Or something like that. Okay you luddites that still want info, the Pitt football coaching staff is going to drag you kicking and screaming into 2010.

Sure you ignored getting on just because I am there. Or Justin. No, Reed is still a conscientious objector or something like that.

Unlike the previous staff that treated Twitter like MySpace, the new Pitt coaching staff is actively on the social side of things. Letting you know where they are out recruiting. Ready to drop code words to indicate if they met with recruits — and just waiting to find out the code words when they land one (quick example is Texas A&M Coach Kevin Sumlin who tweets out a “YES SIR” when he gets a verbal). A veritable Pat Signal.

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The recruiting dead period is over and coaches can now visit players in person. That makes today the day for Narduzzi and company to start earning their paychecks. As Chas mentioned, recruiting was a huge emphasis when hires were made and hopefully this decision will bear fruit soon. Chancellor Gallagher gave Narduzzi a much larger budget than Paul Chryst to hire assistants and the next several weeks will should justify that.

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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.

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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.

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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…)

Thankfully my son hasn’t asked for any Buckeye gear. I was legitimately worried about that living in Ohio and the lead-in to to tonight. I think the saving grace was school being cancelled from Wednesday to Friday last week. Meant not having any of the perfidious peer pressure brought to bear for the whole week. Instead, just one day back and the game tonight.

Have to break out the ladder and clean the satellite tonight. The snow today, seems to have disrupted the signal. Usually it hasn’t been a problem, but of course tonight there is an issue.

Presumably most of us will be watching the game on ESPN2 so we can hear Pat Narduzzi talk about the game with some other coach whose agent tried to use the Pitt job for leverage in another job. Along with Chris Speilman and and Tom Luginbill.

I still want Narduzzi to use the time to announce another coach he’s hired. Just for fun.

I’ll be throwing up an open thread for the college football playoff championship game tonight. If for no other reason, everyone can wax rhapsodic over the analysis, insight and way Pat Narduzzi sells Pitt in the ESPN Film Room on ESPN2.

In the mean time, I guess we can pour over the news of Pitt’s new offensive coordinator. His name is Jim Chaney and he has been the Arkansas OC for the past two years.

Chaney spent the past two years with the Razorbacks, calling plays in their pro-style offense. This year, Arkansas ranked 26th in Division I-A with 218 rushing yards per game. He had two running backs surpass 1,000 yards in Jonathan Williams (1,190 yards) and Alex Collins (1,100 yards).

By the end of the season, Arkansas’ offense put up more than 30 points on top-30 defenses Texas and Mississippi. The Razorbacks scored 30 on the Rebels, who ended the season with Division I-A’s best scoring defense.

Arkansas finished the season 42nd in scoring offense, averaging 31.9 points per game.

Narduzzi said Saturday he prefers an offensive coordinator with play-calling experience, and Chaney fills that requirement. The move should also ensure a relatively smooth transition, as Chaney’s offense appears to be relatively similar to the one the Panthers ran under former coach Paul Chryst.

There were reportedly issues by the end of the year with Arkansas Head Coach Brett Bielema and Chaney. Chaney wanted a more balanced offensive attack, while Bielema wants to just run the football. So, from that standpoint the move for Chaney makes sense as HCPN has stated he does not want to meddle with the OC and play calling.

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Clemson dreams of being Pitt when it comes to basketball.

This will be the 400th Pitt game for Coach Jamie Dixon, as the man in charge. It is also, potentially, his 300th win. There may be some talk of that.

Dixon is 15 games into his 12th season as Pitt’s coach. The Panthers are 11-4 overall and 1-1 in conference play.

“A lot of people recognize and talk about it, but I don’t give it a lot of thought, to be honest with you,” Dixon said. “When I sit down and look at it, I might think a little differently — the numbers.

“As I think about it now, I’m just thankful I’ve been able to coach at the university that many years. It does speak to being at a place a long time.”

The emphasis has been on the speed at which it has been accomplished or in comparison to how long it took other coaches to reach 300.

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Since we are undergoing a period of changes in the athletic department and the football program in particular let’s take a look at the players who either won’t be on the roster next season via expiration of their eligibility or by virtue of being pushed ‘into their life’s work’ as the saying goes.

