For all the chaos and angst regarding the football and basketball teams with players coming and going, it somehow makes sense that for the first time in more than ten years there is a calm — nay, giddiness — over how positive things are for Pitt athletics as a whole now that the membership in the ACC is weeks away. There’s no worrying over rumors of new expansiopocolypse. There’s no concerns about being insanely behind every other conference in terms of money and media exposure. There’s actual confidence in the conference structure and the commissioner actually knowing what he is doing and not trying to serve two masters.

The ACC meetings are taking place, and the buzzword is stability.

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The Grant of Rights put in place by the ACC does not stop expansiopocolypse. It does, however, severely slow it down and minimize it. The movement in the next five to ten years will almost entirely be by conferences and programs below the Big Five.

Oh, sure, it’s possible at some point that the Big 12 feels it has no choice but to actually go to 12, at which time it goes for Cinci and BYU or some other team from the Mountain West (Boise St.). And it is conceivable that the Big Ten could go to Mizzou and say, yeah, come into our playground — since the SEC does not have any exit fees or penalties.

And, yes, there is always a chance that some program locked into a Grant of Rights might mount a legal challenge. But unlike a challenge to an exit fee like Maryland is engaged, losing the challenge to a Grant of Rights contract is much bigger. Even if a challenge to the ACC Grant of Rights came with five years left (2023), the potential loss by the school challenging is $100 million. Not many schools are going to make that gamble.

But that is about it. Things are relatively locked in right now. There will be no easy way for the major conferences to poach teams from each other while the Grant of Rights (GoR) are in place. The Big 12 is at 10. The Big Ten will be 14.

As usual there is more to the story than mere stability.

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That’s been a big part of my summer posting for the last few years. How? How? How do they expect me to fill that gap if this is happening? What’s left?

The ACC is expected to announce a Grant of Rights agreement among its 15 members as early to today, CBSSports.com has learned.

ACC presidents are in the process of clearing this with their departments. The agreement will go to 2026-27, the duration of the league’s contract with ESPN. The deal is not official just yet but, barring an unforseen snag, will be completed.

Unless a league member decides to go to litigation to escape this down the road, the ACC believes a Grant of Rights will protect it from conference realignment poachers.

The North Carolina-based David Glenn Show reported the news Monday afternoon.

And all news outlets are saying their sources are saying the same thing. And unlike the raised exit fee issue from last year — where FSU and Maryland voted against it — this one is unanimous in the ACC.

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There is still so much for the splintering Big East to resolve. There’s no shortage of rumors and reports of how the Big Priest portion would love to be split in time for the 2013 season. That, however, seems to be an impossibility. From setting up a new conference — hiring people, finding a commissioner, getting NCAA recognition for an auto bid to the NCAA Tournament, and so forth — to the very thorny issue of the money reserves in the Big East — all the exit fees, NCAA Tournament units particularly.

Then there is the issue of poaching programs from other conferences to get to a 10-12 team conference.

[Outgoing Xavier AD Mike] Bobinski said if Xavier receives the expected offer from the departing Big East schools to become one of its new members then it would have to listen. It would be situation where there were like-minded schools with a common purpose. He also said that 2014 would be more realistic for any movement while 2013 could be a bit rushed, although everything is negotiable. He didn’t say Xavier would definitely leave, but it sure sounded like the Musketeers have given this a lot of thought and are likely gone if asked, whenever that occurs. Xavier and Butler are expected to be first up on the docket to join Georgetown, Marquette, DePaul, St. John’s, Villanova, Seton Hall and Providence — with the choice for a 10th or possibly 11th or 12th coming from a pool of Creighton (MVC), Dayton, Richmond, VCU and Saint Louis (all A-10).

Sorry, Duquesne.

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Here’s an ESPN piece on Beano Cook talking about football.

Ivan Maisel who did a weekly podcast with Beano, has his own thoughts. There are plenty of other ones out there. Lots of good ones. Touching ones. If you watch the tribute video above, the change in his body is startling. He looks so much older and smaller. Not at all the image from my memories.

