First off, I’m sorry to say that I will not be making it to the Blue-Gold game this year. My wife’s uncle passed away last month and the interment is being held on Saturday. Apparently no one thought to consult with me as to what weekend would be best to do this. Naturally since this is the first spring game I will miss in a few years, the weather is supposed to be close to pleasant. Temps in the mid-to-upper-60s and a less than 50% chance of any rain. Please try and track down Reed and his group in one of the Park-and-Ride lots where they are tailgating and have a beer with them.

Hopefully some of you will be heading to the Dessert Tasting for a Cause event. A charitable event put together by Torrie Cox, Kris Wilson and Lousaka Polite. Three Panthers from the Walt Harris era that stay close to Pitt. It’s impressive when you take into account that Cox and Wilson are not from Pittsburgh and don’t make their home in the ‘Burgh — and while Polite is from the area, he now lives in Florida. But they keep coming back. Staying part of Pitt’s family.  Sam Clancy, Ruben Brown and Scott McKillop will also be attending. Looks like a pretty good menu (PDF).

I don’t care if the coach is in his first year or has been there as long as Frank Beamer, every head coach will tell you that spring practice went too quick and not enough was accomplished. Isn’t that right, Coach Chryst?

“It went too fast,” Chryst said of spring drills, which will end Saturday with the Blue-Gold scrimmage at North Hills` Martorelli Stadium. “Achieve everything? Probably no, but it`s been good. I just wish we had more (time).”

Of course you do.

Plenty of injured players, and at least the secondary has depth.

There are 10 injured players who have practiced sparingly or not at all this spring. They include six starters from a season ago: running back Ray Graham, receiver Mike Shanahan, guard Chris Jacobson, safety Jarred Holley, linebacker Todd Thomas and cornerback K`Waun Williams. Four others — linebacker Ejuan Price, defensive tackle Tyrone Ezell, receiver Ronald Jones and running back Malcolm Crockett — played significant snaps in 2011. All are expected to return sometime this season.

The bright spots include what looks like an embarrassment of riches at safety and developing depth at cornerback that excites coaches one day and distresses them the next. Pitt has four safeties — seniors Andrew Taglianetti and Holley, redshirt sophomore Ray Vinopal and redshirt junior Jason Hendricks — who have starting experience. Before transferring, Vinopal was a starter at Michigan for part of the 2010 season.

Who starts? Who sits? No one knows or cares at this point.

Ray Vinopal may very well displace Hendricks. Vinopal has been a standout all spring.

“Right now, I feel they’re selecting their group of guys they feel are going to be contributors this fall,” Vinopal said in a recent phone interview. “I want to show them I’m in that group of contributors, and I’ll do what I’m coached to do. I’ll play hard, and I want to be on the field.”

Vinopal already has game experience, having appeared in every game for the Wolverines as a true freshman in 2010. But he made the decision to transfer after the semester ended, in part because he was unhappy with the coaching staff. Gibson had recruited Vinopal to Michigan but left for Pitt after the 2010 season.

Vinopal also said Michigan was too far from his family home in Ohio, and he just did not feel he fit in on campus.

“It wasn’t my ideal place,” Vinopal said. “Football was going great, but I didn’t feel Ann Arbor was a place I wanted to live the next three, four years of my life. I talked to my parents, and they agreed that was a pretty big aspect. You’ve got to love where you are in college.”

Pitt never offered him a scholarship out of high school, but with Gibson in place, he had a natural connection and decided to transfer to the Panthers. Vinopal sat out the required one-year waiting period because of NCAA rules, and used that time to improve his strength, quickness and physical training, while becoming more well-versed on how to play the game.

Sitting out after transferring was probably the best thing for Vinopal, in terms of a chance to gain strength and develop. He was forced to start and play for Michigan as a freshman because their secondary was decimated by injuries and other problems. He was not a highly sought after recruit. Aside from a late offer from Michigan, his offers were from the MAC. Pitt may very well have benefited from DickRod’s staff’s desperation for recruits and/or recognizing a diamond in the rough.

Ah, the O-line. Well, the starting five seems okay. And technically when Chris Jacobson comes back in training camp, Pitt will have six players on the O-line with some trust, experience and belief in their overall competence. After that…

Offensive line depth isn’t one of the team’s strengths.

“I think there are some guys who are trying, but I am not happy with that part of it (the depth) at all,” [Offensive line coach Jim] Hueber said. “Some of these young guys have not stepped up like I thought they would.”

The problem: The backups have almost no experience. Guard Arthur Doakes, who played in six games last year, earned a letter, but tackles Tom Ricketts (a Penn State transfer) and junior college transfer Zenel Demhasaj (redshirt) didn’t play.

Most of the remainder of the reserves, with the exception of senior tackle and converted tight end Justin Virbitsky, are redshirt freshmen and sophomores.

I admit some surprise that Ricketts doesn’t seem to be having much of an impact. He was a consensus 4-star recruit (albeit, with potentially inflated rankings because he chose Penn State). Yet he is at best a question mark on the depth chart. A real surprise when you have tackle Matt Rotheram — who was coming off of a left ankle fracture — still able to beat him. And the other tackle to beat is Juantez Hollins.

No surprise that Rotheram along with the rest of the O-line is happy to be done with the spread offense.

The Panthers are going back to the pro-style offense rather than the spread attack favored by former coach Todd Graham. That means that the interior linemen will have the help of tight ends and a fullback and that should help ease some concerns about the inexperience.

“It is a comfort thing with me to have a tight end next to me, taking away that edge from me because now defensive ends have to think about what we’re going to do,” Rotheram said. “And then to have the help of a fullback chipping guys coming off the edge — it really is going to be a great scheme for what we like to do. Basically, it will be nice to go out and look for guys to hit as opposed to the spread, where a lot of times we were standing around waiting to get hit.”

While O-line coach Jim Hueber is well-experienced and a bit on the crusty side. He is also popular with the beat writers as a quote machine.

“It is tough love,” Rotheram said, “but if he is not growling at you and pushing you, it means he isn’t thinking about you or doesn’t like you. He pushes us because he wants us to be the best we can be and he knows we can be better than we are. He is a fantastic teacher, a great coach.”

…

Hueber said Jacobson will be a guard, but he will have to beat out one of the two guards who have manned the starting positions this spring.

“I’m not going to give anybody the job, including [Jacobson], and he knows it,” Hueber said. “My No. 1 thing is, I want to see him come out and see him able to perform the first day, no hesitation, no nothing else. But he would even tell you that there are some days up and down right now where you can see a difference in what kinds of things he can do with his leg.

“We just need to see where he is and throw him in the middle of it and give him a chance, but we’re not going to give anybody the job.”

Assuming Jacobson is close to 100% when he comes back, it’s unlikely he won’t reclaim a starting job.

Finally, the Pitt Athletics store has a 20% off sale going until April 22. Just use the code: SPRING12

Looks like Nike is rolling out some Script Pitt stuff.