Nothing like the chaos leading up to a holiday. Kids trying to finish projects, work stuff that needs to be done before a couple days. So, just hit some links and thoughts.

Devin Street and Aaron Donald have no plans to turn pro. Uh, great. Not thinking Donald would anyways, but Street is still a possibility. I hate these questions when there are still games to play. There’s no way to give a good answer. Street probably won’t but there is still a chance.

A few articles on Dorian Johnson’s verbal to Pitt, but only one has the quote that might make me relax a little on the commitment.

“I won’t be taking any visits to any other schools,” he said.

Ahhhh.

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So… It looks like that whole clever plan to bring in the best remaining recruits to the WPIAL to Pitt on a weekend when they don’t actually have to see Pitt play football is paying off.

Just heard it from the man himself: Dorian Johnson has committed to #Pitt

— Chris Peak (@PantherLair) November 19, 2012

This was first leaked on twitter by several other 2013 commits to Pitt.

This was huge, surprising and welcome.

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I am starting to think that expansiopocolypse won’t end until we have a “conference” of 64 teams, divided into 5 divisions and each division bifurcated into two sections.

The latest shots fired come from the Big 10, in what can only be considered to be their biggest “all about the money” move in this never-ending program shifting.

The University of Maryland is in serious negotiations to join the Big Ten Conference, sources told ESPN on Saturday.

If Maryland goes from the ACC to the Big Ten, Rutgers of the Big East is expected to follow suit. The addition of Maryland and Rutgers would give the Big Ten 14 members as the league gears toward negotiations on a new media rights deal when its first-tier rights expire in 2017.

No date has been set for a potential announcement, though it could come as soon as Monday. The Maryland board of regents will meet at 9 a.m. Monday morning to decide on the move, a source with direct knowledge told ESPN.com Sunday morning.

But there is not a consensus among athletic department officials. The source said the school is leaning toward the move but there is still time for the school to decide to stay in the ACC.

Except the biggest homers for Maryland and Rutgers — no one is pretending that this possibility is about anything other than money. Specifically, the Big Ten Network (BTN).

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I could only “watch” in the live gamecast. No noise. Nothing. Silent agony. I writhed and contorted in the chair as the score seemed more dire and time got shorter. Not even bothering with Twitter or anything outside of that single screen. Matching the silence from the “game,” I said nothing. No shouting at a miss that could have happened a minute, two minutes, seconds before. Just tense silence.

The sips of my double IPA becoming drinks, becoming gulps. No joy taken from the resiny nose and the flavor. It could have been anything, as long as it helped to dull the emotions. I’d pay for this later. The impotent frustration of not even being able to see what was going wrong.

Scanning and rescanning the box score. Looking to see if there was anything that gave a glimmer of hope. Extremely poor shooting from the outside. Oakland shooting well — or at least getting good looks it would seem. Were the Golden Grizzlies having a hot shooting night? Was the defense playing poorly? Was Oakland packing it in against Pitt, daring them to shoot jumpers? Was Pitt simply settling?

Trying to figure out if this was a let-down game after rolling Lehigh, or a look-past game as the team thought about the Wednesday game with Michigan and the trip to Madison Square Garden. Did it matter? It wasn’t looking like a win would happen. An inexplicable home loss to a good mid-major, but in the end still a team from the Summit League. A game that seemed like a mere formality to another good start. Set to become a debacle.

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You may have seen the note at the bottom of the article on the O-line on Darius Patton being dead. Patton signed with Pitt in 2011. Patton was a speedy, undersized receiver expected to have a significant role down the line in FraudGraham’s offense. While he did see some action as a freshman, his most notable incident was collapsing in training camp — for reasons never disclosed. He left the team this past spring for –again — undisclosed reasons. The reasonable assumption being that he decided that he wouldn’t fit in the offense Chryst was running. Yet he did not end up at another school.

Sadly, it appears that it was a suicide.

The death was confirmed a suicide by Southwest Regional Police Chief Riley Smoot, who said police were called to the residence at 7:13 a.m.

The official time of death was 8:06 a.m. Mercer County Coroner J. Bradley McGonigle ruled the cause of death asphyxiation by hanging.

