It has been a crazy day. I woke up to text messages, Facebook posts, and tweets that all say Chryst is gone. While this is still the likely scenario, there’s a tinge of hope. Let’s go over some facts of what we know:

1. Chryst is a candidate for the Wisconsin job and at worst the leader for the job. Most reports indicate the job is his if he accepts if he hasn’t already.
2. Wisconsin cannot formally announce a hire until Wednesday due to some legal job posting rule, so no formal announcement can occur until then.
3. Chryst met with Chancellor Gallagher and only Gallagher today. Pederson was not a party in this meeting.
4. Chryst attended practice today with the team and a meeting was held before. At this meeting he did not tell the team he was leaving.
5. Jordan Whitehead said he’s still committed to Pitt. This isn’t relevant to any of the above other than THANK YOU BABY JESUS!!!

Take all of that in. What could it all mean? (more…)

And so it seems the era of Chryst ends with the balance and even keel he preached. A 19-19 record after three years. Perfect balance.

I can’t be particularly angry at Chryst for choosing to go back to his alma mater. His state. Where all his ties are. I can be pissed at everything else around it, but not the decision.

It’s just hard to believe that with such “meh” results, Pitt is staring at yet another coaching search. I had hoped that if the program had to start looking this soon it would be because of success. Not Wisconsin giving Pitt a run for its dysfunction.

Technically it is not official. Yet, it seems to be all but. Paul Chryst will leave Pitt and return to Wisconsin.

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Last week Nebraska surprised everyone with the hire of Mike Riley from Oregon State to replace Bo Pelini. That was a stunner no one saw coming. That is until late this afternoon when Oregon State hired Dave Andersen from Wisconsin.

Now, Wisconsin has to hire a new coach and Paul Chryst sits right smack dab in the middle of the speculation.

Just as it made sense for speculating on him when Bielema left for Arkansas two years, ago it still holds true today. A native of Wisconsin. Lots of ties to the AD and the school itself. And in much the same way Ohio State fans held Walt Harris in higher esteem than many Pitt fans did after a time, Wisconsin fans still hold Paul Chryst in a semi-revered status for his work as an OC.

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That Pitt rallied enough to finish 6-6 and gets to play in a minor bowl is a bit of a positive. At the same time, it can’t be said that this was a good season. It wasn’t a debacle — though, it sure came close — but it was a definite step back. How much of a step back is really one that won’t be settled until next year.

When Pitt was sitting at 4-6, it was looking with a high degree of certainty that Pitt would finish the year having taken a big step backwards. With an easier schedule, Pitt was performing worse and it showed in the wins and losses.

The season felt over before Thanksgiving. Pitt would probably beat Syracuse, but going down to Miami seemed like a waste at that point. Pitt football was remaining in the doldrums.

A bit from USA Today writer Dan Wolken from his weekly Misery Index on Pitt at that point probably summed up the fears/feelings growing in a lot of fans.

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You would think with a career coaching record of 19-19; coming off a 6-6 season — again; home losses to Youngstown State and Akron on the resume; and a recruiting style best described as laid back, that Paul Chryst would not be in the annual coaching carousel discussion for December 2014.

And but for one big red N, that would be true. There are plenty of rumors and ruminations all day that Nebraska at the very least has interest in talking to Chryst.

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(This is a weekly series of articles entitled “Monday Morning Quarterback”.   I will try to post them two days after the football games are played so as to have our wilder emotions under control by then.  It will be my take on the positives and the negatives we saw happen and a chance for commenters to agree or disagree and to add their own thoughts.)

POSITIVES

1.  Any RB not named James Conner, again. What a great supporting cast at RB we have. Conner gets a hip pointer and is pulled after tying the ACC TD record and chasing hard after Famous Tony Dorsett’s record and our running game doesn’t skip a beat.  We were up against a Syracuse defense that wasn’t too bad against the run (139 ypg & 30^th nationally) and pretty much had our way with the.  True FR Chris James was the lead horse but the other two RBs certainly chipped in when needed.  The box score reads like this:

James: 19-122, 6.4ypc;  Bennett: 11-75, 6,8 ypc;  Ibrahim: 3-23, 7.7 ypc.  When you have three backs that average above  6.4 ypc over the course of 33 carries both the backs and the OL are clicking.

