It’s been a full week of the ’15 training camp and other than a good look at the behind the scenes and how the logistical side of things are running let’s take a look at what other’s are saying about the past week of camp and who is doing what.

Halfway through the week Peterman was moved up to QB2 and that is for a very solid reason, he is very talented.  Looking at the 1st scrimmage stats for the two principal QBs below we see that Peterman not only held his own but did well on Saturday.  Voytik threw a Pick-6, a pass blocked by DE Blair and new DB Matt Steinbeck took it in. More on him below.  Voytik apparently completed a nice TD pass to Orndoff down the sideline on a deeper throw.  No mention of how the 73 yard TD to Jester Weah from Peterman unfolded. Either way, this is something we need to see more of in the regular season.

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(to follow on from this article’s Part 1.  If you haven’t read that please do so now and this piece will make more sense.)

I did grab James Conner after a while and had a nice talk with him.  I started out by asking him if he was going to let any of the other running backs get carries this season and he said “I hope so, they are real good”.  But what I really stopped him for was to let him know I just had a long conversation with his ‘step’ father Mike Gallagher and it was so obvious that Mike was proud of everything Conner has done since he was a kid.

There really was more to the conversation with Mike Gallagher, who has a strange back story himself, than just his pride in his surrogate son.  Mike is dealing with a serious case of diabetes and will need a kidney transplant sooner than later. I mentioned to him that I was all set for surgery last year for transplanting my kidney to my next door neighbor friend.  That conversation between Mike and I happened at around 9:30 am.

When I got home from Pittsburgh I found out that a kidney had become available for my friend and the hospital’s transplant team called him to tell him at 9:30 – the same time Mike and I were talking about it.  That surgery went well and my friend’s on his way to normal times.

Life is surely inexplicable sometimes, isn’t it?  I mention all that because I told Conner that his work with the kidney foundation is going to pay off big time soon.  I think Conner had expected another stock interview and was pretty happy to have an honest man to man conversation instead.  He’s lost weigh and looks fantastic.

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(This is a long article so I’ll break it up into two parts)

Pitt football held its annual Media Day for fall camp yesterday and I drove up to attend.  It was an interesting day and we media types had time for as much access as allowed given the closed portion of the practices.  We had escort with us so that we can break off separately and tour the new parts of the football facility.  Thanks to Ted Feeley of the Media Staff for doing that with me and answering all of my questions.

All in all it was a good and worthwhile day with some info and ideas we have heard about Pat Narduzzi and the program reinforced and some other bits of new info coming to light with questions asked.

Because most fans don’t get a chance to see these practices and the facilities I took a bunch of photos and will take you all on a tour now and then later on in this article.  What I’ll write here are my impressions from what I learned from talking with the staff, some players and some family members.  My approach was to not repeat what the other media guys will write about,  there really isn’t any ‘football news’ to discuss in the 2^nd day of camp, but to allow you guys a bit of an inside view of things Pitt fans don’t usually get to experience.

Front view of new Players’ meeting room

Comfortable as hell seating

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The verbal yesterday was the good stuff. Camp itself had little of major news. And that’s a good thing. When practice is padless, big news is usually bad news. A suspension, a fight, an injury, an arrest.

The biggest stuff out of camp was an apology and confidence.

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Training camp for Pitt opened today. Optimism abounds.

Oh? What’s that? One of the top local recruits just happened to be at the camp today?

Was I just on TV!?!?!? ?? pic.twitter.com/HzcNBuUIeV

— DAMAR HAMLIN (@HamlinIsland) August 10, 2015

Nice.

No. We aren’t going to read anything into that. The young man, is going to make up his own mind, in his own time.

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I know, this should be nothing but football coverage at this point. But…

In the space of his two years at Pitt, Josh Newkirk went from speedy sparkplug, to the guy some wanted to supplant James Robinson at point guard, to the guy who became lost on the court, to one of the players many expected/wanted to transfer because his play had fallen so far, to “oh, he had an injury, that explains it.”

In May, we finally learned how bad his injury really was. He needed microfracture surgery on his left knee.

Microfracture surgery is still such an emerging surgical technique for athletes after an injury. In some ways it is akin to UCL (Tommy John) surgery in the 80s. It works, but the recovery rates and level of recovery from where the player was, vary greatly.