Patton was a 2011 graduate of Poland High School where he played football and basketball, and ran track for two years. Considered the Mahoning Valley’s top football prospect for the 2011 class, Patton earned a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh.

In his mother’s house, which had to be unbelievably tragic if she was the one to find him.

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No official word from Pitt (yet), but yesterday was the start of the college basketball early signing period.

24/7 Sports is reporting (though the story is behind a paywall), that both Mike Young and Josh Newkirk have signed with Pitt.

Josh Newkirk also tweeted out a photo of his signing day late last night.

With John Johnson’s departure, Pitt will definitely have one extra scholarship available. Pitt is still pursuing center BeeJay Anya. Regardless of whether Pitt gets Anya or not, Coach Jamie Dixon has shown he won’t just sit on a scholarship for a year. So, expect it to be used for 2013.

Only a two or three regular season games left on the schedule for many teams. The coaching carousel is getting warmed up for the latest whirl.

In Tennessee where, um, clearer heads are mostly aware that they won’t get Kevin Sumlin, Urban Meyer, and of course Jon Gruden; that leaves speculating on who they can get. And to what lengths they are willing to stoop (they are also not getting Bob Stoops).

Arizona State coach Todd Graham doesn’t need a dream to change jobs after a year. He already has Kiffined two programs, first Rice in 2006 and then Pittsburgh in 2011.

After last season, he told Panthers players goodbye via email and rushed off to Arizona State. All he left behind was a nickname: “Mr. All Talk Then Walk.”

Actually, he’s not all talk. He was 7-6 at Rice, 36-17 at Tulsa, and is now 5-5 at Arizona State, which returned only eight starters and has had four consecutive losing seasons.

If the Vols’ coaching search turns desperate — and they’re not above Kiffining somebody — Graham could be their guy.

/derisive snort

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It should be easy to tamp down some the excitement and revised expectations for Pitt after only three games. They were all home games. The first two were against clearly overmatched teams that no one will confuse with mid-major giant-slayers. The second-half rout of Lehigh was nice, but it’s not like the Mountain Hawks were sneaking up on anyone. Not this year. The first real test (and possibly the only one of the non-con) comes on Wendesday at Madison Square Garden against number 5, Michigan. Then, and only then should the expectations be reconsidered.

And yet…

I am having a hard time not being really excited for the possibilities of this squad. The way they dismantled Lehigh in the second half after a back-and-forth first half was thorough and complete. They shut the McCollum and the rest of Lehigh down on offense and were having their way with them on the other end. It wasn’t a short blitz that put the game out of reach. It was a methodical beatdown over the first 10+ minutes of the second half.  Seeing so many players not only contributing, but being part of the team as they beat them was something.

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Pitt rolled the Rams as expected. As the game was decided early, with J.J. Moore enjoying an outstanding game, much side conversation quickly turned to the status of John Johnson.

Johnson made his displeasure at not getting any playing time on Friday — and having Coach Jamie Dixon explain it away as him being a little under the weather. It surprised few that rumors swirled over the weekend that he was planning a transfer. Now it is official that he is doing so.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said he and Johnson talked several times and that he plans to help the Philadelphia native find another school. Minutes may have been hard to come by for Johnson, as this appears to be one of Dixon’s deepest teams.

“We’ve got a lot of good players and a lot of good guards,” Dixon said.

And that was the problem for Johnson. Despite his own confidence in his abilities, he isn’t as good or experienced as the guys in front of him.

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Not sure what kind of crowd will be on-hand for the doubleheader tonight. Fordham-Pitt at 6pm, Lehigh-Robert Morris to follow. But there is that Monday night game at Heinz Field. Granted the Steelers should kill the Chiefs, but it’s the Steelers playing football so you know where most of the local interest lies.

It’s hard not to look past the Fordham Rams. They have been a perennial cellar dweller in the A-10. They dropped their season opener to the Texas State Armadillos Bobcats. By 10. Their best player, by far,  is senior forward Chris Gaston. He has averaged a double-double for them over his entire career, along with well over 30 minutes a game. They have no real bench as four players averaged more than 30 minutes in the opening game.

Tom Pecora, who was hired from Hofstra a few years ago, is a Jay Wright disciple. He was on staff at Hofstra under Wright and took over the Dutchmen Pride when Wright went to Villanova. Pecora, by all accounts, is a solid coach (and a nice guy) and he has improved the Rams since taking over the program. Still, they should not be a huge challenge.