Bennett had a nice 9 yard ramble on a 2^nd & 3 yards play that got us a 1^st down and led directly to Voytik’s TD pass to Ford to make it 17-0 and an easier game to play. But all three of those guys had very nice running skills and are a mixture of some power, Bennett and James particularly and shiftiness (all three).

We all want Conner healthy and able to set some records of his own against Miami this week but it helps us fans to know that we have some pretty reliable backs behind him.  I thought earlier this season that if Conner had gone down with an injury it would be a loss but we would also have the OL and the RBs to still mount a successful rushing game.  Glad that it didn’t happen for many reason and on is that having Conner behind Voytik has allowed this staff to bring Voytik along slowly and that has paid dividends in the second half of this season.

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Can we talk about this like adults?  ( I just heard that for the first time in 33 years of marriage and thought I’d share).

Hey, we played a football game today against a long time rival and won convincingly. Let’s devote at least some time to it.

Defense played well, offense was efficient and there were enough weird plays for us PITT fans to debate .

Personally I think 5-6 sounds a lot better than 4-7.  We actually have a shot at a post-season game based on Paul Chryst’s personality – you know that the bowl game sponsors are dying to get him for their event, he’ll put butts in the seats for sure!!

So what say you?

When you check the boxes for a head coach on Paul Chryst, there is one you can fill in completely. Then slap a coat of paint and epoxy to be sure it is never going to be unchecked. Bland, predictable, non-judgmental coachspeak.

The defense has been a decaying, desecating hot mess for the last three games. Does Coach Chryst think more time needs to be spent working with the defense. Helping the coaches and players? Probably. But you won’t get him to admit it.

Despite the lopsided nature of the box scores, Chryst said Monday that he doesn’t plan to spend more time focusing on the defense this week as the Panthers prepare for Syracuse in their home finale.

At his weekly news conference, Chryst initially declined to answer when asked if he would change how much time he spends in defensive meeting rooms this week, only noting how the Panthers need to improve defensively.

But when pressed, he said he still believes consistency is the best approach.

“You’re going to be watching film and, every week, you make comments,” Chryst said. “I’m going to make sure I’m doing that weekly. It’s no different than how you coach and interact with your players.

“You better coach them all the time and not just wait for the scoreboard to dictate when you’re going to coach or help or do something.”

Chryst added that it is a bit puzzling to see the defensive problems in the past three weeks, given that the unit played well early this season but has struggled to maintain that consistency he preaches.

“There have been some moments where I think we’ve been playing really well, and certainly some moments when we haven’t,” Chryst said.

The system is in place. There is no problem with the system. All will be well, as long as the team continues to follow the system.

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The numbers are damning over the last 3 games.

— 1552 total yards surrendered.

— 140 points given up by the defense (We won’t count the 7 given up by special teams).

— 1 takeaway by the defense.

As the offense has improved and progressed over the course of the season, the defense has made no progress from the start of the season. It was masked by the competition, but there is no hiding from this mess.

But this has been coming a while. When Matt House was hired as the defensive coordinator, no one could actually defend the hiring from a football standpoint. He was unqualified. He had very limited experience even as a position coach. He was Chryst’s comfortable hire because it promoted staff continuity. The defense of House essentially came down to either trying to shift the blame on the AD or to say that we have to trust Head Coach Paul Chryst’s judgment on his own staff.

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The bye week feels like a great time to break out my old column Optimist vs. Pessimist. There’s not a whole lot to be optimistic about the rest of this season, but perhaps a bowl win could inspire a little hope like it did at the end of last season. Naturally, two more wins are needed before Pitt can even think about going to a bowl game. Let’s examine whether or not James Conner and company can win two of the last three games against UNC, the ARCHRIVAL ORANGE, and Miami. (more…)

(This is a weekly series of articles entitled “Monday Morning Quarterback”.   I will try to post them two days after the football games are played so as to have our wilder emotions under control by then.  It will be my take on the positives and the negatives we saw happen and a chance for commenters to agree or disagree and to add their own thoughts.)

