After two liveblogs, a 12 hour binge of college football and basketball, and a minor case of alcohol poisoning. I had to take Sunday away from the computer and TV. Something about family time. That always ends well. Add in the fact that my phone choked on an operating system update — sending it into perpetual reboot — and I am feeling quite deaf and blind for the next couple of days until the replacement arrives.

Well, Pitt is heading back to Birmingham for the BBVA Bowl and will face SMU. Present (soon enough to be past) Big East versus future. I noted yesterday that the one advantage for Pitt of getting sent to Birmingham for a bowl: no one expects any fanbase to travel for a bowl in Birmingham. Factor in that Pitt played in it last year, and it should be quite the local crowd. More good news, Pitt basketball doesn’t have a game the same day this year.

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I’ve paid zilch attention to this in the last week. Barely skimmed some of the dispatches. Didn’t want it to be like this. Didn’t expect it to. I can only hope that somehow the kids care and put more effort forth than I have.

It’s a nooner (of course it is) on ESPN. Joining me in running the liveblog is longtime commenter and liveblog participant, Maz. I will be with you until 2pm, when I have to switch to the Marquette-Pitt basketball liveblog.

We will try to discuss the game, though, I’m sure there will be some talk of the coaching mess at the moment.

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I mean, who didn’t see this coming?

Pitt has distributed between 2,000 and 3,000 tickets, athletics department spokesman E.J. Borghetti said. Borghetti declined to say how many have been sold and how many are allocated for free, such as to staff members, band members, cheerleaders and players’ families.

Kentucky media relations director Tony Neely reported the school’s ticket sales at 4,000. He also did not elaborate on the number sold compared to distributed.

Both teams had disappointing seasons. Kentucky has suspended their senior starting QB for the game. Pitt is in a coaching turnover, and fired/reassigned/resigned Coach Wannstedt still has not decided if he is coaching this team. (Wannstedt is starting to piss me off about this. I get that he is still upset over everything, but he is screwing around with his own players by refusing to make a decision yet.)

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What? You haven’t joined the Pitt Blather Bowl Challenge yet? The bowl games start tomorrow at 2 pm.

Need your incentive other than the joy of competing by predicting the outcome of all the bowl games?

Okay, time to announce the prize for the winner.

You will have a choice. I have one pair of the customized Pitt Nike Zoom Huarache training sneaker, courtesy of Nike. Here are some more pics from the Pro Combat day. I would have kept the pair for myself, because I did get to try a pair and they fit nicely. Unfortunately the pair they sent me is not my size. So if you win and want the sneaker option we will find out if you have the right sized foot for this.

(Odd aside, of the ten programs to get the Pro Combat treatment this fall, four of them — Pitt, Florida, Miami and WVU — have coaching turnover.)

Now the other prize option is a schwag/regifting collection. All of the items are new/unused. I’ve ended up with them, and it’s time to dump them share.

Among the items in this are:

— 8 GB jump drive in the form of Nike branded military dog tags

— Padded black Nike drawstring bag

— Jim Beam branded flask

— Brewzkey bottle opener

— Flying Dog branded pint glass

And I’m adding this t-shirt in size Large

There may be some other items added, but I have to look what is accumulated.

How can you not be fired up to play now? Register, here.

Pretty self explanatory. Bowl challenge by confidence. Rules are on the site if you are unsure as to how it works.

You rank your picks 1-34. If your pick wins, you get those points. Whoever finishes with the most points at the end of the Bowl Season will receive a prize that Chas will announce shortly.

Click here to create your entry. The password is pittblather

Offline stuff has been dominating for the last couple of days. I have been trying to figure out the right way to phrase my feelings of Pitt going to the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham after such a letdown of a season. Instead, I’ll just let someone else sum it up.

Pitt was the preseason pick to win the Big East. Dave Wannstedt should use this matchup as a teaching point: “Guys, when we mess up during the season, we get sent to Birmingham in the postseason. Let’s not mess up anymore, OK?”

That would be the message to send behind closed doors. Publicly. It is about putting a happy face on it (and paraphrasing things said by Herm Edwards).

