There has been a lot of discussion about the quality of PITT’s QB play so far in spring ball and at this point it could help to fine tune the background info a bit.  Paul Zeise of the Post-Gazette has this to say about our two leading QBs:

The quarterback competition has been tough to follow because neither Mark Myers or Tino Sunseri has really distinguished himself in such a way that there is no contest. I thought by now we would see this happen but it has not. Both have shown flashes but Myers inexperience is easy to see as his decision making is not where it is supposed to be and Sunseri’s physical limitations have been well documented over the past two years and they aren’t going to change. I do think this offense will protect the quarterbacks much better than the last offense – which exposed them – so if either player can develop consistency they should be able to have some success.

That may be a bit more negative than I am and there is a contest regardless of the respective quality, but his observations aren’t far off.  I’m not giving up on anyone though, either Sunseri or Myers at this point…

Going back to last season some PITT fans stated that Myers was being “over-hyped” and had not fulfilled expectations; that is all on the fan’s shoulders IMO.  His national QB rating by the three major scouting services was, off the top of my head, #11, #32 and #103.  They were all over the map with him because he only started one year of HS ball and because scouts saw different strengths and weaknesses in his game.

If you look at what ESPN.com said of him you’ll understand more about what we now realize he was like coming out of HS…

ESPN.com (insider sub) wrote this:

Myers is tall, strong pro-style quarterback prospect who has some good physical tools to develop at the college level. The lefty is bit raw and may be a late bloomer on the recruiting trail. Has very good size for a pocket-passer and better than adequate arm-strength. Big, strong kid who … 

Scout.com saw him a bit differently:

“Has good size and understanding of the game. Makes sound decisions and takes care of the football. Has good accuracy and hits his receivers in stride. Displays good touch and placement on his passes. Footwork and mechanics can be tweaked, which will help him generate more velocity. Has excellent poise and intangibles.”

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For all the deserved mockery the CBI gets, is there anyone that doesn’t want Pitt to win? Is there anyone so full of bile that they don’t want Nasir Robinson, Ashton Gibbs and Nick Rivers to have their final game at the Pete end in victory? I hope not.

The big takeaway so far in the CBI has been seeing other players take advantage of this post-season exhibition time. Coach Dixon has given them minutes and encouraged them to be more aggressive. Whether you buy into this being a potential springboard or helping them for next year, the players have bought into it.

“They weren’t as confident during the season,” Patterson said, “but I feel they’re gaining confidence right now. That’s going to help us going into next year.”

This wasn’t the tournament Pitt had hoped to play in, but since the Panthers are here, they’re trying to use it as a boost for next season.

“I think we’re getting them in a situation that will help us down the road,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “It’s great to see them emerge.”

The Panthers want to finish this season with a win, too.

“I didn’t try to think about it (possibly) being my last game,” said senior Nasir Robinson, who scored 10 points. “I just wanted to keep fighting for my team.”

With this the third game in 5 days, there won’t be many surprises from either team. At this point, both teams know what the other will want to do.

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Pitt Blather began back in 2003. You know the one consistent thing on this blog in relation to the football team? The one thing that has carried over regardless of who was the coach?

Being worried about the O-line. Even in years where the O-line was pretty good, there were always major questions going into the season. Some things never change, no matter how much we wish otherwise.

The makeup of the offensive line remains constant — tackles Juantez Hollins and Matt Rotheram, guards Cory King and Ryan Schlieper and center Ryan Turnley — but progress is slow.

“It’s nowhere close to where we want to be,” coach Paul Chryst said. “At any of these practices, you can pick out clips and say we’re starting to get it and then others where you can say, ‘Boy, guys, this isn’t very good.’ That is kind of typical of this time of year.”

Chryst said sixth-year senior guard Chris Jacobson is progressing well in his rehabilitation from knee surgery and could return to practice this summer.

“Certainly we will be a better team with him,” Chryst said.

And when the QB position is this shaky, it just makes it hard to be sure any style of offense will be productive at the moment.

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As a follow up for the last piece I wrote about the current camp, here is an anthology of media clips which can give you some background, with sights and sounds, to the 2012 PITT spring practice experience.

Because there is so much info about PITT football floating around I thought it might be helpful to use PITT’s  ‘one stop shop’ to see and hear the latest on how the spring practice is progressing.

As they did last season, the PITT SID department has produced some professional quality shows and video clips as advertising for the program and the upcoming season.  They offer them under the umbrella of their spring practice website – Spring Camp Insider.  It is a compendium of new releases, local media articles, radio interviews, video clips and the Pitt Spring Football Insider Shows. 

