As expected, Pitt is headed to Detroit, Michigan for the Little Caesars Bowl. Their opponent? MAC Champion Bowling Green.
Pitt to Little Caesars Bowl to play Bowling Green, source said. Birmingham streak is finally over!
— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) December 8, 2013
While obviously this isn’t the most exciting bowl game, it’s a bowl game nonetheless.
The former Motor City Bowl will be played on December 26th at 6pm. Here’s some ticket info on the bowl’s site. Here’s the link to buy directly from the athletic department. I recommend you buy tickets directly from the athletic department since they make money off of those tickets. The day after Christmas is not a bad option for Pitt fans. Most are off work and Detroit is only about a 4 hour drive. Since it’s a 6pm kickoff, you could leave that morning and get a hotel for the night. Drop the kids off with their grandparents and leave town for two days. It’s Detroit, so a hotel in a decent area shouldn’t be too pricey. I’d love to go but my wife is in her third trimester so I can’t be that far away from her. I’ll be there in spirit. Let’s hope this game is a little better than the last time Pitt played Bowling Green.
In recruiting news, Shai McKenzie and Jamil Kamara just wrapped up their official visits today. I got a good look at them and the other recruits at the Loyola Marymout game from the section above and the main takeaway I got was Mike Grimm is gigantic. He had a mohawk that only a guy that causes everyone near him to tremble in fear could pull off. Reports make it seem like the visits went well, but you rarely see a report that says anything else.
Aliquippa DB Dravon Henry will allegedly announce his college selection tomorrow and it’s still between Pitt and WVU. He has given Miami some attention, but it’s doubtful he’d head south. There are rumors Gateway DB Montae Nicholson could announce soon too but his recruitment has bee so quiet it’s tough to get a grasp on what’s going on. Shai McKenzie is still set to announce on the 20th of this month.
it is who we play that is a downer the reason NOTRE
DAME did not go to a warm weather bowl was becuse they would have to play a mac or sun belt team in thoes bowls.
i know we are not ND and have no choice in who we play but if we lose it will be a joke and if we win it will be said that we should have won i dont know how people can not see that.
lets turn it to basketball if we lost to say a point park people would say what the hell happened but if we lose to duke that is ok do you get the point .
You don’t enjoy the “Well, the kid is an idiot for going to WVU… although he would have been super smart coming here. Cuz u kno. Pitt ‘n at.” ??
H2P!!
You have so much knowledge of what local kids think. You should establish your own blog and see how many of us check out what your have to say.
I guess Mike Grimm is a nobody?
H2P
And this is interesting.
Per reports of many on Twitter, Henry’s mom was quoted during the press conference with the following:
“I talked to a lot of the players on (Pitt’s) defense, and they didn’t like the way things were set up.”
That is one giant can of gasoline to throw on the fire that House’s critics (many of them justified) have already started burning. I don’t know details as to who she talked to but it may not matter – that’s a fairly damning statement in a business where perception is often reality.
I’m not going to lie. Despite the fact that Henry’s choice of WVU wasn’t really much of a surprise, this one has shaken my faith in the abilities of Chryst and his coaching staff to close to deal on some of these kids.
It’s one thing to lose one of the best local, state and national prospects to Alabama.
It’s another to lose one of the best local, state and national prospects to a program on fairly shaky ground with a coaching staff that may not even be there next year.
From most accounts, Gibson sold the hell out of WVU to Henry. He may not even be coaching at WVU a year from now, but he outdid House for this kid. And Pitt may not have helped themselves at all, given the talk that surfaced a while back about Henry placing calls to the Pitt coaches that went unreturned for a month.
The 2014 class isn’t lost by any means, and Chryst and Co. can still close the books on a very good one. Whether they WILL remains to be seen, and I’m quite a bit less confident of their abilities to get some of these other kids – particularly Nicholson.
Also, been seeing people say that between Shell’s departure and Henry’s WVU commit that Pitt has effectively lost its Aliquippa pipeline. Will be interesting to see how this plays out going forward.
Give me a break.