At this point we have no idea how sentimental or ruthless Pat Narduzzi will be when it comes to current players he is inheriting on the roster. We saw the large attrition conducted under Paul Chryst but most of those players who either left on their own (few) or were moved out (many) were mostly the type of players Chryst didn’t want to retain because of character issues or by being negative influences in the locker room.

Chryst supplemented those actions by his recruitment practice of weighing personal qualities equally with the talent and skills the recruits would bring to the team. To me it is hard to judge just how well that balance worked out. Some fans care more about the results on the field rather than any off the field issue that might occur; others feel that the players should be actual student athletes who via their play and behavior reflect positively on the university.

Below is a list of players, with their current year status shown, who will be either gone by eligibility or could be on the chopping block for the 2015 season.  A rsJR listed below will most probably be a 5th year rsSR in the Spring and as such they have that last season of eligibility. Given the rest of the roster and what we think we know about Narduzzi’s preferences in the type of player he wants (i.e. faster defensive kids) who do you think we’ll see unexpectedly gone by the 2015 spring practices.  Those practices will start in mid-March and go until the second week of April so they are only about ten weeks away. 

While we are at it let’s also take a look at which ‘players gone for sure’ guys we think will be the hardest to replace by underclassmen at their positions.  Have fun and please explain your reasoning! 

PLAYERS GONE FOR SURE

Isaac Bennett    RB    SR
LaQuentin Smith   DL    SR
Kevin Weatherspoon  WR    rsSR
Manasseh Garner   WR    rsSR
Matt Rotheram   OL   rsSR
T.J. Clemmings  OL   rsSR
David Durham   DL   rsSR
Anthony Gonzalez  LB   rsSR
Ray Vinopal  DB   rsSR
Todd Thomas  LB   rsSR
Adam Lazenga   FB   rsSR

PLAYERS WHO COULD BE ASKED TO LEAVE  (5th year)

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)

The names have been floating out there for a couple days. I’m sure many have been getting antsy about Head Coach Pat Narduzzi naming a staff. Especially since during the Armed Forces Bowl, he indicated he hoped to name the assistants and coordinators by about today.

Instead, it was very quiet and no real concrete — or even vaguely sure — info on who would be on the staff. Something that P-G beat writer, Sam Werner addressed in his weekly chat.

Comment From KatPanther13: Has local media lost all of their connections in the Athletic Department/Football team? None of you have any scoops PG, Trib, Local Broadcast News, what’s up man?

Sam Werner: Believe me, I wish I had more information to give you regarding the coaching staff. Not as an excuse, but Pitt’s leadership is in a great state of flux right now. A new chancellor came in August, and they’re in the midst of a transition at athletic director. That means that a lot of people who used to be in the loop aren’t necessarily anymore, and people might be less willing to talk because the future of the athletic department is a little more unsettled.

Pitt has always been very hard to crack when it comes to leaks and movement. (more…)

Running through the usual list of PITT sports websites I visit every morning while I have my first cup of Joe I read an opinion piece by Joe Starkey of the Tribune Review titled What PITT Football could be that he posted on Wednesday night. I found that it mostly made sense and was well thought out, hitting on the the root of the matter of PITT football program’s mediocrity over the last 31 years and what Pat Narduzzi has to bring to PITT to change the culture of apathy on the part of the administration, students, local populace and, in my opinion, the local media as well.

Starkey opens his article with a simple declaration “It’s time for a key substitution regarding Pitt football: Excuses out. Expectations in”. That is a pretty simple stance to take and one he expounds upon later in his piece when he says:

“Time will tell whether Pat Narduzzi is the guy to change all this, but you have to like the fact he is coming from a place (Michigan State) where Mark Dantonio & Co. looked at all the built-in excuses, kicked them in the face and created an entirely new culture. And did so without batches of five-star recruits. After decades of mediocrity, Michigan State has become a bastion of positivity and big wins.

That is fantastic! PITT will do it right now if only Starkey would let us in on exactly how Dantonio & Co. accomplished it! I do wonder if Starkey and PITT fans forget that sometimes ‘excuses’ can also be seen as ‘reasons’ for an outcome and vice versa. If in the past, as a lot of us believe, the PITT administration tried to create and sustain a successful football program while stinting on the financial resources to make it happen then is it an excuse that it didn’t work out or is it a reason we did what we did?

