On a more important matter, since it relates to Pitt, I love what Pitt’s new staff is doing. Big difference between Fraud and HCPN, Fraud talked a big game but the focus was entirely on him and him alone. HCPN is clearly allowing his assistants to be the focus and giving them both the responsibility and the spotlight, effective managment skills.
As for whether he’ll be successful, who knows time will tell, but one thing is for sure, nothing in life can be accomplished without enthusiasm, using the tools available, and hard work. He and his staff are checking the box on every one of these, so at least he’s giving us fans a chance to hope.

gc is right. Pitt is in the ACC now. The games that matter most are your in your conference. The days when the PItt-Penn State game was a staple on Thanksgiving weekend are long past. Joe Paterno ended the Pitt-Penn State rivalry 20 years ago. Going forward, Pitt needs to have success in the ACC.

@ Jackagain,

It’s becoming pretty clear, this country is being led by sex perverts/pedophiles/child rapists or at least at lot of them are.

link to dailymail.co.uk

Which all makes sense as to why the 180 on the Pedo State sanctions. And the push on several other fronts as well.

And why there has been no trial of the Pedo State Trio as of yet.

True Emel…we live in perilous times…

What is the feedback from the current players on the new staff?

On to more pressing matters:

The Ramblin Wreck is in town to take on our Panthers.

GT is winless in the ACC (0-4) Although all their losses have been close games. Lost twice to #12 Notre Dame (by 3 and in Double OT), lost by a point to Syracuse.

Best wins are against Georgia (10-5,win over K State), Vanderbilt (11-5) and Northwestern.

They avg 66 ppg and don’t particularly shoot it well, 42% fg. They do rebound pretty well, 39 rpg which ranks them #32 in nation.

Yellow Jackets top 3 scorers are their big men which could cause some problems for us since big men aren’t a Pitt strength.

> Marcus Hunt 6’5″ 13ppg 5 rpg
> **Charles Mitchell 6’8″ 270 lbs 11ppg 8 rpg
> Demarco Cox 6’8″ 276 lbs (ouch) 10 ppg & 6 rpg

Their Guards don’t score much 5-6 ppg.

Looks like it might be beneficial to press them and/or trap them, as they definitely outman us inside. And halfcourt game would appear to be in their favor with the 2 loads they have above.

Let’s Go Pitt !

@Reed–No quibble with your recruiting related post’s theme. Just a couple of comments–

Pantherlair (Rivals) is the most accurate and has been kept up to date the others have not been on top of things.

Regarding your list of players who, in theory, could be asked to leave–

Trey Anderson QB rsJR
Ronald Jones WR rsJR
Khaynin Mosley-Smith DL rsJR
Devin Cook DL rsJR
Nicholas Grigsby LB rsJR
Lafayette Pitts DB rsJR
Ejuan Price DL rsJR
Artie Rowell OL rsJR
David Murphy LS rsJR
Jameel Poteat RB SR (transferred in last year & is eligible in ’15)

Trey Anderson has already announced he is transferring to play his fifth year (grad student year) at a Texas school–probably not a big time program.

I think I read that Ronald Jones is also moving on.

As to the rest, I think it depends on whether the new staff sees them on the 2-deep. If yes, they stay. If no, they will be instructed to do what they need to do to graduate by the end of the summer.

However, I don’t think they will boot anybody in the group who is on track GPA wise to graduate if it isn’t feasible for them to quite finish by the end of August. I doubt more than a couple (if any) would fall into that category.

I can’t see Mosley-Smith, Grigsby, Pitts, Price (if healthy,) Rowell and probably Cook being shown the door … unless there is a big flurry of new commits by 2/4. And even then, Grigsby, Mosley-Smith, and Rowell (at a min) will stay on.

Furthermore they are only shooting 25% from 3.

Going to need some good defense and aggressive rebounding against the 2 GT loads.