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The Meineke Car Car Bowl is dead. Long live the Charlotte-Name-Placeholder-Until-A-New-Sponsor-Willing-To-Pay-More-Is-Found Bowl.

Bowl officials wanted a more lucrative deal after moving up in the Atlantic Coast Conference selection order, which will mean increasing its payout per team from about $1.3 million to more than $1.8 million.

Driven Brands took over as title sponsor from Continental Tire in 2005 and has been paying about $1 million a year.

Maybe Wachovia Wells Fargo will pony up. That would be fun The Wells Fargo Bowl at Bank of America Stadium.

Remember when the Big East got sick of the split deal with the Sun Bowl and the Gator Bowl? If you can follow this, it might return with the PapaJohns.com Bowl and Liberty Bowl.

As part of their four-year agreements through 2013, the Papajohns.com and Lib­erty rotate who gets an SEC team when the conference doesn’t have enough eligible teams. If there are enough teams, the two bowls will at­tempt to work through their picks together.

This marks the first four­-year contract between the SEC and the Papajohns.com Bowl after they previously worked under a two-year deal.

“We certainly sense more and more community involvement with the bowl, which in our view is essential to the success of a bowl,” SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said. “We’re very pleased that we’re able to enter into a more formal and longer agreement with the bowl and to hopefully make a contribution to the community in which the conference office is located.”

Papajohns gets the last SEC pick. The Liberty one spot ahead. Now the plan had been that if the SEC didn’t have enough teams, the SunBelt would take the spot for the SEC in Birmingham. The Big East, though, wants to make sure they play the SEC in a bowl every year — hence why a Big East team goes to Birmingham.

Meanwhile the Liberty Bowl is trying to get the Big East as a back-up conference to the SEC in the game against a Conference USA team.

Sooo. I don’t think that the Big East and SEC will meet in the Liberty Bowl, but there might be instances that bumps the Big East team either into an additional spot in the Liberty Bowl or even out of the papajohns.com bowl. It’s all very convoluted and makes my head hurt.

Now when Tony Barnhart speaks on college football issues, people actually pay attention. He’s one of the few remaining non-ESPN journalists that spent his career writing about, covering and having lots of sources in the college games. So, this is intriguing.

The other big topic here has a chance to completely change college football as we know it. I’ve spoken to a number of athletics directors and commissioners who are convinced that the Big Ten is positioning itself to seriously consider becoming college football first super conference by expanding to as many as 16 teams.

The Big Ten is looking at three plans: Stand pat with 11 teams, add one team (hopefully Notre Dame) or make a blockbuster move and go to 16.

“If they go to 16 and one of them is Notre Dame then we’ve got an entirely new ball game,” a conference commissioner told me confidentially.

There is pretty serious speculation that The Big Ten would look to the Big East in its big master plan. Now I don’t know which teams are involved, but Just for fun, let’s say the Big Ten asks Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Connecticut and Rutgers to join.

Realistically, those are the only 4 schools from the Big East that the Big 11 would take. The other 4 BE football schools lack the requisite academic bonafides.

Barnhart then goes into further speculation mode and kind of drifts afield in my view. But the idea of 16-team mega conferences in football has been floated by message boards and writers for some time. Andy Staples at SI.com floated one in February.

Honestly. I think the Big 11 is considering it, because going mega would legitimately be a daring way to get ahead of the potential curve and there has been so much speculation over the economic arms races of the Big 11 and SEC. A move to 16 might be enough of a force to get the Big Ten Network on lower tiers and more deals cut into the heavily populated — even if slightly apathetic to the college game — East.

Either way, I’m not planning to buy  Big East labeled gear. Spencer Hall breaks it down with the Big East conference call.

You remember that bowl game planned for Yankee Stadium in December? It has a name. Please welcome the New Era Pinstripe Bowl.

The New Era Pinstripe Bowl will be held on Dec. 30, 2010, and televised nationally by ESPN.

A press conference announcing the name will be held at 10 a.m. at Yankee Stadium. The name comes from the game’s four-year title sponsor, headwear and apparel manufacturer New Era Cap Company, Inc.