Perhaps it depends on how one looks at the University’s financial situation as a whole or maybe just the level of honest interest the Chancellor and the BoT had in fielding a successful team, which might have been even less than we saw in public. To me that is a contributing reason for the poor results we have seen over the last two decades, to others it may just be an excuse. Nothing happens in a vacuum, there are always reasons things turn out the way they do.

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Pitt won because BC is not good.

There’s no pretending that Pitt overcame any adversity other than what they inflicted upon themselves. The Panthers struggled in all facets of the game at various points or for the almost the entire time — depending on the particular facet.

Pitt had three stretches of over 3 minutes without scoring a point. One in particular lasted 8:44 from the end of the first half into the beginning of the second half. These three droughts totaled 15:32 of the game — almost 1/3 of the total time. Still, Pitt managed to be the one getting the win.

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Hope everyone is staying warm and safe. Trying to reestablish the rhythms of kids going back to school with all of the other things after winter break. Coupled with the perfect timing of bad weather and a wife that waited until now to catch some bug to lay her out. And of course, we are all coming off a lousy weekend for sports in Pittsburgh.

So, tonight is a kind-of-late weekday game. Pitt at Boston College at 9pm. The game is all over the RSNs — Root, NESN, YES, CSN, plenty of the FoxSports and ESPN3.com.

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I have a confession to make, with a question to go with it.

Was anyone else laughing when the buzzer went off at the end of the bowl game? Honest to God, I was and my wife couldn’t understand it (and I wasn’t even drinking or taking any Windowpane acid either).  When we went up 31-6 she turned to me and said “I guess you didn’t expect this to happen, did you?”  My reply was that there was no way the game was going to end nicely.  Not that I thought we’d lose, I didn’t, but I was sure there would be drama at the end.

When the Houston QB hit those two long completions in a row, 43 yards and 32 yards down to our 7 yard line at the 4:00 mark I was resigned to it.  Then, when Nick Grigsby grabbed his own balls instead of the football on that second on-side kick I knew we were sunk.  Silly women, she couldn’t believe what happened but we PITT fans weren’t that surprised were we?  Reading the 600+ comments in the game thread I can see that that is true.  There was much anger and some disgust but really, no one was saying ‘I can’t believe this happened‘ because deep in our hearts we knew it could.

That’s why I’m not even parsing the game that was played.  It doesn’t matter who did or didn’t do whatever whenever.  IT JUST WAS.  As PITT fans we ‘get’ that.

And perhaps that was Fate’s way of saying “Boys, it is time for a completely clean slate for 2015“.  The Chancellorship changed, the old AD was shown the door,  the head coaching job turned over and I believe all the staff coaches will be gone this week.  Perhaps in the long run, and especially given our recent four year history, this kick in the nuts loss is the perfect way to make us sit back and clear our own minds as far as being a PITT football fan goes.

I’ve decided not to have any expectations whatsoever with Narduzzi and the new people he’ll bring in.  I firmly believe we have a 50/50 chance of being ‘Same Old PITT” as we do with winning lots of football games.  I’ll take things day to day and will walk the “Show me!” line as the off season goes by and the games begin.  I look at PITT football with tabula rasa; a blank slate to imprint with facts and opinions as things unfold and not before.

Anyway, I had a great time writing and conversing with everyone on here during the ramp up to and then the playing of 2014’s games.  We’ll have just as much fun, hopefully more, starting today for the new 2015 season.

Chin up boys and HTP!

I’m not emotionally prepared to discuss yesterday at this point. Thankfully there is a basketball game to take my mind off of it (please?).

It’s a nooner on various local cable providers with ACC distribution — looks like a lot of options all over the country. For Pittsburgh, it is on WTAE.

Record-wise, NC State isn’t too different from Pitt. They are 10-4. They have one decent win over a major conference team (Tennessee). They have a horrid non-con loss (Wofford at home). Lost a road game in the state of Indiana (Purdue). Laid an egg of double-digit loss  in the two games against good teams (WVU and Cinci). It’s a superficial comparison, but it works.

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