers will be running patterns where they more accustomed. The team will not be making so many mistakes trying to run plays every 17 seconds. The idea of runnig hurry up offense is catch the defense off guard, but if you are making too many mistakes trying to hurry, it defeats the purpose. Walt Harris tried to install a hurry up system and went 1 and 5, because they making mistakes at critical times. When he went back to his old offence his quarterback, Priestly did much better and they went on to win the next 6 games, finishing 7 and 5.
And Sunseri makes the games no fun to watch. Even with a healthy lead late, you just know Tino will find ingenious ways to blow it in the 4th Qrt — even if sometimes he doesn’t.
Rather than suffer another stink-bomb show of the Tino Follies, play anybody else (we’ll just stink in a different way). But at least we’ll have a guy seasoned and ready for 2013 when we hit the ACC, as opposed to stinking up the joint in both 2012 and 2013.
ABT.
so tino will start and we will lose games
I feel like this year we have a good shot at keeping the recruiting class and perhaps get a surprise guy late here and there.
I feel like whoever the guy is behind center, he will be a far better QB than the one this year. Even if it’s Tino. I know folks will be furious if it is Tino, but if Chryst can get a great amount out of Tino, what does that say about Chryst as a guru? 🙂
Finally, I can’t wait for LOI day, Spring practice, and the 2012 season.
Last year, at this time we were in a complete spiral downward.
I know hope springs eternal and we as Pitt fans have been down this road. Somehow this time I feel less cynical.
DaveD
PPG: 24.2 (2011) 26.3 (2010)
Total Offense: 944 plays for 4551 yds (2011) 830 plays for 4755 yds (2010)
Passing: 426 attempts for 2721 yds (2011) 360 attempts for 2601 yds (2010)
Rushing: 1830 yds 3.53 per rush (2011) 2154 yds 4.58 yds per rush
Here’s my thing. I don’t put much stock in Myers’s four pass attempts because that means nothing. I also don’t put any stock in Myers’s academic problems, because what 19 year old kid doesn’t have those sometimes? That means nothing in reference to playing QB either. Paul Chryst’s offense is going to be about as different from Graham’s “87 different formations, Farsi-English terminology and ‘swing your partner round and round’ pre-snap movements” and as can be. Hell, I’d even be able to understand an offense like Chryst is going to put out there and I’m a dumb ass. I’m sure Myers will be able to mentally execute it.
What I do think is that you have to give alternatives, especially alternatives to a know failure, a chance to prove themselves. Myers’s has yet to have that chance. It just wasn’t ever going to happen with Graham. I know for a fact that Graham basically told Myers right off the bat he wasn’t going to play this season – that’s why I was so adamant on here about the subject when everyone started calling for Myers to play. I’ll go as far as to say that if PITT didn’t have the policy of letting our football players have a full four years under scholarship, had Graham stayed he would have tossed Myers in the trash.
So – given that sword was hanging above Myers’s head from April onward, and add to it the fact that the staff recruited Anderson during summer camp, it isn’t hard to understand that Myers wasn’t “all in” emotionally. Again, the young man was 19 years old this season, it isn’t as if he’s a professional getting paid to play. We see influences all the time in college ball whether it be stress due to homesickness, academics, girlfriend problems, booze, etc… the list goes on and on.
I’ll give him a pass if his attitude wasn’t 100% last year just based on the fact that Todd Graham is the Anti-Christ. Myers will be a rsSO going into this year’s spring practice so he has a chance to get his feet under him and go. We already know from his tweets after Chryst was hired that he’s excited about the coaching change. He has the physical skills to succeed at this level and the fact that Chryst usually has a run-heavy offense it may be just what Myers’s needs to get on track. Give him the needed attention from the staff and the camp reps he needs to show what he can do and we may be very pleasantly surprised.
So, I’ll caution us Blatherites (cool, huh?) to hold back in writing the kid off until he gets a honest chance at competing without the deck stacked against him. If he fails after that then so be it – but we literally haven’t seen what may be yet.
Dude, altho his last name sounds like it, Chryst is no miracle worker. There’s gotta be something there to start with.
Pop quiz (seriously): name one thing that Sunseri does well? Just one. Because I cannot.
Well, maybe I should make it harder: name even one GOOD thing Tino does well? Because he’s world class at taking sacks, making bone-head decisions, holding onto the ball forever too long, throwing picks, and hitting his WRs in the (shoes)(helmet)(repeat).
Seriously, why invest (okay, waste…) another second on this guy? How many times must we get kicked in the onions before we get tired of it?
I learn so much modern lingo here.
But let’s talk bottom line/end of the day for a moment: Tino’s 1) got the yips and 2) any of his passes more than 20 yards long float like a butterfly.
Also, there are many QB recruits who never see the field or get a chance to prove themselves…because they just don’t have it. I hope I’m wrong but I’m not holding my breath on the kid. It’s Voytik next year…or maybe a revamped Tino.
