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.

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What a disappointing end to a disappointing season for the PITT football program.  I’ll do a more in-depth final post when I can find some time but here’s a few thoughts after this abhorrent bowl game.

What I saw was a group of players that finally realized all that had transpired this season was real and it would be best to get the game over with as quickly as possible to put the whole 2011 mess behind them.  The fire needed for a win and desire to get one just wasn’t there yesterday at all.

I’m not saying that critically either because I understand exactly why they felt that way.  As Chas said earlier this was very much an exhibition game and literally meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.  That is a strong opinion but after watching the Mustangs bend our OL and DL to their wills in the first quarter I knew that we weren’t seeing their best efforts out there.

SMU didn’t have the best lineman we played all year but we made them look like NFL types out there.  They held us to 30 rushing yards.  30! That’s 110 yards below our season average.  They literally manhandled our OL.

On defense we played the “Hot knife through Butter” scheme in the first quarter and that was enough to not only give SMU a 21-0 lead going into the second quarter but allowed SMU to put the rest of the game into cruise control knowing that with Sunseri behind center there was no way in hell we were going to close that gap, and we didn’t.

Look, this really wasn’t that unexpected, was it?  After all the crap that happened over the last three weeks, on top of a disappointing regular season, the Football Gods were not happy with us.

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Okay, truly this bowl feels like an exhibition. Make no mistake, I want Pitt to win. It’s always more fun to see Pitt play well — and lord knows we are starving for that sight. It is just that this game has interim coaches heading to other jobs after this game. Pitt players that will be getting to know a new coach — again. And us the fans. Looking to the future and hoping — dare I say, believing — that things will be brighter.

The seniors will be prepping for the next stage in their life. Whether it is going to the myriad of exhibition “senior” bowls where they hope to catch the eyes of NFL scouts. Moving on to graduation and future endeavors. Or to go see their brother play and father coach in the BCS Championship game.

Oh, hell, let’s enjoy this last game. Pop open a nice beer or a good Scotch or bourbon. Toast this team and the coaches finishing the job. Try to keep the stress off, and jokes coming as we mock Fraud Graham one more time.

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Chris Dokish is reporting that Joe Rudolph will be joining Paul Chryst’s football staff.

That makes Bostad, Huxtable and Rudolph on the new staff and Wisconsin feels quite raided.

Rudolph is considered an excellent recruiter. Considering Chryst and Bostad do not have reputations for such skills, this is a big deal.

Rudolph’s position on the staff is not yet known. He coached the Tight Ends at Wisconsin, but had just been promoted to O-line coach.

Once more to the BBVA Compass Bowl. Once more the run up to the game has been largely ignored by the fans in favor of basketball (not in a good way this time) and the future head coaching situation. Unlike last year, the coach who will be running things next year is in place on the eve of the bowl.

In the best of times, the BBVA Bowl is largely an ignored and at best a curiosity. A very minor bowl that is on a Saturday afternoon after the BCS Bowls, but before the BCS Championship game. Even worse, competing with the start of the NFL playoffs.

Well I may not have written much this week about the actual game, but the liveblog will be running. Apathy Bowl, part 2.

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It’s officially bad. More of the same.

Coach Jamie Dixon shook up the line-up and the rotations for this game. John Johnson got the start over Cameron Wright and Talib Zanna over Dante Taylor. After a poor minute to start the game, Pitt seemed to find its footing and began to look like they were figuring things out.

John Johnson looked good running things more. Nailed an early 3. Dished well. Even drew two offensive fouls in the first five minutes.

Zanna was cleaning up inside on the offensive glass, and even handling inside passes.

J.J. Moore was aggressive but not reckless. He attacked the basket rather than settling for jumpers.

Taylor showed some fire coming off the bench in limited minutes.

Heck, even Isiah Epps looked competent for a few minutes.

Lamar Patterson and Ashton Gibbs were the only ones struggling in the first half. Patterson was taking mostly good shots, but they were rimming out. Gibbs just continued what we have all seen from him since Tray Woodall went down. Not getting space. Confidence shaken and just putting up some questionable shots.

Pitt was attacking constantly. Getting through the press better and drawing the fouls.

It even seemed the defense was looking better. They held the Blue Demons to only 35.6%. Even the turnovers didn’t seem that bad, since DePaul had just as many.

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I am completely tied-up today. The DVR it is for this game.

It is on ESPN2 at 7pm.

This is not the DePaul team of the last couple years, but they still are not a good team.

It is a must win for Pitt. Don’t care if it’s an ugly win. Just get a win at this point.

Travon Woodall is still out of the line-up.

John Johnson will be getting the start instead of Cameron Wright.

Malcolm Gilbert’s lack of playing time is explained in so far as he doesn’t bring much to the table offensively at this point. I think there’s a significant number of people who would take a chance on that simply because his defense might be stronger than what Dante Taylor has been offering.

That’s it for my ‘reporter’ attempts my friends.  The one time I played ‘reporter’ with rock solid info I got burned.  From now on I’ll stick to throwing opinions and links up here and then take what you guys want to talk about and run with it.

Obviously the Huxtable hire trumps my news that Tomsula was going to be hired on staff.  The word I got was that Tomsula had accepted the DC offer from PITT over the holidays.  What actually transpired was that Huxtable, as the primary target, changed his mind after Tomsula was contacted and he accepted the DC position.

Now, I’m in an ethical dilemma. Do I bite the bullet and never ever reveal my source like a real journalist would do, or do I weigh that against my great friendship with a guy who, while remaining nameless, has reason to fly to the West Coast to be with an ex-Panther family member on a NFL team there and then parties at the post-game tailgate with that team’s coaching staff, including Tomsula, and players where he learns this information first hand?