I have to start off by saying that because of external family issues; a death of a good friend, my having to set up his Memorial Service ,  having the wake at our home and then having house guests all weekend I didn’t watch the game and I didn’t record it either.

I took a look at the box scores and watched a few video highlights and that’s it – you guys can do the MMQB’ing this week…

POSITIVES

1.  Chad Voytik. That is his second consecutive game that he’s shown improvement in his actual passing production.  From watching a couple videos of his passes it looks like his passing skills are getting better also. 16 of  24 for 236 yards (66.8%) with a ypa of 9.8, which is excellent! And two TDs is a good day at the office for any QB.  Good for him.  He lead the team to 31  regular game points.

On our second TD drive we had to go 32 yards and he did that with only two plays, a 16 yard pass and a 13 yard run.

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Fans are panicking. Questions are flying. Four wins and five losses. An ugly October killed any hope of a successful third season. Is the coach anything more than a great offensive coordinator who can’t handle running the show himself? A few good wins have been countered with ugly losses. Does this team have a QB that can win next season? The defense is in shambles and has looked like one of the worst in the country. All the hope and promise of a 7 win season last year is gone. Should the coach be fired and let the program start all over again after recent turmoil? With a little luck in the remaining three games perhaps the season can be salvaged, but two tough opponents make that unlikely. (more…)

With about 10 minutes left in 4th quarter, I slammed down the laptop. Shoved it into my bag. Got myself composed, and started out of the press box. Stopping briefly, I bitterly asked someone — who I knew would stay for all of it, and go to the post-game — “Do me a favor, keep a running tally of how many times Paul Chryst utters the phrase ‘correctable mistakes.'”

I stalked out of the stadium. Trying not to think about the first 50 minutes of that mess. All I wanted to do was go meet back with my friends.

It was homecoming. For all the grief Pitt football can inflict, the ties that bind me to this school are about my friends. I went to Pitt at the end of the Gottfiried and the Hackett era. Football success was not exactly a part of my student experience. There has never been a lot of reveling in past football success when looking back on my college years.

We have kids. We have lives. We live in various other states. We came into Pittsburgh this weekend ostensibly for a football game, but that was just the cover we needed to tell our wives so we could just be around each other for a day. A date set out well in advance that we could all make sure to have the schedule cleared.

So that’s what we did that evening. Without any verbal consensus, we avoided all talk of the GT-Pitt game. We had a great night. Talking, drinking, a good meal, indulging in cigars. The times you can immediately appreciate, because the opportunities to all be together at the same time get harder each year. And we would be damned if a debacle on the field was going to take that from us.

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(This is a weekly series of articles entitled “Monday Morning Quarterback”.   I will try to post them two days after the football games are played so as to have our wilder emotions under control by then.  It will be my take on the positives and the negatives we saw happen and a chance for commenters to agree or disagree and to add their own thoughts.)

We met the enemy and they are us.  After some games this season it has been kind of hard to find three positives to list in this series’ articles.  Today it is virtually impossible.

POSITIVES

1. The holder on our PATs. At least he didn’t fumble the ball.  Seriously.

2.  Our Running Backs. A while ago I mentioned ‘every RB not named James Conner’ in an article. I’ll do that again here. Ibrahim, Bennett and James all had good plays to try to keep us in the game.  Ibrahim (3 carries for 66 yards)  took a handoff down the left sideline for 50 yards to set up a Conner TD; Bennett, although he was one of the now-record breaking PITT fumbling crew, took a beautifully thrown wheel route from Anderson down the right side for a 35 yard TD and Chris James contributed a nice show of yards after the catch on a short dump pass from Voytik that James turned into a 23 yard gain.

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It was painfully obvious to anyone watching yesterday that the defense was woefully unprepared for Georgia Tech’s offense.  Even disregarding points and blaming it on turnovers, 612 yards of total offense is so high no amount of expletives can come close to calming the justifiable anger. I’ve defended Matt House a lot this season and the narrative right now is that Pitt’s defense had high ratings due to inferior competition. Let’s explore the stats there to see how close Pitt came to holding opposing offenses to their season average. (more…)