The bowl will match the third-place Big East team with the sixth-place Big 12 team, after the BCS teams from each conference are excluded from consideration. Both teams will stay in Manhattan, the Big East team at the Grand Hyatt and the Big 12 team at the Sheraton New York.

The bowl’s Web site, newerapinstripebowl.com, will be launched later today.

According to the press release I got sent:

There is a four-year agreement extending through 2013 for the Big East and Big 12 to participate in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium. In future years beyond 2010, games will take place no earlier than Christmas Day and no later than New Year’s Day.

Will it last beyond that? I have no idea. Just as I have no idea if the Big East and Big 12 will be around in 4 years.

I pointed it out briefly this morning how in a tight game like this the losing side will bemoan the mistakes their side made that cost them. For the UNC game it was the mental things.

Some of the self-inflicted wounds for North Carolina included, in order:

A pass to a clearly covered running back Ryan Houston on a third-and-goal play at the 4-yard line by quarterback T.J. Yates with four minutes left in the first half. If Yates had simply taken the sack or thrown the ball away, UNC could have kicked a field goal to tie the score at 10.

After kicking a 37-yard field goal to tie the score at 10 with 1:05 left in the first half, UNC kicker Casey Barth attempted a squib kick that went out of bounds, giving Pitt possession at the 40-yard line. Bolstered by the good field position, the Panthers moved in position for a 31-yard field goal by Hutchins to lead 13-10 at the half.

A 15-yard penalty for interfering with a punt catch at the start of the second half by the Tar Heels allowed Pittsburgh to start a drive at the UNC 36-yard line. Hutchins would cash in with a 42-yard field goal to give his team a 16-10 lead.

But the most damaging miscue by the Tar Heels came on the game-winning drive by the Panthers.

Yes, the one thing all sides can agree upon was the game-changer. The dreaded jumping offside.

“We had put in a new kick-block play (in practice) just for a situation like that, and I think the guys were just too excited,” [Linebacker Kennedy] Tinsley said. “It’s the biggest play of the game. I guess Pitt’s coach told them to wait as long as they could. That was a great call, because our guys were so excited. You can’t blame those guys for getting excited about that play. That was basically the end of the game, that kick. Guys got excited, trying to make a play, and jumped offsides.”

The 5-yard penalty gave Pitt a new set of downs. Four plays and 14 yards later, Hutchins easily made the shorter field goal.

“We were definitely trying to drew them offside,” Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said. “They were jumping the gun a little bit, so we told our center to take his time adjusting the ball to lengthen it and drew them offside. But we were going to kick it. If they didn’t jump offside, we were going to kick the field goal. But the extra 20 yards sure did help.”

Carolina senior defensive tackle Cam Thomas was flagged for the offside penalty, but at least three Tar Heels jumped the play when Janocko signaled for the snap.

“Guys got anxious trying to make a big play,” Austin said. “The game was on the line. The center moved his head up, and it just triggered Cam. He was trying to run through everybody and make a play. It was just an unfortunate play.”

Without that penalty. Even if Pitt kicks and makes the FG, UNC has a lot more time and more timeouts available. It does stand out.

Missing from the analysis, from the UNC side, however, is that Pitt left 10 points off the board with a missed FG and a fumble by Dion Lewis that went into the endzone. That tends to be glossed over because those were Pitt mistakes and they took place early in the game. Easily forgotten and lost in the rest of things that happened — especially late.

You know who will bitterly remember those missing points? Anyone who bet on Pitt and had to give 2.5 points. They are really feeling bitter.

Briefly, as I have to head home today.

So that’s what it is like to end the season with a win in late December. It’s only been 7 years so the feeling is unfamiliar.

The Meineke game ended like the UConn game, though, it could just as easily been like the Cinci game — except that UNC’s offense was definitely more UConn than Cinci as far as quick-strike ability. The view from Charlotte definitely was UConn-esque.

Leading by one point early in the fourth quarter, the Tar Heels downed a punt on Pittsburgh’s 5-yard line.

Little did they know, they wouldn’t get the ball back for more than eight minutes. No. 17-ranked Pittsburgh churned out one of the best drives in the Meineke Car Care Bowl’s eight-year history, going 79 yards in 17 plays and eating up 8 minutes and 47 seconds for the winning field goal in a 19-17 defeat of the Tar Heels at Bank of America Stadium.