No, I’ll take the high road and will not revel that source and will use this incident as a learning experience.  But you can be sure I’ll keep it in my back pocket as something I can beat over my friend’s head until his wallet, debit card and any line of credit he may have runs dry at the bars this season as payback for setting me up (even though he truly didn’t set out to do that).

So, my apologies to you all and I’ll stick to my own predictions from now on.  One of which is that Malcolm Crockett is going to surprise us with the amount of PT he gets at RB.

Obviously for this Saturday as he leads Pitt in the BBVA Bowl as the interim head coach with a skeleton coaching staff. But beyond that.

After the game, Patterson will be on the move from Pitt. That was very clear when the news that Dave Huxtable would be the next defensive coordinator. And as good a resume, and a positive that it is to get Huxtable, I liked the job Patterson did. The defense improved noticeably from the start of the season to the end.

The beat writers spoke well of him, and he stayed when he could have bolted right away with Fraud Graham. As it stood, he could  still take the Arizona St. DC position if he wants it.

Turns out, he didn’t want it.

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Or… something.

Last week, Wisconsin linebackers coach Dave Huxtable publicly declined the offer to go with Paul Chryst and be the defensive coordinator at Pitt. This on the heels of TE Coach Joe Rudolph apparently going to be promoted (and get a bump in pay) to stay at Wisconsin.

Close the book on those guys and move on to other speculation and crazy rumors.

Weeelllllll….

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Spoiler alert: No.

I do get it. I do get the logic and how it can be arrived at that point, but the reasons for it not happening are just too overwhelming. Granted I was wrong on whether Pitt would actually fire Wannstedt. I was wrong on thinking that FraudGraham’s sales patter was irrelevant — as long as there were results. So maybe my track record on what to expect regarding Pitt football coaching activities are less than impressive.

Wait. Let’s start over. I seemed to have digressed.

There was the early rumor/nugget buried in what was a Penn State story:

Bradley repeated Monday he will stick with the program “until the end.”

However, he has said he expects to have other opportunities for a coaching job.

One may emerge at Pitt, if the timing is right. Bradley is on a short list of contenders to serve as defensive coordinator for new Panthers coach Paul Chryst, sources said. Chryst finished his tenure as Wisconsin’s offensive coordinator Monday in the Rose Bowl against Oregon.

Sure it was a Trib PSU beat reporter reporting that nugget, but maybe there was something.

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After an entertaining as hell Rose Bowl, Paul Chryst gets to take the reins at Pitt. Before that game even finished, news leaked of another coach being hire — unofficially of course.

It’s not going to be an earth-shattering, wow type of hire. Instead, it is a guy with long ties to both Chryst and to the local high school scene.

Chris Haering, who won a WPIAL football championship as Mt. Lebanon’s coach, is headed to the college level.

Haering resigned today to become an assistant coach at Pitt under new coach Paul Chryst. Haering was at Mt. Lebanon for 17 seasons and also coached Hampton for one season. He was a social studies teacher at Mt. Lebanon and won the WPIAL Class AAAA title in 2000.

Haering handed in his letter of resignation today and also met with Mt. Lebanon’s players (he didn’t pull a Todd Graham).

“You’ll have to talk to him, but if you’re asking my opinion, it’s just the right situation for him,” said Mt. Lebanon athletic director John Grogan. “I think he’s had a relationship with [Chryst] for a long time. The fact that he wouldn’t have to move his family I think also played a big role in this.”

Haering played for WVU in the late 80s. His time overlapped while Chryst was a Grad Assistant with the Hoopies.

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Time for another Volvo Challenge. Reminder, keep voting for me. I’m not worried about getting the most votes, I just need to have a presence to have a shot.  This one could be considered a bit more obvious in the marketing side.

Create the Ultimate Pitt Volvo S60 — How would you customize a Volvo S60 to show your school spirit?

I’m okay with this, because it isn’t like I haven’t thought about what I’d like my Volvo S60 to look like and the little extras

Let’s start with the basic appearance. Now, tempting though it may be to get a custom paint job with Royal Blue and a Mustard Yellow Pitt Script on the hood, that just isn’t realistic for me. I’m a little too low key for that. So the whole racing stripe addition for that 70s-retro look is as out as custom Wannstedt Camero.

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Or hold on to the ball?

Ashton Gibbs has been really bad at 3-point shooting since having to take over point guard duties. That has become glaringly noticeable during this three game slide. He is a dismal 3-16 (18.75%) in the past three games. Sadly enough, no one else is helping. The rest of the team is shooting 5-32 (15.63%). In fact all but one of those 3s came from Lamar Patterson — and he had three of his four last night. Wright, Moore and Johnson have combined to be 1-14 during this losing streak.

Just as maddening as the missed 3s, though, are the turnovers. It isn’t exactly a huge leap of faith to suggest that Pitt would have won two of these past three games — regardless of the piss-poor 3-point shooting — if Pitt could have done somewhere approaching average against pressing defenses of Wagner and Cinci.

Heck, if they could have done either at a tolerable clip, Pitt wins both of those games. Maybe not with ease, but without the drama that accompanies this losing streak.

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Extra reason to tune in: Steven Adams will be at the Pete tonight.

Went over it earlier that while not technically a must-win game for Pitt, it is close. This early in the season, and Pitt really cannot afford another home loss.

Tray Woodall is out for the game tonight.

So, any hope of Ashton Gibbs getting something close to moderate rest is probably out the window.

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