With the recent departures of Rippy and the Davis twins, the football team was under 85 scholarships. They wasted no time when they rewarded 5th year senior Desmond Brown with one. Needless to say, Brown was a happy camper and his teammates didn’t hesitate to congratulate him.
S/0 everybody showing me love right now!Y’all my motivation esp my teammates.,I do this for us!Now Lets go win this Acc championship! #H2P
— Desmond Brown (@Des_brown30) May 14, 2013
This is great news for Desmond, the younger brother of Pittsburgh Steelers WR Antonio Brown. Desmond took advantage of Rushel Shell’s departure and was easily the second best back in the Spring Game. There’s no sense in wasting an open scholarship and Desmond is certainly a player who deserves it. It’s also advantageous that he’s a senior so there’s no pressure to keep him on scholarship next season. Still, it’s a great honor to be 1 of 85 players on a team to earn a scholarship. Send some praise to Desmond on twitter for his accomplishment!
Before anyone starts in on “Well, we aren’t going to be any good recruiting angels” take a look at what recruiting problem players have gotten us as far as Ws & Ls.
It appears the purge is almost over. Turnover the result of
the unfortunate coaching changes. Large recruiting class
this year indicates the coaches anticipated departures.
Congrats to Brown! Now let’s get back to recruiting!
nice observation JR… PC is working a plan systematically.
Reed, very well put and good article link. It is truly eye opening just how much was going on. Perhaps now we understand the reaction, even if it was a terrible decision, to bring in someone such as Hayward…
It’s also funny to read posts saying PC has “no stones”… this guy has firmly gone about bring hard change to this program fast, and has just been calm and collected (and respectful to all concerned) in the process.
My son is graduating HS and wanted like crazy to go to Pitt to college (non athlete)but we couldn’t afford the tuition. So here you have athletes who are handed a 4 year ticket to a prestigious university, they MUST be held to a higher standard. If they violate team rules then they need to be dismissed, It is that simple. They are each given a tremendous opportunity and they need to held accountable for upholding the standard set. Anything else is unjust and reflects negatively on the coaches, AD, and the university.
PC has ONE season under his belt as HC. Was his first year perfect? Absolutely not. But he was essentially using players recruited by someone else. There was no way he could come in last January and just start weeding out the kids who didn’t fit the system. He was handcuffed by what he had last year. Now the malcontents, borderline criminals and players that fit HIS system are being shown the door.
Also, do some of you really believe PC should be pulling in 4 and 5 stars with the mess that’s been Pitt football since Wanny was fired? Why? Just because a couple of other coaches have ‘verbals’ from highly rated recruits?
I truly don’t expect much better than 6 or 7 wins this season. PC needs to have, at the least, another class of his type of players and see what they do on the field before people start calling him out.
But the ‘smarter that you or PC’ folks will still bloviate rubbish based on what someone else is doing in Kentucky and that PC ‘has no stones’ for whatever reason (I’m really not sure where that came from).
We all want to win NOW. But I want to hit the $350m Powerball too, but I’m realistic enough to know that probably isn’t going to happen.
not be comeing to pitt
care for football or lack of it.
…and so now we convict these kids based on reports and allegations as well??? We all know too well what is often going on in these “he-said, she-said” incidents involving athletes and late-night hours…
unfortunately for these kids these days everything is complicated.
It seems Chryst does have different standards for punishment depending upon who you are.
Steve Williams did the same thing Chapmen did last fall (slap some girl, etc)… next day, Chryst kicked Williams off the team.
So, it’s not the same standard. I’m still curious as to KK.
I scratch my head sometimes with regard to Chryst’s player suspensions for disciplinary reasons. I felt Graham, Street and Pitts should have been formally held accountable for their idiotic actions even if it was only sitting out the first quarter or the first series of the next game.
Instead we were playing ND and Chryst played all three as starters.
I felt the same way with Sheard – to do absolutely nothing for poor behavior, regardless if he had extenuating circumstances or not, sends a very real mixed message to the rest of the team.
So I’ll keep a weather eye on how PC deals with Chapman in his case. If you dismiss two players for having drug issues then you sure have to dismiss a player for violence toward a woman.
Good solid leadership is all about being consistent in your application of discipline within varying degrees of the infractions. But to come down heavy on one subordinate then do nothing for another just undermines everyone else’s confidence in your ability to lead.
Wannstedt not suspending Erik Gill at all after he was arrested for a DWI (link to triblive.com) was ridiculous as was the slap on the hand for Dan Mason after he didn’t stop his buddy Jason Douglas from driving after they had been drinking together all evening. That resulted in a hit & run incident. IMO suspension for one quarter wasn’t enough in that case as that sort of poor decision making could easily result in a death down the line.
Head football coaches have what is termed “Loco Parentis” in that they are the parent substitute for these young kids while they are in his charge. Those four years are the true formative years in a player’s life and the HC has to look beyond the field of play sometimes and see the bigger picture.
You don’t have to ruin player’s lives or future careers with your discipline but you do have to take swift and appropriate actions. The old saw of ‘wait until the legal system plays out is the biggest falsity and mistake that can happen in these situations.
If a NFL team has questions about a player’s character they always call the HC and staff of the school the kid played at. That would be the time to stick up for the player and let them know that even while the player was disciplined he’s still a good candidate for employment.
The players must be held to a higher standard than only the rule of law. While it may not be illegal to be a dumbass and negatively impact other’s lives that type of poor decision making has to be addressed within the program itself.
We have a WR – Chris Wuestner – who was awarded a scholarship after summer camp last year and he’ll be doing good things for us out on the field this coming season.
Brown has looked very good in the practices and scrimmages I’ve seen him in over the last few years. The fact that he was a Big East All-Academic Football Team honoree probably played into Chryst’s decision also. Brown is just the type of role model you want on the team.
link to philly.com