When they post them I’ll put up links to the Big East interviews of players and coaches. After the interim and associate commissioners took their turns to start Big East Media Day, the Big East Coaches all got turns at the podium. Let’s just say that Chryst won the award for brevity. He got up there said a few words and was done. It really did seem to be a blink and you will miss this situation. The contrast between him and Fraud Graham is very obvious at times. None more so than when it comes to getting in front of a group and a camera. Right now it’s refreshing, charming, and looked at as a positive. “He’s a coach. He doesn’t care about the self-promotion and wasting time with the other BS. He gets “it.” It’s refreshing…”
It’s also real easy to see how that can be turned against him if things don’t go right. “He doesn’t get it. It’s not just the coaching, but selling the program and what he wants to do. It’s not helping recruiting. He’s alienating the fans with his unwillingness to engage…” He might want to give Walt Harris a call and see if he can get some pointers about what to avoid on that respect.
Let me echo (in a variation) the comments Paul Zeise made about “rooting” for the Big East’s survival. I’m rooting for the football schools in the Big East to survive. USF, Louisville, Rutgers, Cinci and even UConn. They’ve been stuck in the same boat as Pitt for a while. And their path really doesn’t get any easier. They’re stuck in the conference because there is no other choice right now. These aren’t programs that haven’t put any effort into their football and sports. They aren’t coasting on the conference. Yet they are stuck. It could very easily have been Rutgers or UConn heading to the ACC instead of Pitt or Cuse, and we’d be bemoaning Pitt’s plight.
Yeah, I have nothing but contempt for most of the conference framework. The basketball-side that controls too much. The continuing kow-towing to Notre Dame. Even that chunk of media that somehow romanticizes the Big East of the 80s as something pure — when it was created solely to make money for the programs and try to shield basketball-only schools from the growing power of college football. And the host of other issues.
That doesn’t mean I want the football schools screwed.
