Well, to start off… due to popular demand we have started a “The Pitt Blather” Facebook page.  Here is the link for that.  I did it on a whim. Actually that isn’t true, I did it because we had talked bout it six months ago and I figured “How hard can it be?”

Honestly, you won’t see any more content on there than you do on here.  I set it up sp that it is more of an advertisement for new readers so the can become commenters and we can then cut some of the commenters on here that are pissing us writers off.  You know who you are and start packing up your laptop and get ready to move on.

Just kidding I think. What I’ll do is when we have posted a piece up on here I’ll copy the link and post it for the Facebook readers to use to come over here to read it.

I also asked that if any readers want to comment on and discuss the offense then to please do it on the Blather site itself.

Chris Peak has his Bi-Weekly podcast up this morning.  In it he talks about the Strength of Schedule (SOS) of the Pitt team from 2015 ending up with 8-5, then turns his attention toward 2016’s schedule and whether we can match last year’s win total.  Here it is:

He feels we’ll have losses with Clemson and Oklahoma State (both away games) then about our ‘throw out stats and records’ game against PSU at Heinz Field.

My two cents – with the way the team looks coming out of spring practices, and remember this is so very early in the year to predict things about what we’ll look like in September – is that I’ll agree that we lose those two away games. We have a total of five away games, Clemson, OK State, Virginia, Miami and North Carolina.  Factor in  the huge amount of fans who will flood into Heinz for the PSU game and I think that negates any home field advantage in that particular match.

This is why I think our deep passing game has to step it up.  The best way to negate the ephemeral “home field advantage” is to strike fast and hard.  Open up with a few deep throws in the 1st quarter and score 7-10 points quickly then we’ll have a fighting chance against even more talented teams.

For me, at this point in time, I find it hard to look at that schedule and see more than six or seven wins.

Here is a topic we have been discussing on here a lot lately – The Pitt News has a good article about Pitt’s positioning itself for better fundraising results… which is apparently why Barnes was hired in the first place.

With the second-largest alumni base in the ACC, Pitt has potential for high donor engagement. But given Pitt’s 300,000 living alumni, athletic donations are meager — the University’s athletic donor engagement rate is the second lowest in the ACC, according to Pitt Athletics spokesperson E.J. Borghetti.

In 2015, 25,062 alumni donated a total of $29,260,124 to the University overall. Out of those 25,062 people, 8,000 donated to the athletic department.

The engagement rate was about 2.6 percent last year, close to half the average percentage for ACC donor engagement, Athletic Director Scott Barnes said at a town hall meeting in January. The number of alumni donors at Pitt has decreased every year since 2012, when 25,728 people donated to the University.

And this is exactly why they asked Pat Bostick JR to leave the broadcast booth and concentrate on his expanded duties as the Director of Development for the Panther Club:

Patrick Bostick is the director of development for the Panther Club, the main fundraising program for Pitt Athletics. He said the University’s fundraising strategies just haven’t reached a big enough audience.

“We have relied on a fundraising model that’s heavily dependent on ticket-driven donations, so season tickets require a donation,” Bostick said. “We need to address markets where donors exist that don’t necessarily need to buy a ticket to be a member.”

Barnes is going to need the money. He’s planning for $8 to $10 million in renovations to Pitt’s athletic facilities, including enhancements to the swimming and diving team room that will cost $4 million.

Here is his info – give him a call, drop a line or send a carrier pigeon… he’ll accept your $$ any way you want to get it to him.

Patrick Bostick, Director of Development, 412-684-8235, pbostick@athletics.pitt.edu