I hate that watching Pitt basketball games feel like a chore. Especially in mid-January. But it really feels that way at the moment. And not simply because I’m getting old and the game doesn’t start until 9pm.
For the most part, Pitt teams under Jamie Dixon have been — and I hate to go cliche here — “better than the sum of their parts.” They have been teams that overachieve. No one player is so much better than everyone else. Think about all those teams over the last 10+ years and how few individual players made 1st team Big East. They went out there and were so cohesive. They fed off of each other. The execution was so consistent.
This is not that kind of team. If anything, since the new year, this group has been worse than they should.
Before the trying to pretend he didn’t know anything about his players exchanging gear for tattoos and other services, Jim Tressel was consistently getting outstanding recruiting classes to Columbus. His recruiting coordinator for much of that time was John Peterson.
A former Ohio State offensive lineman. He had been climbing the coaching ranks as a OL Coach. First at Akron (1995-98), then at Miami (Ohio) under Terry Hoeppner until 2003. Then he was hired to be the O-line coach at Arizona. That changed quickly when his alma mater came calling in the spring. Tressel hired him to be the recruiting coordinator and TE Coach at OSU.
From the latest press ‘sit-down’ Chancellor Gallagher held yesterday afternoon you have to think that his commitment to the football program is rock solid and forward thinking. There isn’t any doubt in my mind that PITT would have kept Chryst on for another year or two had he not left for the Wisconsin job but once that opened Gallagher saw what was shaping up, seized the moment and put his own plans into action.
First came the change in our Athletic Director position with the long awaited firing of Steve Pederson. This mollified almost everyone who had suffered the angst over Chryst leaving the PITT job. It was as if we fans took a collective breath and felt that regardless of who was named the new HC the future of PITT football looked brighter.
The timing of that move couldn’t have been made in a better way. It showed the strong decision making that the former Chancellor was thought to have lacked when it came to the football program. That isn’t 100% true but the fan’s perception was strongly slanted that way.
Once that firing had been made then came the personnel and financial aspect of the changes. Of course the main point has been the hiring of defensive-minded Pat Narduzzi, late of the MSU staff. This appears to be a pretty solid hire and Narduzzi has begun rounding out his coordinators and staff coaching positions. Both his coordinators have been successes at the same jobs at other schools.(more…)