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Well, for those who hate noon games, this is actually worse. The Saturday, October 13 Homecoming game of Louisville-Pitt is getting a start time of 11 am for an ESPNU game.

Thanks to our overlords at ESPN for that. Pitt has no say on the times for a conference game. That’s between ESPN and the Big East. Well, really, it’s all up to what ESPN wants.

I repeat 11 am. Not 11 Central. 11 am, Eastern.

If you are a student or in for Homecoming weekend, I recommend the all-nighter. What, with Midnight Madness that night.

Going to be a lot of fun to get up at 5 AM to drive to Pittsburgh that morning. Bitter venting at this not only permitted, but encouraged.

Today is National Drink Beer Day. As such, it might explain the headline in the Post-Gazette in proclaiming: “Recruit Report: Buckeyes are poaching on Pitt’s turf.”

The first thought at seeing that headline, “Oh, crap, Meyer got Dorian Johnson!” Then when you read it, you realize that it is merely an article noting that Ohio State is trying to recruit top players out of Western Pennsylvania, including Johnson and Robert Foster.

Because that has never happened before Urban Meyer showed up in Columbus. Jim Tressel totally ignored top players in the area. The only competition in Western PA came from Penn State and West Virginia. This is something totally new.

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Well, college basketball season is getting closer. As you have probably heard, Pitt is bringing back Midnight Madness in a unique way. The Panthers will have their first official practice outside, on a court set up on Bigelow in the shadow of the Cathedral. The event takes place on Friday, October 12. Which just happens to also be homecoming weekend.

The entire event will be livestreamed on ESPN3, and the ESPNU Midnight Madness show will be doing live look-ins.

Pitt has also finalized their TV schedule. There will be some games that are simply unavailable to those who don’t live in the Pittsburgh/Western Pennsylvania area. Those will be some of the games that air on Pittsburgh Panthers TV, which is a Comcast only channel. The scrimmage, two exhibition games and four patsy games — Oakland (Nov. 17), Howard (Nov. 27), Delaware State (Dec. 19) and Kennesaw State (Dec. 23).

Some games will be ESPN3 streaming only. With one surprise: Mount St. Mary’s (Nov. 9), Detroit (Dec. 1), the City Game vs. Duquesne at Consol Energy Center (Dec. 5), North Florida (Dec. 8) and Bethune Cookman (Dec. 15). The City Game being streamed only is a hell of an indictment on how far Duquesne has fallen at this point, and the expectations. Not even regional/ROOT Sports interest in broadcasting it.

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OK.  Camp is just over and we are getting ready for normal game prep practices starting tomorrow.  It has been a very interesting camp with some pretty big stories coming out of it.

On August 6th we posted an article asking the following five questions about this season’s training camp.  Well, let’s look at the answered and at some other eventful things that transpired over the last 16 days.

1.  What will be the overall tenor of the practices and of the post-practice interviews?

Alright.  We pretty much knew what kind of personality Paul Chryst was going into this thing.  He isn’t your verbose, eternally optimistic guy.  His post-practice interviews are, to put it mildly, boring.  He said nothing about any players, even the injured ones, and plays his job close to the vest.  He is what he is, as they say.

The tenor of the practices was a different matter.  In the scrimmages I saw and in reading the numerous practice reports by the local beat writers the overall theme with this camp was teaching the players the staff’s way of preparing for and conducting a football game.  There was a real sense of ‘get down to it and work‘ as evidenced by how many plays were run during the scrimmages – 183 and 129 respectively.  That’s a lot of football in three hours.  Here is a quote that sums up the physicality of the camp:

Pitt coach Paul Chryst knew only one way to conclude the most physically demanding training camp since before the Dave Wannstedt era. He put the team through its fourth live scrimmage Wednesday on the next-to-last day. “What better way than to play some ball?” he asked. Several players have said this is the toughest camp in their time at Pitt, and Chryst makes no apologies. “You try to just make some informed decisions and try to do what’s best for the group,” he said. “I think we have gotten better through the course of it. I wish we had two more months of it, really.”