Be critical of Chryst all you want, but there are plenty of local kids who are already playing for and committed to playing for Chryst, so let’s not revise history here.
Whether its scheme or gameplan or execution or his recruiting approach or his milque-toast personality, the fact is that he’s still lured good local players here.
Tyler Boyd had no issue. Holtz and Orndoff had no issue. Grimm seems to have no issue and neither did Dorian Johnson. He’s landed some of the region’s top local wideouts in Zeise and Challingsworth. They’re still very much in the running for Nicholson, Bookser and McKenzie.
This idea that local kids aren’t going to want to play at Pitt is a joke. The idea that high-caliber national players are turned off by any of the perceived deficiencies above is also a joke.
Henry’s recruitment was being handled mostly by House and Haering, not Chryst. The concerns that Henry and his parents voiced seemed to have with Pitt appeared much more directed at the defense schemes and – to at least some degree – House’s handling of his recruitment.
Yes, that all comes back to Chryst. Coaches delegate recruiting assignments all the time and Chryst doesn’t need to be the closer on deals (Gattuso was Wannstedt’s closer, for example). But he better be aware of where these kids stand and where there are problems.
You are never going to win them all, and who knows what they sold Henry, but offensive recruiting has been going well. Chryst better figure out what is going on with House and Co.
Fair points.
I very well could be reading too much into that. I’ll also admit that I don’t know the context of the comment. I’m assuming it was in response to a question, but I’m not sure.
It’s a tough spot. I guess if nothing else, I was surprised by the element of candor in her response, particularly the comment about talking to other players on the defense.
I guess I would’ve expected a more diplomatic response. I can’t think of another instance where the parent of a recruit who committed to one school made a comment like that about another school that was in the running for their son. I’ve heard parents be complimentary or politely dismissive of other coaches/programs, but not really like that.
Again, though…maybe I read too much into it.
Plus, I’m still a little miffed at losing Henry to WVU. I was really hoping Pitt would’ve landed that kid, but they’ll move on.
Also NIU, was undefeated going into that MAC Championship game, beating both Iowa and Purdue in the process.
Bowling Green is ranked nationally in both offensive and defensive stats and depending on what poll that you want to consider, is ranked anywhere from the 24th to 32nd best team in the nation.
Any good coach will constantly stress to his players to never underestimate their opponent, NEVER.
Bowling Green has all the tools necessary to clean Pitt’s clock if we don’t show up ready to play football in Detroit in a couple weeks. Beating this solid MAC Championship team would be a fantastic way for the Panthers to bring home their first winning season for Coach Chryst.
Bowling Green is a good football team, and does not deserve your apparent disrespect.
Here’s my short list:
-He has a love for Pitt Football.
-He wants to play early
-He thinks he can help bring Pitt Football back into being relevant on the national scene.
-He is a Pitt legacy
-He wants to get a good education.
-He has friends/teammates that already attend/play for Pitt.
-He desires to be on an urban campus.
-He wants to stay close to home.
-He likes the coaching staff.
-He wants it to be easy for all his hometown friends and relatives to come watch him play in person.
-He likes the other guys currently on the team.
-He feels that the coaching staff is honest and has the best interests of himself and his family as a first priority in his recruiting.
-He likes the city of Pittsburgh.
-He wants to see the Steelers play in person.
-He wants to see the Penquins play in person
-And he has aspirations to someday to be mentioned in Pitt Football history along with other legendary names such as Pop Warner, Jock Sutherland, Marshall Goldberg, Joe Schmidt, Mike Ditka, Paul Martha, Johnny Majors, Tony Dorsett, Ricky Jackson, Elliott Walker, Hugh Green, Dan Marino, Mark May, Russ Grimm, Bill Fralic, Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, Jerry Olsavsky, Curtis Martin, Chris Doleman, Antonio Bryant, Larry Fitzgerald, LeSean “Shady” McCoy, Darelle Revis, Dion Lewis, Aaron Donald and soon to be legends such as Tyler Boyd. (Sorry to those that I missed).