I think our new head coach wants to win. Sunseri’s barely above water at .500 and he’s had NFL quality RBs and WRs to throw AT (I’d normally say throw TO but he can’t / didn’t).
Sunseri was abysmal in the spread, but he had the same weak scatter-arm in the pro set under Wanny.
What good does it do to play Sunseri this year? At best best BEST we’ll be 5-7 or 6-6. And then we’ll play a RS Freshman in 2013 and be about the same. In other words, no shot to win unil 2014.
Why not play a true freshman in 2012 — or ANYBODY but Tino — so that he’ll get that investment year behind us (and still maybe be 5-7), but have a chance for 10 or 11 wins in 2013.
Plus I just can’t stand to watch Sunseri. Dude makes me want to drink.
Even Sunseri deserves the chance to compete. If he is the best we got so be it. Mone of this play for next year crap. He is a man of character, and showed it by keeping his mouth shut about the Graham fiasco. He is also one tough SOB, I dare say none of us could have taken the hits he took on and off the field, and he took them like a man.
Even with his limited abilities, all Quarterbacks throw better with protection (see Tim Tebow)
A simpler offense with less decision making will also improve results.
All that being said, I hope someone beats out Tino, just don’t think its a given.
WBB, The rushing statistics would have been quite different if Ray doesn’t blow a knee.
1. finding the next Russell Wilson (or other 4th year transfer),
2. some yet undiscovered JC transfer, or
3. going after the illiterate Paul Jones…
…is an absolute and utter waste of space?
Nos. 1 and 2 simply don’t exist.
And, unfortunately for Penn State, No. 3 does. JoePa would have found a way to play Jones if he could have made a difference on the field regardless of his Daniel Simpson Day-like GPA. I’d rather have Tino than Bouldin or the fightin’ McGloins.
Let’s see what PC can do with what we have in the right system (especially with 2 NFL caliber RB’s to take some pressure off whoever the QB de jour happens to be). Maybe Tino can be reformed and he’s shown the toughness to handle a QB controversy. Maybe Myers is a diamond in the rough. Maybe Voytik already has the physical gifts and intellectual acumen to match his emotional maturity. Maybe Anderson will … well, transfer.
Whatever PC’s choice, I’d be willing to suffer through yet another season if it means not embarrassing ourselves in the slightly above average ACC.
Or maybe none of this will mean shit without a defense or OL.
That was the basis for Graham pretty much excluding Myers right off the bat back in April and precluded Myers from playing at all this season…and from that early knowledge sprung Myers’s ‘attitude’ issues. But Myers’s attitude alone didn’t keep him off the field.
I’m also not saying that Myers was a lock to be good enough to play and that Graham just refused to do it. No one really know just how well Myers would have responded given the chance because he was excluded from the QB two deep from the very beginning. Back in April Sunseri & Gonzalez were getting the bulk of the 1-2 reps and then, after the arrest, it was Sunseri and Anderson getting the 1-2 reps throughout Summer camp and through 2/3s of the season. The common denominator for all QBs in the two-deep or who played was that they could run with the ball when called upon.
The absolute only reason Myer’s fleeted up to 2nd string at the end of the season was due to Anderson’s injury, and still he didn’t get put in but for one pass.
All you have to do is look at what Todd Graham did when he was doing any substituting at all at the QB spot. Every player who came in was the running type QB Graham wanted for his QB: Anderson, Jones and Gonzalez.
Honestly, I don’t think you can look at Todd Graham and apply any logical reasoning to him as you would to any other college head coach. He didn’t make decisions the way others do. With Graham it was “My Way” or die trying – which we basically did.
Just look at how stubborn Graham was; in the latter part of the season, when we were 3-4 and it was obvious that some changes had to be made in the offense – Graham was still running Tino Sunseri on called rushing plays multiple times per game. Graham did that right up to the end of the regular season. Against WVU Sunseri ran the ball 22 times. Take away the seven sacks and that was 15 times Graham had Sunseri take off. Graham’s modification of the offense never removed the QB runs that were so integral.
So, Graham insisted on a running QB and he stuck to that all year. This is what Graham was doing in preparation for 2012 and beyond, he was willing to sacrifice games to get his offense in place at all costs.
That’s why I say you can’t apply the “If Graham thought Myers could play he’d have put him in” thinking because it was set in Graham’s mind six months before the season started that he wasn’t going ever to do that at the risk of his system not getting instituted as soon as possible.
It was way more about Todd Graham than it was about Mark Myers in other words.
What’s more important in that offense….passing or running? Tino is an awful passer…I think Graham would have made the trade for an upgrade in passing but a downgrade in running if it presented itself. Tino is certainly not true dual threat and the QB running was not a major part of the offense this season (maybe it was because Tino chose not to run). Anyway…I can’t imagine Graham was so stubborn that he’d leave a good passing QB on the bench given the dire QB situation as the season progressed just because he couldn’t run the ball as effectively as Tino or because he didn’t embrace the offense initially.