Another indication of how physical it was is the number of injuries, mostly minor, that were sustained by the hard hitting and long hours.  Chryst said he wanted to see tough kids in the lineup this season and this was how he started down that path.

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Scrimmage #2  is in the books and because PITT won’t have any more formal scrimmages today was the last chance some players had to ‘audition’ under game conditions for a spot on the two deep.  It was evident the kids had this in mind because it was a spirited and intense day.

As opposed to the 183 play run through last week in cloudy and cool conditions, the staff had the team run a split session, 129 play workout today.  The weather got pretty warm after 10:30 and it was the culmination of a solid week of two-a-day practices so prudence was used to avoid any more injuries.

Play began at around 9:15 and wrapped up at 11:30.  It was well attended and actually it looked like there were more people there yesterday than for the Spring Game.  That may have been due to it being “Old Cranky It Was Better In My Day Players” day for football alumni.  That and a lot of parents brought their kids.

Training camps have a rhythm to them and this week we saw the defense rebound from last week when the offense carried the day.  There are a lot of different scrimmage reports that get into the observations and numbers, the new Post Gazette PITT beat writer, Sam Werner, has one out on his Redshirt Diaries Blog.  Steve Finn, who covers PITT for the Panthers 24/7 website has a comprehensive report out also. Pat Bostick did a nice video piece on the Alumni Day and especially interesting is what Johnny Majors has to say about the new staff.

The common themes are that the defense won the day with stifling front four run work and our LBs and DBs provided run support as needed.   Contrary to most of camp when the offense, particularly Isaac Bennett, has been moving the ball steadily and ripping off long gainers there was just no real offensive consistency out there today.

Rushel Shell was on the sidelines again today.  Supposedly he has a back problem but no one is talking.  Regardless of the reason, he’s not getting reps which isn’t helping his pre-scrimmage situation as standing behind Graham, Bennett and Crockett in the RB depth chart.

I don’t think the lack of big running plays today is a great area of worry though.  It may be just the opposite.  I’m not sure the PITT OL and RBs are going to face a defensive front four as quick and aggressive as who we have facing them in practice.  Donald, Clemmings, Ezell and Lippert/Mosley-Smith are quality guys.  We know what Donald brings out there; he has an excellent chance to grab All-American honors if he keeps on with his progression so far in his career.

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Okay, football stuff coming later. First a bunch of links to touch on some other topics.

The daily bomb threats on Pitt’s campus last spring should not re-occur. The FBI has their man (sort of). It’s as weird as possible.

A 64-year-old, wheelchair-using Scottish man from Dublin, who already has served a prison sentence for emailing hoax bomb threats, was indicted Wednesday as the person responsible for emailing a series of 40 false bomb threats targeting the University of Pittsburgh during the spring semester.

A federal grand jury in Pittsburgh also charged the suspect, Adam Stuart Busby, with sending emailed bomb threats to federal courthouses in Pittsburgh, Erie and Johnstown and with threatening U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton.

Speaking at a news conference announcing the indictments, Mr. Hickton said Interpol had been alerted to the federal warrant charging Mr. Busby, who currently is in custody in Dublin on a Scottish warrant for similar crimes there. He would not speculate on any timetable for extraditing Mr. Busby from Ireland to face prosecution.

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According to The Irish Times, Mr. Busby has multiple sclerosis and is a leader of the Scottish National Liberation Army, which seeks independence for his homeland. He recently was released from prison on a 2010 conviction in Ireland for emailing two false bomb threats in 2006 to Heathrow Airport in London. Those threats, which cited specific international flights, claimed to be from the Scottish National Liberation Army, according to the Times.

