Just for fun and on the day before the Spring Game I’d like to, again, throw out a few “Mic’d Up” links for you guys to watch while you are screwing around at work on a Friday afternoon.  These come off the PITT Spring Football Insider website and they are shot and recorded in 720p HD.

These are great slice of life looks at our new staff and how they go about relating to and coaching their unit’s players.  I’ll list them from latest to earliest but they are all interesting and informative.

4/12:    (3:40m)     WR Coach Bobby Engram.  You have to laugh a little at the 2:35 mark when he pulls Devin Street and tells him that he should get with Sunseri and practice the deep ball.  You just know there was a massive steam buildup about to explode from Street’s ears right then.  At the 2:48 mark Engram mentions someone named “Jules” and I can’t figure out who that is.

4/5:      (2:40m)     OC Joe Rudolph.  You can see from this clip that Rudolph like teaching the fundamentals and is a stickler for the smallest details.  Watch at the 1:08 mark when he’s running the TEs through blocking drills, then his work with the offensive lineman right afterward.

3/29:    (3:58m)     DC Dave Huxtable.  This guy is having fun out there and you can see how the defensive players respond to him.  Check out his verbal outburst at the 0:28 -0:45 mark and tell me if that doesn’t sound like a Saturday Night Live caricature of a football coach.  I love it though.

At the 1:33 mark he sees his DB make an INT and gets the guys fired up.  He gives some individual teaching to Dan Mason at the 1:53 mark along with a feather’s touch of discipline.  He and Chryst exchange a few words on the defense at the 3:18 mark and apparently Chryst is impressed.

Watch the last part of the film more than once from 3:22 on.  Look at the faces on those kids when he huddles them up to close practice.  What we see right there are players having fun again out on the practice field and just eating up the energy Huxtable gives off.  It’s good to see.

3/22:    (3:19)        HC Paul Chryst.  Chryst isn’t the type of guy to spend the first five minutes of practice telling his players how great they are like our last guy.  He gets them together then gets them to work.  No nonsense and straight forward.

At the 0:30 mark he’s watching the kids go through ball protection drills and changes it to include a burst at the end to a TD.  He’s telling the kids “You did the hard work now go enjoy it!!”  At the 2:09 mark he throws a dig at Bryan Murphy and, to give the kid credit, he’s honest with the coach.

The Spring Game is being played at The North Hills HS Martorelli stadium this year.  Here is the info on it put out by the PITT Sports Information Department.  A bunch of us posters are getting together at one of the Park & Ride lots a few hours before the game.  We’ll be in the corner of the northern most Park & Ride lot (closest to the stadium and by Phil’s Citgo station) and I hope to see some of you all there.  I’ll be the tall (6’6”) guy with a DW style mustache (who looks like this) passing out Rolling Rock beer and I’ll have a friend with me who has dreadlocks down to his ass.

Stop by if you can…