I’m not saying Coach Paul Chryst does his level best to minimize any hype and attention to football in the spring, but cancelling the Blue-Gold Scrimmage and having the first practice on the same evening as Selection Sunday. Well, it’s hard not to make some inferences.
Between my absences and basketball season, football talk has gotten a short shrift from me. Not that there has been much beyond speculation for most of the last month. Still, there were some items.
Bryan Murphy and Mark Giubilato have left the team, though the two will remain at Pitt to finish their academics. Both will be seniors. Some attrition was expected simply because the scholarship numbers weren’t adding up correctly.
From a football standpoint, Giubilato isn’t a big loss. He was the back-up fullback to Jaymar Parrish. He was on special teams as well, but realistically he wasn’t going to see much action this year.
Murphy has battled injuries and academics in his career at Pitt. It has sapped what seemed like a very promising time at Pitt when he earned playing time as a freshman. Yes, he was going to face stiff competition Given the overall lack of playmakers on defense and questions with players returning from injury on that side of the ball, there is a little concern in losing more depth from the defensive end spot.
As for spring practice. Gee, I wonder what the primary story line will be? Let me think about it. I’m drawing a blank. Don’t worry, it will come to me. I just wish it was a simple choice. Well, I’ll come back to that.
Well, there is the receiving corps. Obviously the headliner is Tyler Boyd.
Now it’s Boyd’s turn to shoulder the mantle of leadership. More importantly, he and new starting quarterback Chad Voytik, also a rising sophomore, will carry the fortunes of the passing game.
“It doesn’t matter how young (the team) is,” Boyd said. “It’s how well you are coached and how fast you process what you are being taught.”
Boyd said he tries to lead by example on the field and in the weight room.
“Even when they are doing good, I push them to be even better,” he said of his teammates. “I push them to be great. You want to do great things.”
Practice will look different this season with the loss of Street, Engram and quarterbacks coach Brooks Bollinger and the additions of running backs coach John Settle and receivers coach Greg Lewis.
Lewis, who played eight years in the NFL, likes what he has seen of Boyd on video.
“My thing is I want to add to what Coach Engram has done and don’t mess him up,” he said. “I definitely think he has all the tools. He can catch, he’s quick and he’s fast. It’s just fine-tuning things to make it even better than it is.”
Come the fall, all eyes will be on Adonis Jennings to come in and see if he can grab the second WR spot. In spring practices, there is a lot more competition. Though, it seems Ronald Jones and Manasseh Garner are the primaries at the moment.
Senior Manasseh Garner will split time between wide receiver and tight end, but he is officially listed as a wide receiver on the roster.
“I’ll be able to be physical (like a tight end) and run routes like a receiver,” he said.
He said he has lost 20 pounds and is at 215.
“He has his own skill set,” Chryst said.
Garner playing a bit more at WR makes sense. As Chryst says about the skill set, he is very versatile. Getting him out there is important, and Pitt has plenty of depth at tight end that moving him to a WR-esque type position opens things up more and creates potential mismatches with whoever has to cover Garner.
As for non-position changes, James Connor is still being the team player but all signs and his own desires suggest that he will focus on being a running back, not a defensive end.
Running back James Conner is listed at 230 pounds, but he said he checked in at 248 — the same weight at which he played the 2013 season. He said he wants to play this season at 240. He said he is on target to reach two of his offseason goals.
“Coach said I was doing a great job with ball security and footwork,” Conner said.
On the matter of playing defensive end — something he did in last season’s bowl game — Conner said he’s OK with that.
“If they ask me to do it, I will definitely do it,” he said.
But he has changed his number from 40 to 24 in honor of one of his favorite players, Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch.
“He refused to go down, so that’s what I’m going to try to do this year,” he said.
In a vacuum. Or even just a few years ago, the idea of James Connor being moved to DE would seem ridiculous on its face. A very talented kid who really excelled as a freshman running the ball. Yet, there is more than a little serious talk about the merits of moving him to defensive end.
Some of it stems from how the running back is valued these days. The position is still a vital part of even the most pass-happy offense, but the individual player less so. As in the NFL, college teams (and fans) are a lot less concerned with having a stud, every down running back. They see the spot as being much more of a shared position where the drop-off doesn’t have to be as vast between starter and back-up.