Since last month Mr. Busby has been held in custody in Dublin on a European Union warrant seeking his extradition to Scotland for additional charges of sending false threats, according to Irish media outlets. He is charged with making hoax threats in 2010, mostly by email to media organizations, that threatened then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown with a noxious substance, and claimed buildings would be bombed and that the English water supply would be contaminated, Irish news media reported.

The FBI wouldn’t give a reason for why he targeted Pitt for the bomb threats (Editor note: I know this is somehow related to you, McClearn).

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I attended PITT’s first training camp scrimmage today and, while no one told me it would be actually chilly in PGH this morning, I came away with a lot of things to discuss and to share my sometimes strong opinions of what I saw.  Here are some of my first, quick observations:

–        I walked over to the practice field behind Chris Jacobson and Matt Rotheram.  “Lumpy” Jacobson is listed this year at 6’2” and 295.  Rotheram literally made him look small by comparison.  He’s 6’6” and 330 and looks every bit of it.  I made it a point to watch Rotheram carefully at his Right Tackle position and he moves very well for a mid-sized mountain range.

–        Rushel Shell is surprising huge for a RB.  Not overly tall and listed at 6’0” & 215 (more like 225 I think) he’s built like a fullback and he carries a lot of weight below the waist so his legs are like tree trunks.  I was thinking I’d see a stereo-typical RB out there and I saw a tank.  On the other hand Ray Graham, who lists at 5’10 and 190 lbs isn’t anywhere near that weight in my opinion.  He is skin and lean muscle , bones and a hip goatee but don’t be fooled – he’s a small RB.  I wonder if the NFL has any RBs built as slightly as he is especially in the legs.

–        I stood next to Dorian Johnson for part of the scrimmage.  He’s a tall guy but nowhere near the bulk size of the existing PITT lineman.  He did stay for the whole three hour scrimmage and seemed to be having a good time talking with people.  At one point I ended up standing next to him and after a play where a DE knocked down a pass I said “We’ll there’s an open offensive line spot for next season“.

As to the offensive play on the field I felt the kids played well and were engaged in what they were asked to do.  It was a busy day with getting 183 plays done, in part thanks to the cool football weather, and there was no down time from 9:15 until 12:00 but I didn’t see any confusion out there.  The 1^st and 2^nd string kids got a lot of action while the 3^rd team played sparingly today but did get a few series under their belts.

Everyone wants to know which side ‘won’ the scrimmage and usually, at this point in training camp, the defense is ahead of the offense.  It appeared that would be the case after the first few series.  However, the offense more than held their own this morning IMO.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.  Tino Sunseri was accurate on his passes in hitting his receivers on both short and deep throws. Now, he’s been good in practice before so take it with a grain of salt.  I’ll say this though, he and the rest of the offense looked very comfortable out there running a normal huddle-up offense without the confusing bells and whistles we saw last season.  It is going to be a much better paced and more level offense fielded by PITT this season.

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The first day of training camp is in the books and there has been another excellent website set up by PITT’s Sports Information Department to get the info out to us fans.

This years edition is called PITT Live Wire and has videos, visdeo inyterviews, practice notes, etc.  All in all its a nic bit of work but is a bit hard to navigate at first.  Here is the full address if you want to bookmark it:  http://www.pittsburghpanthers.com/blog/

Then it looks like there will be a different page added each day – Here is the Day One entry.  In it there is a current Training Camp Notebook.  Nothing really jumps out at me with these notes.

Tyrone Ezell has been moved from the interior of the DL out to defensive end though which is a bit of a surprise considering how thin we are in the interior.  Yesterday I posted that we had four DEs vying for starting jobs; Murphy, Clemmings, Hale and Smith – so now add Ezell.  Somethings got to change there obviously.

Update:  LaQuentin Smith is starting camp at defensive tackle.  I wrote earlier that I figured this would happen sooner or later once this kid packed on 55 pounds over the last 18 months.  This kid is a player and one to keep an eye on.  He’s a true Sophomore this season and can put a few more pounds on his 6’2″ frame.