The fourth game that ended up being decided in the final minutes. Pitt finished 2-2 in those games. As simple as it would be to talk/rant/complain about how Pitt could’ve-should’ve been 4-0, they just as easily could have been 0-4.

As is typical in games that end like this, the winning team fans and coverage talks of breathing a sigh of relief at overcoming mistakes, leaving points on the table and just finishing. On the other side, it is about too many mistakes, questionable play-calling, and just blowing it.

It was a familiar ending for UNC.

With the ACC’s best defense and one of the best in the country, the Tar Heels were one stop from their first bowl win in eight years. Instead of celebrating, UNC watched helplessly as Dan Hutchins’ 33-yard field goal lifted No. 17 Pitt to a 19-17 win at Bank of America Stadium.

No bowl win, no bandwagon. Instead of avenging last year’s bowl loss in Charlotte to a Big East team, the Heels got a serious case of deja vu.

They lost by a point to West Virginia in last year’s Meineke Bowl. Both times they led in the fourth quarter and looked like they were on their way to an elusive bowl win.

Instead, they’re 0-for-Charlotte, winless in three trips here in six years.

It also forced Butch Davis to do his best Dave Wannstedt impression on spinning the season as part of the journey.

Pile it all together and it was a 19-17 loss to a good Pittsburgh team.

Shifting his focus from what happened at Bank of America Stadium to take in a broader view, Davis was optimistic.

“The mileage we’ve made in three years, we’ve covered an awful lot of ground,” Davis said. “But we haven’t scratched the surface of where we want to go.”

From the Pitt side, the story was bowl MVP Dion Lewis, Dion Lewis, Dion Lewis.

Lewis’ record-setting effort was soured some when he lost his first fumble of the season after a 25-yard run vaulted him ahead of Dorsett. Lewis ran up the back of split end Jonathan Baldwin, and the ball squirted through the end zone for a touchback.

Lewis, whose 10th 100-yard rushing game also tied a freshman mark set by Dorsett, didn’t drop his head.

Instead, he energized the seemingly uninspired Panthers with a jaw-jarring 9-yard run with Pitt trailing North Carolina, 7-3. Then, he capped a three-play, 45-yard scoring drive with an 11-yard touchdown run around left end to give Pitt a 10-7 lead at the 11:08 mark of the second quarter.

“I made a costly turnover, and it nearly changed the game,” Lewis said. “It was a great feeling to know the coaches trusted me (on the game-winning drive) in a pressure situation.”

It’s not like anyone would have been insane enough to get off the horse that Pitt had ridden all season just for that fumble.

There will still be lots to dissect over the next week or so, what with recruiting  likely done for the most part and no games left. The one thing that was clear is that Mike Shanahan and Jonathan Baldwin will be big, excellent targets for whoever is under center next year. Shanahan emerged not just as a sure-handed target, but someone very willing to go over the middle to make the catches.

Happy day after after Christmas. I’m in Central Ohio for the weekend with the wife’s family. That means posting will be lighter. That does not mean there won’t be a liveblog, though. Just because the in-laws lack a wireless set-up, only menas that it s the excuse I needed to head to a local watering hole with wi-fi.

So, for however long the battery lasts (or if I can find a convenient outlet) I’ll be live blogging the Meineke Car Car Bowl .

You can break it out from Here.

Or join in right below.

Another stand-by for any road game. Find the players and coaches from the area. Max Gruder got that treatment when Pitt visited Raleigh earlier in the year. It’s a redux as he actually comes back to the city where he lived.

There will be visits to old stomping grounds, dinner with old friends and one demanding task – finding enough tickets.

“My parents are coming up from Tampa and they needs about 12 tickets,” said Gruder, a 6-foot-2, 230 pounder who was a two-way standout at Country Day and named first team all-N.C. Independent School Athletic Association as a senior.

“And then there are all my friends in Charlotte. Man, I need about a million tickets, I think,” he said. “When we step on the Country Day field to practice, I think that will be the first time since I stepped off my senior year.”