These shows are between 19 minutes and 28 minutes long and provide a mixture of players and coaches interviews, practice film clips and commentary by Jon Burton and Pat Bostick.  Content is added to this site every day and I suggest you bookmark it to check for new stuff.  The shows and films are shot in HD with great audio and, as stated above, are expertly done.

In additions to the excerpts below the Spring Camp Insider site list many staff interviews which I think helps to give us fans an idea of who the coaches are and what they are like.

So, here is a list of what I found most beneficial to a PITT fan to get up to speed about how the camp is going so far.  I’ve included hyperlinks and some personal notes on things I think can enlighten us fans in our discussions.  I’ll list them from latest to oldest…

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I’ve gotten most of my say regarding the officiating out of my system. The only thing I’ll add is that I’m stunned to see the sanitizing of the officiating in the print accounts of the game. Not even a slight hint of it, with use of “dubious” or “questionable” regarding the intentional foul call in the final seconds in the stories. But then again, the Trib story refers to it as a flagrant foul — which I guess can happen when you send a guy who doesn’t follow much more than hockey this time of the year.

The good news is that Pitt was much better defending the 3-point shot this time out. Abe Lodwick was given very limited space and Washington really had to work for their shots in this game. Pitt definitely was  little more patient on defense in this game. They were getting frustrated in the second half with Reggie Moore getting to the free throw line by driving to the basket.

This game was different for Pitt since Ashton Gibbs was out with an ankle injury. There have been reports all season that he had an ankle bothering him, so maybe that played into his poor play in the last few games. Not to mention a sour look on his face. If he was fighting through the pain to play. At least, maybe, that’s what I’d like to think was happening.

Without Gibbs, the one big issue was trying to spell Tray Woodall. Or not spelling him. In the first half, twice Coach Dixon trotted out Isiah Epps and John Johnson to be in the backcourt for two minute spells that could be combined with media timeouts. Pitt survived but looked very shaky. The team’s movement stopped and no one was sure what to do on offense. The coaches noticed, and Woodall played the entire second half. Woodall also had a nasty split he performed when he tried planting one foot on the “Zebra Pen” sticker-sign temporarily placed on the court, mid-way through the 1st half. It looked painful, and given his injuries this year, probably felt even worse. Those two factors definitely impacted Woodall in the second half. Woodall scored all of his points in the first half and was 0-7 in the second half.

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I never thought I would write this, but I wish Tim Higgins and Jim Burr could be on the officiating crew for the final game of the CBI Championship. No. I’m not joking. I’ll get to the recap a little later. These morons deserve their own post.

I realize many of you didn’t see the game last night. Let’s jump ahead to the final seconds. Pitt has a 6-point lead after Lamar Patterson hit both free throws. There are under 15 seconds left. Washington State can’t mess around, despite their offense being slower than Pitt’s. They have to get a quick bucket. Pitt is not letting them. It is already under 10 seconds, so they do what they can to free a shooter. Forward Abe Lodwick literally plows through John Johnson in an attempt — I suppose — to provide a screen for Reggie Moore. Lodwick for extra emphasis puts a forearm into Johnson’s jaw. Johnson as he is being hit has his arms go around Lodwick. Legs tangling and Lodwick falls on top of Johnson. The whistle blows….

Intentional foul on John Johnson.

What?

Somehow the ref managed not to see Lodwick steamroll Johnson, and only saw Johnson “take down” Lodwick.

Courtesy of PantherSports, here is the video.

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I was planning a recap of the Monday night loss to Washington State for yesterday, but had some other things that needed getting done. Then I just started procrastinating.

Ray Fittipaldo’s post on it, summed a lot of the feelings up regarding the game.

I spent most of Monday working on an analysis of Pitt’s season —  what went wrong, what has to improve for the team to get back to the NCAA tournament next season — and my three basic points were all confirmed in the Panthers’ loss to Washington State in Game 1 of the CBI championship series later Monday night.

My three points —  a steep decline in the ability to defend, an almost complete lack of inside presence and point guard play  — were all factors in the loss.

Pitt’s defense was atrocious in the game. The perimeter defense, especially, was horrid. Leaving shooters uncovered all night. Yes Ashton Gibbs was still lousy on defense, but so was Moore, Patterson and just about everyone else.

For the first 35 minutes, there was no commitment to even attempt defense. It took until the final five minutes, when Pitt players realized that they weren’t going to win this game just shooting.