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Pitt’s fall training camp starts today with the player’s reporting in from their time off-campus where they were tasked with finding a spot for the next new Pitt Stadium.  Serious on-field stuff won’t begin until tomorrow however when the staff and team can get on the field and start getting familiar with the new crop of players and reacquainted with the physical side of actual football.

Just as a point of info here is how the practice days will be conducted in general. A typical single practice day will go like this:

Coach Narduzzi Briefing: 9:25 a.m.

Practice Viewing/Photography Window: 9:55-10:25 a.m.

Closed practice from 10:25 until 12:15

Interviews: 12:15 p.m. (select players and assistants)

This is what we’ll see when Tuesday’s Media Day rolls around and  I’ll be up there for those sessions (more on that later):

Practice Viewing/Photography Window: 9:55-10:25 a.m.

Coach Narduzzi Press Conference: 1:30 p.m. (second floor team room)

Team Interview and Photo Session: 2:45-4 p.m. 

Some interesting things to note is that in all of the allowed two-a-day practices the evening practice is completely closed to the media.  That makes sense as no real news will be generated between 2:30 or so until they start up again in the evening. So that is the logistics behind the next three weeks of camp.

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(I have written this post about 6 different times and ways to different lengths and seen it crash and delete for some glitch or another each time over the last week plus. Somehow bypassing all the autobackups that are supposed to prevent loss of posts. I think even my computer does not want to process this matter any longer, but we will get through this.)

Come on training camps. We need you. The cycle of crap returned to this issue.

Apparently it started with some SEC-related whining about Notre Dame needing to join a conference all the way if they want to be a part of the College Football Playoffs during their media days. (Gary Pinkel of Mizzou, of all people and places, started this for reasons that no one really can fathom.)

Naturally it just went from there with all coaches being asked about it. Especially at ACC media days a week later. And of course, the ACC coaches were all very much behind the idea. Because, well, it seems that if Notre Dame should decide to join a conference before 2027, their deal with the ACC stipulates that it has to be the ACC.

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New Athletic Director Scott Barnes just tweeted out a link to let Pitt fans reserve tickets to the Penn State game next year early. Here are the details:

2015 Pitt Football Season Ticket Holders and Mini Package Holders may now request additional tickets to the highly anticipated matchup in 2016 between Pitt and Penn State at Heinz Field. Additional single game ticket requests can be made by calling the Panthers Ticket Office at 800-643-7488 or by clicking here.

TICKET ALLOCATION
The following order of ticket allocation will be used:

1. Season Ticket Holders that are Panther Club members that have requested additional tickets by rank
2. Mini Package Holders that are Panther Club members that have requested additional tickets by rank
3. Season Ticket Holders that are non-Panther Club members that have requested additional tickets by rank
4. Mini Package Holders that are non-Panther Club members that have requested additional tickets by rank

Following the Ticket Allocation of requests from Pitt Football Season Ticket and Mini Package Holders we will offer an exclusive opportunity to the following groups based on availability…

1. Panther Club members that are not Pitt Football Season Ticket or Mini Package holders by rank
2. Pitt Alumni Association members

After this exclusive period any remaining single game tickets will be made available to the general public.

I can’t stress how important it will be to make sure Heinz is as pro-Pitt as possible. None of us like Penn State, but we can’t deny they have a large fan base that will attend in droves. This is a great way to make the stadium as friendly as possible, so do your part and reserve tickets today!

Or, well, at least about what I expected.

The suspensions were handed out for Wide Receiver Tyler Boyd and Defensive End Rori Blair. Both were dealing with DUI charges from the spring and summer.

In a press release sent out after 5 pm today (can’t really wait until Friday with training camp about to start), Pitt announced the consequences beyond whatever internal discipline they faced.

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Here on August 3^rd we are a week away from the start of the Fall Training Camp on Monday August 9^th.   We’ve had all the eight months of the off-season to talk about off-season issues and, if truth be told, we all started repeating ourselves.  It has been an interesting and somewhat productive time however.  Whereas most ‘downtimes’ between seasons with the same coaching staff is somewhat boring we had the news of a new Chancellor, new AD, new HC and with that a new football staff.

That is a lot to take in and I think we all did a great job of discussing our news, thoughts, opinions and general feelings about the dramatic changes we have seen since Dec ’14.

It’s time to move on though.  Real football awaits and we’re anxious to start seeing what transpires as far as the team we’ll filed on game day goes.

First some camp administrative info.

Pitt will have a Media Day early on where we’ll have a chance to observe some practice and ask questions with hopefully a bit more access for that one day.

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