Then there is OC Frank Cignetti, who spent a year as OC at UNC in the final year of the Frank Bunting era. So he knows some of the players.

Starting linebacker Quan Sturdivant is another player whom Cignetti helped bring to North Carolina. In Sturdivant’s case, Cignetti was the assistant coach primarily responsible for recruiting him. That meant Cignetti made home visits with Sturdivant’s family and showed him around campus.

“Coach Frank, I remember him well,” Sturdivant said. “I remember thinking to myself that he was the most organized coach I had ever seen. He was on top of everything, he was really organized and that made a big impression on me.

“Plus, he was good at talking. I was a quarterback and I knew I wasn’t going to be playing quarterback in college, but he kept making me feel like I had a shot. That told me that he really wanted me to come to North Carolina.

“It will be cool to play against him, but it will be a challenge because he has built a very strong offense with a great running game.”

Cignetti’s stay at North Carolina was short and mostly because that one season he was there — 2006 — the Tar Heels finished 3-9 and Bunting, along with his staff, was fired.

But it’s a hook for storylines.

Over on the UNC side of things, the Tarheels have to do damage control after the disappointment of ending up in Charlotte again (Insider subs).

Even with that, UNC still figured to be headed to the Music City Bowl to play Kentucky. But because of the shuffle created by a back-room deal that sent Florida State to the Gator Bowl in honor of coach Bobby Bowden’s retirement, the Tar Heels got relegated to the Meineke Car Care Bowl for the second year in a row and the third time in five seasons. Coach Butch Davis and his players would rather be anywhere else in the world than back in nearby Charlotte on the day after Christmas…

That meme has made the rounds. To the point where Butch Davis had to respond with the appropriate denial.

“Absolutely our team wants to be here,” Davis said in advance of the Saturday game against Pittsburgh. “We’re trying to build a program and make going to bowl games a yearly event.

“Certainly coming to Charlotte, where a lot of people might say they’re disappointed because they were here last year, in some respects that’s good for us because so many of our kids are from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia. Their families can come and be a part of this. I think it’s very good.”

We’re thrilled, dammit.

So, let’s get the stoylines out of the way:

Teams that are mirror images of each other. Waiting for the full piece.

Defensive struggle expected. Sort of, but expect more.

Both coaches recruiting talent. Check.

Same coaching tree. Check (Complete with 1992 photo on Johnson’s boat, with Johnson wearing shorts that well. Eep.).

Friendship between the coaches. Full story coming

All storylines rolled into one. Right here.

The fundamentals of North Carolina’s defense are similar to those of Pitt: Play an aggressive 4-3 with the emphasis up front, pressure the quarterback and force turnovers.

That’s not a coincidence. North Carolina coach Butch Davis and Pitt’s Dave Wannstedt are close friends who were assistant coaches on Jimmy Johnson’s staff for 11 seasons with Oklahoma State, Miami and the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.

Both are defensive specialists, and Wannstedt was Davis’ boss for seven of those 11 years.

“Dave’s an outstanding football coach,” Davis said. “His teams are extraordinarily well-coached. He’s got an excellent assistant coaching staff, guys who have got a lot of experience and have been with him for many years …

“Dave’s fingerprints are all over this football team. They’re very sound in special teams. They play very physical defensively, which is certainly Dave’s background. You can tell just how stingy they are by watching how aggressive their front seven are.”

Sound familiar? That description could just as easily apply to the Tar Heels.

Oh, and both teams managed to lose to NC State in Raleigh. Hopefully they won’t start rolling like Pitt afterwards, since they ended their season there.

History, though, has suggested that Wannstedt struggles against his friends and former coaching subordinates. Or that could just be Greg Schiano.

After nearly a week off for finals the players are back to practice.

“It is great to be back,” Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said yesterday before the Panthers’ first practice since the Cincinnati loss. “I think it is important we go out and not just practice these three days before we leave but practice with a purpose. These seniors have done so much to bring this program back to national prominence but we have to finish the thing out.

“We had two tough, tough losses to end the season so we have to finish and finish on a positive note. We’re going to enjoy the bowl game but it is business and we need to go down there and understand that. The best thing about this is we have another game to play and that means we have another opportunity to turn disappointment into positive.”