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Been meaning to get to this since it went down last week, but the firing of Ron Everhart by Duquesne is an interesting occurrence. A defensible decision in my view, that Duquesne managed to make into a massive mess.

To review the history, Everhart was hired back in 2006. He was one of three targets by Duquesne: Everhart, Jim Christian and John Groce. Groce was an Ohio St. assistant and didn’t want the job. Groce later opted for the Ohio University gig and is on the verge of becoming the Illinois head coach. Christian was the Kent State coach after Stan Heath, and is now the TCU head coach. Christian — who had been a Pitt assistant in the Willard error —  “withdrew” his name the day before Everhart was hired.

There was no question that Everhart was hired as much for his ties in the mucky recruiting world as it was for his turnaround history at McNeese St. and Northeastern. And when you look at where Duquesne was when he took over to where it is now, he has done a very good job of making them a competitive team once more. But Duquesne apparently wants more. You know, after all the focus they have put basketball after slashing the rest of their athletic department. Axing baseball, swimming and other sports.

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I had a chance to watch the Panthers practice today.  This is a long report on what I saw and heard so I’m going to split it into two different articles.  In this one I’ll talk about the practice in general, the offense and the offensive players.

First off, let’s talk about the general atmosphere at the Southside facilities…

I got down there about 45 minutes earlier than scheduled and had a chance to stand around in the parking lot and watch the players file past on their way into the indoor practice field.  The OLs were first out of the gate and they are big guys, Lumpy Jacobson actually looks to be the smallest of all of them.  The players were joking around and looked ready to get it underway.  8:00 a.m. and they were bouncing around and grab-assing.  I did get a lot of strange looks as I was unfamiliar to the football staff but as soon as I whipped out my PITT Blather credentials everyone backed off in fear.

The practice atmosphere is really night and day from last year. We visitors had free rein of the sidelines to move as the drills and scrimmage plays progressed up and down the field.  Last year visitors had to stand in a blocked off corner way down by the entry doors and we couldn’t see down field at all. Chryst has thrown the visitation wide open and hasn’t put any restrictions on the SID regarding who or how many may visit.  E. J. Borghetti is pleased in many ways, big time.

In the past, Todd Graham had the media and any visitors stay for only the first 45 minutes of each practice then he closed it off.  Chryst does the exact opposite and allows people stay for the whole practice session so the media doesn’t have to sit around for two hours waiting until they can do interviews after the practice is over.  Today’s session was scheduled for 2 hours and 15 minutes and went to almost three hours, open all the time

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I had a chance to watch the Panthers practice today.  This is a long report on what I saw and heard so I’m going to split it into two different articles. In this one I’ll talk about the defense and the defensive players…

DLs – Both Clemmings and Murphy looked ready to go, played hard and according to some observers who are watching practice every day they think Clemmings should get the Ed Conway Award as most improved player from last season. He’s had “great” spring camp and should show up when the games start.  Murphy is fast as hell for someone his size and is aggressive in his play.  He made a nice strip that caused a fumble on Bennett.  KK Smith has put on weight, a bunch of weight, but was still moving well. Hard to tell about Lippert and Hale – there was so much going on it was hard for a non-football guy to follow everything.  The coaches said that Hale was doing well so far but I couldn’t really tell.

LBs – What everyone wants to know:  Dan Mason was in on every drill and scrimmage play with the 1^st team.  He would start if the opener is tomorrow.  He looks a bit slower to me and not as explosive, but I’m no expert. It was weird to see a player run where there is no up and down movement of their foot. The “foot drop” brace he has on immobilizes the right foot so that it doesn’t drag when moving his leg forward and I think it affects his play.  There were some passes caught on crossing patterns where he was a step behind the receiver. But he also got into the back field on some plays so I think he’ll be somewhat different physically able when summer camp rolls around but his current ability is going to be a factor.  At least I think so.  Some others feel more optimistic.

The starting three LBs going into summer camp will probably be Mason in the middle with Todd Thomas and Shane Gordon on the outside.  Thomas is held out of practices for now and Ejuan Price isn’t getting the reps we thought he would.  Price’s publicly stating that he wants to play MLB rather than the other LB positions probably didn’t help his cause much with this new staff.

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There has to be concerns at this kind of news/rumor. Just trying to keep from hyperventilating.

We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It is never easy.

You know what’s really depressing? This may be the least depressing topic related to Pitt on which I write today.

The Big East was finally able to put out their schedule for 2012. That means we have dates for all of Pitt’s home and away games. Not to mention times and broadcast info for a chunk of them.