Chryst was asked about the departure of Myers at QB and he didn’t sound overly concern about the loss – rather blase’ actually:

On Mark Myers transferring:

“It does not really change our situation at quarterback. I think that you have just got to keep going. We wish him well obviously, but we just have to keep going and not miss a beat.”

On whether freshman Chad Voytik will be receiving more meaningful reps due to Myers transferring:

“Absolutely, and we will take advantage of that. It’s certainly easier to rep three quarterbacks than it is to rep four.”

Tom Savage was out there tossing passes around. He’s a walk-on who isn’t eligible this season but figures to be in the mix in 2013.  I just as soon have the guy sat down during camp but as long as he isn’t take any practice reps from the three QBs then no harm I suppose.

If you want to see who PITT’s  ‘next great thing’ at QB is take a look at this short clip of Chad Voytik being interviewed.  That is Paul Zeise of the Post Gazette strolling in at the end and asking Voytik a question that gets cut off by the videographer.  Hmmm, wonder what it was?  Voytik has an NFL jawbone already.

Other than that it was a normal first day of camp with no great news to digest.    Camps are like this, they are required to go without pads for three practice (I think) then once they suit up and go full speed we’ll see things start to shake out.

Note:  Here is a nice video of some of the players moving into Sutherland Hall before camp starts, puts a smile on you face.  

Let me echo (in a variation) the comments Paul Zeise made about “rooting” for the Big East’s survival. I’m rooting for the football schools in the Big East to survive. USF, Louisville, Rutgers, Cinci and even UConn. They’ve been stuck in the same boat as Pitt for a while. And their path really doesn’t get any easier. They’re stuck in the conference because there is no other choice right now. These aren’t programs that haven’t put any effort into their football and sports. They aren’t coasting on the conference. Yet they are stuck. It could very easily have been Rutgers or UConn heading to the ACC instead of Pitt or Cuse, and we’d be bemoaning Pitt’s plight.

Yeah, I have nothing but contempt for most of the conference framework. The basketball-side that controls too much. The continuing kow-towing to Notre Dame. Even that chunk of media that somehow romanticizes the Big East of the 80s as something pure — when it was created solely to make money for the programs and try to shield basketball-only schools from the growing power of college football. And the host of other issues.

That doesn’t mean I want the football schools screwed.

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Can we please put to rest the asinine argument that the NCAA somehow over stepped its authority to levy sanctions against Penn State for PSU’s actions during Sandusky’s period of committing child abuse and for their role in covering that up?

We have read time and again in the past five days from people who don’t agree with what happened that Mark Emmert and the NCAA boards circumvented established NCAA bylaws when they determined that PSU was responsible and thus punishable in regards to the findings of the PSU commissioned and accepted Freeh Report.  It is complete misdirection by Penn State apologists and by others who fear that the same type actions could be levied against their schools for similar infractions.

May I suggest these people go to the source itself to see just how the NCAA arrived at their decision making and for what basis they had in doing so?  I believe that the most vocal protesters of the NCAA’s actions in this case don’t want to read or discuss what is found there for fear they would lose a public platform to try to keep Penn State’s reputation, such as it is now, intact.

If anyone has a computer and two working fingers one can find the NCAA’s Constitutional References that PSU did not comply with in this case and how that non-compliance was used as a basis for NCAA sanctions.  These are listed under the NCAA’s “Authority to Act” explaination.  Thus is the meat behind this statement from Emmert at his press conference before he announced the sanctions on Monday:

Our Constitution and bylaws make it perfectly clear that the Association exists not simply to promote fair play on the field, but to insist that athletics programs provide positive moral models for our students, enhance the integrity of higher education, and promote the values of civility, honesty and responsibility.  The sanctions we are imposing are based upon these most fundamental principles of the NCAA.

With these intentions in mind, the Executive Committee, the Division I Board and I have agreed to the following sanctions…

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