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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