The good news: despite 3 weeknight games, none are at Heinz Field. Other good news. Aside from the Buffalo game, all of Pitt’s road games will be broadcast on either NBC, ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.

The bad news, aside from the home game with VT, the rest of the home games will at best be on the Big East syndicated broadcast. At worst, ESPN3.com. Other bad news, every home game looks like it will be (or should be) a nooner.

I guess the plus side for Pitt ticket sales, is that the lack of guaranteed TV coverage might be an extra incentive for people to buy ticket. Yeah, I’m grasping.

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It is about the only interesting twist on the CBI. When it comes time for the championship match-up it is not a one-game set where you can never be be sure who gets hot once. A best of three makes it a little more interesting. At least, that is what I’m telling myself.

10 pm Eastern for a game on the West Coast. The Washington State Cougars are possibly to probably down a key player tonight. Given the overall remoteness of Pullman Washington, the Cougars don’t get many visitors from the East Coast — especially the Big East.

After all, Pitt is about to become just the second current member of the Big East to play a game in Pullman, and the first since that conference was formed in 1979.

DePaul is the only current Big East team that has played a game here, losing 83-69 to WSU on Dec. 11, 1974.

“Pullman’s not a fun place to play,” for a visiting team, senior forward Abe Lodwick said. “It’s not an easy place to get to, either, so I understand why a lot of programs don’t come. It’ll be fun having a team with a big name on their chest coming in. We definitely want to represent ourselves and our school as best we can against them.”

“Playing Pitt here, it’s a big-name school coming in and giving us some publicity over on the East Coast for recruits and stuff,” said freshman guard DaVonte Lacy. “I think it’s a real good opportunity for us and hopefully we take advantage of it.”

The latter may be difficult without [forward Brock] Motum, who leads the team in scoring at 18 points per game. Coach Ken Bone said the junior forward has a “very slim chance” to play after spraining his right ankle early in WSU’s 72-55 semifinal win over Oregon State last week.

It’s on HDNet. Just going with the open thread and some life on Twitter for this.

There’s closer to 3 than 2 weeks of spring practices left, but Sunday was the 7th practice and there are only 15 practice days permitted for the spring. There’s going to be some more spacing between practices as scrimmages will take place and more recovery — and time for coaches to review the film — occurs. Time to catch-up after sparing some family time in between the NCAA Tournament watching over the weekend.

The beat writers are taking extra note of the amount of high school coaches in the area that are attending Pitt practices — not to mention ex-PSU DC Tom Bradley — along with a fair amount of recruits and kids who will be here in the fall.

One thing that is clear about Paul Chryst – he is being embraced by the high school coaches in Western Pennsyvlania and the reason is – he is open to them and he wants them to know he values them and values what they mean to Pitt. I’ve seen more high school coaches at these few spring practices than I did all of last year and all of them have said the same thing – they really like and respect Chryst because as one guy put it “he’s a football coach, not a publicity hound” That should help Pitt recruiting locally, though, ultimately Chryst has to win for Pitt to have a chance to win some of these local battles.

That will help, especially given Chryst is not exactly a recruiting dynamo that overwhelms recruits, and everyone else with his personality and sales job. Obviously the hiring of Haering from the local HS ranks helps, but Chryst’s willingness to talk and meet with them is the bigger part. Talking shop with them and treating them as equals goes a long way.

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This is a hell of a story. Seeing Dan Mason out there — and looking really good — is more than a little surprising.

Doctors initially told Mason it was highly doubtful he would return to play football. Mason refused to listen.

He underwent five operations and spent countless hours doing rehab, working on flexibility in his knee, cutting, strengthening and generating nerve function again. He was able to run at full speed eight months after the surgery and was able to return to the practice field last season.

But his participation was limited while he worked to regain his nerve function and he never played in a game.

“The toughest time for me was basically last football season,” he said. “I saw everybody getting ready to go out and play. I wanted to be out there, too. I wasn’t ready yet, so I had to sit back and watch. It was a hard time.”

He tried to be a coach on the field and then joined the scout team, beginning in Week 4. That allowed him to get in football shape and even take a few hits to his knee.

“It was on my mind a lot last year, and I was being cautious on what I was doing,” he said. “Now when I’m out there, I don’t even think about it. I go. I feel that good.”

That, however, is not the issue. Despite the numerous surgeries and gruesomeness of the injury, the knee is fine. It was fine last year. The issue is the nerve damage.

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