If you take Sunseri’s final ‘rushing attempts’ and subtracted the sacks from it, as they are considered QB rushes, he had 90 plays where he advanced the ball on the ground. That is seven times per game, that’s up close to what Graham was doing with Kinne at Tulsa. In doing so Sunseri averaged 5.7 yds per carry on those 90 runs. Todd Graham sure did have the QB run as part of the offense up until he left.
Again, those 90 plays aren’t scrambles but Sunseri doing what Todd Graham was screaming at him to do more of in the first half of the season.
I wholeheartedly disagree with you that Graham would have made that choice. He flat out said he was going to have a QB who could execute the read-option and take the run off of it and that’s what he did all year.
You are applying common football sense and logic to the situation and, IMO, you just can’t do that with Todd Graham. If you had been closely following what he was saying in interviews from the Spring practices on he was going to have his offense installed and ready for 2012 “come hell or high water”(direct quote BTW) and to do that he was going to stay with a mobile QB.
I guess the bottom line for this is that I don’t consider Myers not playing in 2011 as a referendum on his lack of talent but way more so because of Graham’s insistence on a certain ‘type’ of QB. Myers’s isn’t a Dan Marino but the truth is we don’t know how good he can be because he never got a shot at all.
BTW – I have agreed with you in principal regarding the QB situation all year in that I said early on that if Sunseri was “either hurt or has a complete meltdown” (Ta Da!) I’d have rather Graham go with Myers as the running game takes care of itself and we needed that passing component.
We do know that Tino is terrible in a pro set and a low octane offense. We don’t know if Myers, Gonzalez or Voytik are terrible. Paul Chryst will watch the practice and game films of Tino and come up with the same answers. What will be most convincing for Coach Chryst that Tino is not the man for the job will be when he watches Tino get sacked and nary a linemen to help him get to his feet.That by itself goes to leadership and to be candid, he doesn’t possess the skill.
If I hear that he gives the team the best chance to win, I will enroll in night classes, on-line, up hill both ways, at WVU and represent myself as I divorce from the program. It is best if he informs the Pitt folks that the program is best served by heading a different direction at qb and then starts working with the young qb’s.
Now gentlemen, let’s start supporting the new staff, the new recruits and the old recruits that feel like new recruits. I am confident in this staff and the direction we are heading. Reed, you will agree that I dogged Graham and his antics from day one. I also dogged Tino once there was enough film for a proper evaluation.
My last wish for 2011 did not come true. Smiley is still employed at Pitt which is the next problem.
For some guys that’s enough I guess.
“I think that when Chryst is looking at 2012 he has to consider other QBs than just Sunseri and Voytik.
I do believe that Myers will be given a fair shot at competing and that Anderson, if he’s still around can be in the three deep also. Plus, we have a good athlete in Gonzalez who, with dedicated passing coaching may surprise.
I’ll bet that Chryst’s first inclination is to redshirt Voytik and that would be best for PITT all around if he does. Personally, I wonder about just how good Voytik is going to be and I’ve a feeling that his potential, and our expectations, are being pumped up to unreasonable proportions – at least for 2012.
I’m sure it’s a common phenomenon with football fans but WE PITT fans tend to do this way too much and I think the beat writers contribute to it also. we did it with Bostick back in 2007; we did it with Sunseri big time back in 2009 & 10 and … and we did it with Myers this year and last.
Let’s not do it with Voytik. The odds are that he’ll be a decent college QB and those may be slim. Very few guys really excel at QB in college and even less do so thier freshman year.
I’m looking forward to seeing what Voytik can do of course, I think he’s talented. But I’m much more looking forward to see what our current crop of QBs can do in 2012 under a new coaching staff – especially Myers and yes, Sunseri as much as it hurts to type that.”
Yes, you and others were very wary of Graham the whole time and were proved right. You know, the more I look back on the last 14 months the more I am sort of happy it happened. I do subscribe to the theory that nothing happens in a vacuum so the fact that we bumbled our way to Paul Chryst is tolerable in the big picture. I really think this is going to work out well offensively and he’ll get the best guys out there and will use his resources the way they should be used.
If he cops the same approach this year that he did last then I’ll write him off, but not until I can see what he does with a fair shake at QB.
I get the whole Myers didn’t fit the system with TG thing. But, isn’t there something to be said to going out and competing for your spot? For example, when Voytik was asked if he was concerned about Pitt going back to a pro-style offense, he said something along the lines of the system doesn’t matter I can run anything.
All really know about Myers is that he is big and has good arm strength, right? There is a lot more to being a QB than size and strength. Plus, if my memory is right, Myers only started 1 year in HS. So his experience of leading a team is very limited. I just don’t get how he only started 1 year in HS. The guy he played behind his junior year, Andrew Holland 6”2?, was an unranked 3 star recruit. Nothing too special. I’m not saying HS experience is neccessary it just seems weird to me.