I re-upped my season tickets early this year and the kid from the ticket office said lot of calls for renewals and new tickets early this year and lots of excitement in the entire athletic department around the new coaches and their energy!

How about this, let’s leave the ‘asking players to leave’ to the coaches. We’re a bit thin as is, especially on D, eh?

Pitt needs all the lineman they can get. I hope none of them leave.

I would like to see Pitt-Miami become a big rivalry to end the football season. Us winning this year helped. Two urban schools playing in pro stadiums with proud traditions…now if only the fans of both programs cared about the rivalry.

Don’t really care about PSU getting wins back. the PA legislator who sued hopes for some political benefit.

We’re in a good position to beat them in the upcoming series. Narduzzi has gotten more praise for his work as an assistant than Franklin’s gotten as a head coach. Franklin was very good at beating teams with losing records in the SEC.

I agree with you guys – I don’t see a lot of guys being asked to leave… however there is something to think about. In the past PITT didn’t yank anyone’s scholarship as long as they were academically eligible and not in trouble as far as suspensions, discipline, etc went. Then Chryst came in and did a big clearing of the roster of guys he just didn’t want in the program for various reasons, mostly because he wanted to star with a young team mostly made up of his recruits. That is how we have been seeing so many true FR and SOs in starting positions.

My point is that we really have no idea at this what Narduzzi plans to do as far as opening up scholarships go for this year and the next. He could look at the roster and be fine with it or might want to open up more spots for his own recruits early on.

For example, and I’m not saying this happened, but on Jan 3rd Trey Anderson stated he was leaving PITT. Narduzzi was hired on Dec 24th and might have called the kid in and made the decision for him. That is how these things work – it isn’t advertised as a player being’cut’ from the team even though that is in essence what it is, it will be released to the press and public as ‘a player choosing to leave the program’… or we just never hear about them at all which happened with Dan Mason a few years ago. All of a sudden he was just gone…

And that thought is coming from a guy, me, who has been Trey Anderson biggest supporter on here. It’s just business when it boils down to it… or of course Trey Anderson might have just wanted to go somewhere else on his own, which I actually think is the case. I used his situation as an example only. The bottom line though is usually if a 5th year player leaves the program he’s usually been “asked” (told) to.

1618mt – if you like to discuss PITT recruiting and who and how many guys we get in a recruiting class, as everyone on here seems to want to, then the discussion starts with how many scholarships become available due to both graduation and the coach’s decisions and historically that means looking at 5th year SRs. PITT’s stance up to a point has been once a player has had an opportunity to get his degree in four years then he’s eligible to ‘be moved on’ as they say and that has happened every year.

Just because we are discussing their year and eligibility doesn’t mean we necessary want them to be gone. Quite the contrary it seems, we all have been pretty positive about wanting kids to stay if possible.. But again, if you want to follow and discuss college football then sSRs have to be a part of that discussion.

Not to sound like a jerk but does “let’s leave the ‘asking players to leave’ to the coaches” mean that we don’t want to anticipate or second guess our coaching staff in other issues? Hey my friend, that is the best thing about PITT football – when all else fails we know can always second guess everything that happens on and off the field. 🙂

Some comments on comments:I like the history of Pitt football ups and downs I had previously commented on same but in much lass detail then the article linked which was good. We compete with Ped state and WVU for recruits so lets not play them and give them a stage in Pittsburgh for promotion. We are ACC lets win ,and be champions and it will help us more than playing those other 2.Cult is a good description of happy valley.They even have their own media.Channel 10 in Altoona slogan WE ARE CENTRAL PA. I have enjoyed the atmosphere (except stupid losses) at Iowa,MSU, Purdue and many other good non conf.games. I always found their fans more sociable and a lot of fun pre game than the Arrogant, concieted norm from PSU or the swearing, throwing up drunk hoopies.As an old song goes let’s “accentuate the positive and decentuate the negative” and become the beast of the ACC.