For Pitt specifically, that lack of sure playmakers on the defensive side of the ball is a big concern. No Aaron Donald. Lots of new players to start, and frankly the lackluster recruiting on the defensive side of the ball. It isn’t that there is no talent or that players won’t develop. It is that unlike the offense there are no highly touted players that have come to the defensive side. So, a player like Connor who has such great athleticism and can have a visible impact. Well, suddenly there is room for discussion.
I think they post, because they just enjoy getting a rise out of people.
Fair enough, they got me to post three times now, probably chuckling to themselves. That’s ok.
@wbb, ya, someone asked him about baseball yesterday.
I could sum up his feelings though. The baseball team sucks, or will end up sucking, the coach sucks, Dixon sucks, the hoop players suck, Chryst sucks, the football players suck.
Here a suck, there a suck, everywhere a suck-suck.
LOL!!!
I really don’t mind, unless their facts are wrong.
Well, let’s look at that factually.
2002 Sweet 16
2003 Sweet 16
2004 Sweet 16
2005 1st round
2006 2nd round
2007 Sweet 16
2008 2nd round
2009 Elite 8
2010 2nd round
2011 2nd round
2013 1st round
I grant you, as all of you have been I’m sure, I’ve been disappointed the last couple years, and, no one wants to go to a Final Four or get a N.C. more than I.
However, to laugh them off as always losing in the 1st round or even 2nd round, is FACTUALLY incorrect.
What about the 4 Sweet 16’s and the Elite 8????
Conveiniently forgotten about???
I will also make the case, that getting to the tournament is still a big deal. We’ve come to expect it. Do you know how many teams don’t go, let alone 12 out of 13 years??
Especially compared to football.
About 127 Div 1 teams, 35 bowls. 70 teams in bowls right?? More than half. Still happy to get to a bowl, and you’d rather be a team going to a bowl than one that does not. But, 55% of teams go to a bowl game.
351 Div 1 basketball teams. 68 go to the tourney.
That is 19%.
College football. 55% go to post-season.
College bsktball. 19% go to post-season.
But, why deal with facts, right??
Do I want more?? Of course. But to treat the program like it’s garbage, show’s their lack of knowledge, not ours.
So, I do apologize. We have agreed many times on wanting more from our athletic dept and athletic programs.
I’m not backing up from my statements, and it would be easy for me to do, especially on a blog, but, why would anyone want too, it’s just a blog, no big deal one way or another, why not just tell the truth, but I will say this now, in hindsight………..
Other than the actual post about “Upitt” hates so and so, which I was laughing about, the other ones were really geared towards another poster, and people that always call into the talk shows.
Like I said, just a blog, no reason to tell story’s, so that is the truth. Sorry you got caught in the cross fire.
So, maybe a bit of transference on my part, so I do apologize.
It just bugs me when I hear people say “ha ha ha
Pitt will be done by Thursday night, that’s their M.O., ha ha ha”
The facts just don’t back that reputation up.
I want more. However the way some people talk about the program, like it’s junk and is garbage rubs me the wrong way.
“The carpetbagger at Penn State now has 5-4* recruits all offered by Pitt.”
then you go on to say:
“Don’t know what you’re talking about Wilson has not signed yet.”
so, let me get this straight. Penn St. has all those guys signed? rrrright. Is it even possible to have future recruits signed yet? NOPE. It’s good to have a recruit if you’re Penn St. (unsigned) but not good for Pitt because they are (unsigned). You realize how this is a complete contradiction right? of course you do.
Wilson IS as good as signed however. He is very tight with Knight. Plays on the same AAU team he did. Are AAU connections important in recruiting? hmmm. What do you think if you’re such the recruiting expert? Historically, do basketball recruits back out or flip very often? Care to do the research? I didn’t think so. The answer is very rarely.
Ironically, the only way we lose these 4-5 star future recruits is if you have your way and JD is fired. Then Slice is gone and Knight is gone. Wilson is a lock. Period.
They may not be sad he left, but Michigan offered him, recruited him, signed him so he is not the complete turd everyone made him out to be last year. All those who know how to put a secondary on the field at the D-1 level.
He has a Pitt uniform on now, plays hard and hasn’t done anything to embarrass his school so that is enough for me.
Glad to know he played his way back into your good graces.
I have tryed to not say any thing but chick is a pain in the ass.
he has a right to say what he wants as long as he is not a Trool but i think he is and no one on here pisses me off as much as him.
But then, that is kind of the typical UpittBB signature,isn’t it? In some way shape or form, negative karma.
Morganhole or Pedophile St.!!!
H2P!!!!!!
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!