More of the same.

Goodman is visiting Seton Hall tomorrow — they actually have an open scholarship for 2012.

He is still working on setting visits to Pitt and UNLV (don’t let him near Khem Birch).

His high school coach, Rob Moore, seems to be the spokesman at this point. Swears he is going to be deciding soon and it will be for 2012.

“The kid is looking to start school in June and be on campus somewhere working towards a degree so this process is going to move very quickly,” Moore told SNY.tv Thursday.

Of course right after that he then rattled off a list of other schools that are trying to get him and Goodman has not ruled out considering: West Virginia, UCLA, USC, St. John’s, Gonzaga, Temple and now SMU with Larry Brown.

Yet at the same time no one is ruling out him heading to prep school for a year.

Look, I love the talent and potential of Goodman. Everything in scouting reports about him suggest what a good fit he and his game would be for Pitt and the style of play.

At the same time, I’m beginning to see him as a diminishing return. To get him, Pitt would have to drive someone off the team at a late date. Something I’m not wild to see happen, and from a team chemistry standpoint could be a big problem. Both in terms of the trust of the players towards Coach Dixon and towards how they would view Goodman.

Plus — and this is just speculation on my part — it sure seems that Goodman is drawing this out to a ridiculous level either out of ego or in the belief/hope that an even bigger name will offer him.

Coach Paul Chryst is still a relatively blank canvas. Sure he’s been an outstanding Offensive Coordinator, but we have no idea how he will translate to being the head coach. We can project. We can believe. We can hope. But we don’t know.

Neither does anyone else. And one of the primary time-killers in the spring and summer months for college football media are lists. Best coaches, best hires, best players by position, etc. Then you can break them down by conference.

That’s where we are at right now. Lists.

Athlon, usually one of the first-to-the-market publishers of preview guides has a rather bizarre ranking of the Big East Coaches. Why is it bizarre? Consider that it includes the present members for the upcoming season, but also tosses the future members as well. This despite being a list just for this year. That means it is a list of 15 coaches rather than 8. Er… I realize expansiopocolypse can be confusing and convoluted, but this just seems silly.

(more…)

Positionally speaking, not geographically. We already covered that.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure that Coach Paul Chryst is looking to stock the lines with this recruiting class. Chris Dokish has a rundown on the recruiting targets for the entire offense and defense. He highlights specific players Pitt is or should be looking to get.

A good compliment to work with that, PantherLair (Rivals.com) has the scholarship board showing how many and what level of eligibility is at each position for Pitt. Chris Peak offers some thoughts on what the board shows.

By the numbers, Pitt’s deepest position is the offensive line with 14 players, but there are qualifiers that go with that figure.

The offensive line is front-loaded with upperclassmen; seven of the 14 linemen are juniors or seniors, and four more are sophomores. There is one redshirt freshman (center Artie Rowell) and two true freshmen (Adam Bisnowaty and Gabe Roberts) joining this summer. That leaves Pitt dangerously low at a position where it’s ideal to have numbers in every class, thus making the offensive line a recruiting priority in both quality and quantity.

The defensive line is also in need of prioritizing, especially at defensive tackle where the coaching upheaval of the past year plus has screwed the recruiting for that position (i.e., decommits).

(more…)