The players no doubt will say all the right things about how they want to end the season with a win, and at least partially wipe the taste of the two losses by a total of 4 points away.

It will still be a question of how they actually do when they get on the field. That’s going to be up to the coaches, especially Coach Wannstedt.

At the very least it would have given them more incentive in the second half.

The annual schwag list is out for the bowl games.

The Sugar Bowl looks like a winner: Sony, Apple, Trek, Garmin and Weber gift suit. Plus a watch, hat, laptop bag and a recliner(?).

The Meineke bowl has an ipod touch, speakers and $20 gift card or a Bose gift package along with a watch, duffel bag and a Commemorative Richard Petty Driving Experience photo.

Still better than Birmingham — cheap RCA camcorder and backpack — and the Gator — watch and sunglasses.

I’m sure there has been lots of arguing, angsting and general discontent between bowls, schools and conferences. But it sure seems that this yar it is a lot more public.

The Big 12 is trying to help Mizzou which has finished 8-4. Apparently the Tigers don’t have the best reputation for traveling in the conference (gee, that seems familiar). So that means the Tigers appear poised to fall to the Texas Bowl and being skipped by the Independence and Insight Bowls for 6-6 Texas A&M and Iowa State.

“This isn’t over,” Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe said Wednesday afternoon in a telephone interview with The Kansas City Star.

“I know (Missouri athletic director) Mike Alden and the Missouri folks have made a tremendous case to all the bowls they might be selected to,” Beebe said. “I don’t know that Missouri could do a better job than they are doing.”

And, Beebe added, he shares the concern of MU officials that the Tigers might be passed over for the Insight Bowl bid by a 6-6 Iowa State team.

“I am concerned about a bowl that would select a team that has two less wins and was beaten by that team head to head.”

Unfortunately, that is just the scenario Missouri officials have come to fear.

Of course, that is nothing compared to the boiled over frustration between the Gator Bowl and the ACC. We all know that this is the last year for the Gator Bowl and the Big East and ACC. The Gator has been stymied in multiple years at landing Notre Dame. Now they want FSU for Bowden’s last game. This in no small part because FSU went around the ACC offices and contacted the Gator directly about it. The ACC would rather send FSU to Orlando for the Champs Bowl.

Here’s where it gets problematic. Like most conferences the ACC has the pecking order where bowls can’t take a team that is more than 2 wins better than a higher team in the conference records. The Gator gets 3d pick. The Orange Bowl obviously takes the winner of the ACC Championship. The Chik-Fil-A picks next and likely will take Virginia Tech (6-2). So, for the Gator to take FSU (4-4), it would appear that they need GT (7-1) to beat Clemson (6-2) to be able to snag FSU. Otherwise GT would have to be taken.

Except that the Gator Bowl claims they have a different contract that allows them more flexibility to skip taking the loser of the ACC Championship. And since the Gator doesn’t have to play nice any longer they are threatening legal action.

“We have sat back so many times and taken it from the ACC,” [Gator Bowl executive director Rick] Catlett said, ” To have [ACC Commissioner John Swofford] trying to go around a contract is unacceptable.”

Of course, Swofford has to answer to the rest of the ACC and considering how many times he’s bent over in so many positions to take it from FSU for football, the rest of the members are probably not going to let him waive the rules to accommodate the Bowden farewell (and give FSU more money and exposure) at other members’ expenses.

Not sure who I want to fail more. The ACC of course, raided the Big East in no small part to benefit FSU. The ACC commish is a duplicitous dick so seeing him and his schools screwed once more would be nice.

On the other hand, the Gator Bowl people suck. They have acted like being associated with the Big East is a chore from the beginning, and made no secret that they would have screwed the conference this year to take a 7-5 ND team — if the Irish had won 1 of their final 2 games. They seem determined to take WVU regardless of tomorrow’s games. And Pitt could very well end up going to Birmingham.

Add in the sense of entitlement from FSU and Bowden, and it almost tips things in favor of the ACC.

I don’t know. I guess I’m hoping that it ends up in a lawsuit and costs both some extra money, time, and bad publicity.