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There’s plenty of good to recap from last night’s 80-48 win over Mount Saint Mary. There’s plenty to admire in Cam Wright having his best game, when he decided to play as a way to honor his father. The father that passed away that day. And I’ll get to that. Unfortunately, all of that had to be marred by petulance from John Johnson.

When friends on Twitter asked about the game he answered their questions.

Friend: “Yo bro, you didn’t play?”

Johnson: nah cuz, smh (shaking my head)

On Wednesday, Johnson sent out some cryptic messages. “Basketball is more political than the election.”

Here’s another: “Hard work doesn’t always pay off.”

And this is why college athletic departments have employees whose jobs are to monitor the Twitter accounts of athletes.

It’s easy to understand Johnson’s frustrations. He is watching a true freshman come in and start ahead of him. And according to Dixon, Johnson made great strides over the summer in his transition to point guard. Dixon praised him last Friday after Pitt’s second exhibition game.

It may not even be the fact that James Robinson is starting. Or Cam Wright playing more minutes than expected. Trey Zeigler seemed to be slipping because of defense, but he got the minutes (and played well).

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You won’t get the Pitt coaches or players to admit they were still emotionally back in South Bend. No. There was no hangover from that loss. No matter what everyone else saw, it just happened to be a coincidence that Pitt came out looking like they didn’t want to be in Connecticut.

“We came out too sluggish,” said running back Ray Graham, who was held to 41 yards on 15 carries, his second-lowest output this season. “We just were too flat. Definitely give credit to them, but we stopped ourselves.”

Coach Paul Chryst said he didn’t sense lingering effects from the tough loss to Notre Dame last Saturday.

“UConn outexecuted us,” he said.

Do you know what made the game just that much more upsetting? What kept pissing me off more than anything else?

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A game to test your love of Pitt football, I guess. 4-5 Pitt versus 3-6 UConn. 1 Big East win between the two of them. I know. Really selling this one.

I figure between watching the basketball game and what I need to drink to get through this game, I just can’t bring myself to try and do a liveblog tonight.

The bright side to a Friday night game. I can just sit back and enjoy Saturday games. Can flick to another game if one gets boring. No need to stay tied to the one game.

Hopefully the team comes out a little more fired up for the game than I am.

Pitt starts its season against the Mount Saint Mary’s Mountaineers (no, really, that is their name). In case you are wondering, playing those other Mountaineers, still unlikely in the near future.

There has been no movement for Pitt to play West Virginia in the near future in either football or men’s basketball. Scheduling in the Big 12 and the ACC could prevent the two schools from renewing their rivalry. Pitt has a pecking order in football of keeping Penn State first. And in men’s basketball the Panthers must keep a game with Duquesne. West Virginia’s nine-game schedule in the Big 12 and Pitt’s preference for Penn State first make it more difficult. The best-case scenario for this rivalry to continue would be for the two schools to come up with a similar solution to Florida and Florida State. The two Sunshine State rivals play a basketball game on the same weekend they play a football game. Creating a one-weekend event would make the most sense — if the two sides could agree to a format and possible site rotation.

As I’ve stated several times, given WVU’s looming travel bills. Pitt becomes a very important team to get on the schedule. Not sure when, but the two will play again in basketball before it happens in football.

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Okay, so that final visit to Nippert didn’t go so well. Next up on the farewell to Big East venues tour: the Rent.

Rentschler Field does not hold happy memories for Pitt and Pitt fans. It has been the scene of — and I say this with a lot less hyperbole than you may think — career defining losses for two Pitt coaches. Paul Chryst has already had his share this season, so it would be nice to avoid adding to the collection.

UConn isn’t good, but that has never stopped them from making life miserable for Pitt. To the surprise of few, Paul Pasqualoni has struggled to win and recruit at UConn. And the Husky fans, not particularly enamored with the hire two years ago, really dislike the situation at the present. Apathy and flat out ignoring the existence of football has quickly become the norm once more in Connecticut.

Into this depression steps Pitt on a Friday night game with the randomness of the Rod Gilmore zone possibly effecting reality.

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