My plan to start the week was going to be a post on the ridiculousness of the “FSU and Clemson are going to bolt for the Big 12” rumors. Breaking down some of the origins. Pointing out how much of it was message board generated — and not even from FSU or Clemson sites. Noting that Oklahoma bloggers were dismissing it (and mocking a Hoopie to boot). Noting how most in ACC country weren’t buying it. The whole premise being based on TV money and football culture. The biggest problem, though, with the whole premise is that this is not a decision made by an AD or the athletic department as a whole. It is one made by the college president and board of trustees. It is a decision about the entire university, not where they play football. And the fact is, the ACC is a more prestigious and academically. That seems somewhat silly, I know, since so much of expansiopocolypse is all about the money. Yet there is one factor to consider.

All moves have an academic mobility component as well. The moves out of the Big 12 by Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri and Texas A&M had them going to conferences with higher overall academic ratings for the member schools. Same for WVU, Syracuse and Pitt out of the Big East. Same for the C-USA and MWC coming into the Big East. There is a factor of moving up in all things, not just athletic standards. A move from the ACC to the Big 12 is downward.

It would have been a much longer post. More links and a lot more coherence, but that was the planned gist. Then the Big East expelled Marinatto and the focus kind of shifted for a couple days. No big deal. Figured this could keep until today. Afterall, this was just a BS rumor.

Then, yesterday afternoon happened.

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced a long-term TV deal with ESPN Wednesday through the 2027 season that will mean a lucrative annual payout for Pitt once the Panthers leave the Big East.

The deal is worth $3.6 billion over 15 years according to The Associated Press which will equal some $17.1 million a season for member schools.

Yeah, this does a bit of a number on the whole Big 12 raiding the ACC thing.

(more…)

Yesterday was an eventful off-season day for the Panthers.  We had one verified recruit commitment in Jaymar Parrish, a big FB from local Gateway HS along with one unconfirmed rumor about former Rutgers QB Tom Savage transferring to PITT after a short lay-over in Arizona.

First let’s look at the recruitment.  So far Paul Chryst has recruited five players, four of them on offense.  He’s gotten two big OL, a TE and a powerful FB in Parrish.

“They’re going to line him up as a traditional fullback because they’re a pro-style offense team,” said Gateway coach Terry Smith.  ”He’s an extremely physical blocker and just a tough, hard-nosed kid who is really athletic.”

Now, think back to what Chryst said he was going to put out on the field offensively and what he built so well at Wisconsin; a highly productive running game with big, strong players up the middle.  That is exactly what he’s recruited so far at PITT.

Jaymar Parrish has not been ranked yet but look at Scout’s FB prospects for 2013. Parrish is on the list but the telling thing is that only three FBs are awarded any stars at all by Scout.com at this point nationally.  Rivals.com has five FBs total with all being three star kids.

At Wisconsin Chryst loved this type of FB and used them pretty regularly.  Last year they had Bradie Ewing, a 6’0/245 FB who ended being drafted in the 5th round by the Atlanta Falcons.  Ewing had only seven rushing attempts for 33 yards but also caught 28 passes for 328 yards (11.7 ypc) in his two years of play with the Badgers. He was also the #1 rated FB going into the draft.

Just for fun compare that with what Henry Hynoski did at PITT over the course of his career where he had 37 carries for 134 yards and 40 receptions for 283 (7.1 ypc).  Of course Hyno didn’t have three 1000 yards rushers on his team one year either.

This is the FB model Chryst wants to replicate when he gets his kids on the field over the next few years and is what we were used to seeing at PITT under DW.  Whisky hasn’t rushed their FBs much but used them mostly as a lead blocker and receiver out of the backfield.  Parrish, at 6’2” and 235 lbs and having been a TE who caught 22 passes for 524 yards and four touchdowns, is well equipped with size and good hands to be that pass receiving FB Chryst has had and wants now.

As an example of Parrish’s blocking ability, last season when Gateway played Bishop McDevitt he went up against #1 nationally ranked five star DE Noah Spence and blocked him effectively enough call it a draw.  When the rankings come out he will probably be at least a three star recruit.

Tom Savage’s rumored transfer is an interesting issue.  According to his Twitter feed he alludes to playing for PITT (good luck finding it, I can’t read more than three or four Tweets before getting dizzy).  Here is what Chris Dokish had to say about Savage:

(more…)

Coach Paul Chryst is still a relatively blank canvas. Sure he’s been an outstanding Offensive Coordinator, but we have no idea how he will translate to being the head coach. We can project. We can believe. We can hope. But we don’t know.

Neither does anyone else. And one of the primary time-killers in the spring and summer months for college football media are lists. Best coaches, best hires, best players by position, etc. Then you can break them down by conference.

That’s where we are at right now. Lists.

Athlon, usually one of the first-to-the-market publishers of preview guides has a rather bizarre ranking of the Big East Coaches. Why is it bizarre? Consider that it includes the present members for the upcoming season, but also tosses the future members as well. This despite being a list just for this year. That means it is a list of 15 coaches rather than 8. Er… I realize expansiopocolypse can be confusing and convoluted, but this just seems silly.

(more…)

Here’s the deal on doing posts regarding the utterances of Fraud Graham. I don’t want to. I really don’t. I want this dead and in the past. That said, I’m not going to ignore his bullshit with regards to his fleeing Pitt. He doesn’t get to rewrite the history.

Having failed in national media with claims that he took the Arizona State job for to be closer to his wife’s family. Then shifting to saying his kids were not happy in Pittsburgh. It just hasn’t worked at a national level. He’s still a punchline. He’s still a carpet-bagging joke.

So, in another round of national media stories it is time to once more massage the message. Appear humble. Claim that he understands the abuse and deserves it for now. As part of that, simplify the excuses. The hiding behind various family members hasn’t worked.

As Pitt Script notes, he can’t hide from this, since he is probably getting killed with it by other schools in recruiting. So he has to face the issue — sort of.

(more…)

This period between the end of spring practices in April and the start of the summer training camp in early August is a real dry spot for PITT football.

Chas is great at putting up posts on lots of different PITT related issues as he writes about basketball, recruiting, the media coverage PITT gets, etc.

Me, not so much.  My interest is heavily on the football side and that’s what I care to write about, but I need some help now.  So, I’m putting out a call for your thoughts on what would be interesting to read about and then debate/discuss on here.

We are all PITT football fanatics  otherwise we wouldn’t take as much time as we do with this blog so I assume we all want some fresh subjects to discuss at least every few days.  Hey, I strung out the Star Rating System into three pretty long posts just to get something up on the board.  I’m desperate.

Therefore, unless you  really want to discuss Tino Sunseri’s attributes and potential for three months, and I can go there, then chip in with some ideas.

(^^^ My first image on The Blather!)

Let’s not do just a Q&A please, I need some substantive subjects that I can be able to expound on and produce something of decent length and quality.  How I get ideas for articles is usually event driven when there are events to drive something.  Without that I usually just let my mind wander over some things I myself would like background, info and opinions on.  I’ll do the heavy lifting – all you need to do is point me in the right direction.

Thanks guys…

  Every year about this time, when recruiting is usually the only thing of merit to discuss, the topic of the recruit’s ‘star’ rankings floats to the top of the blog leader boards.

  I’ve always been of the mind that I don’t really care that much what a PITT player does after college.  I know it reflects well on the school and the program and I know that recruits look at it as incentive also.  But IMO where the rubber meets the road is how well that recruit played during his college years.

  This subject is singularly pertinent to PITT fans as we now have a new Head Coach in Paul Chryst who has been tagged with a question mark when it comes to his recruiting abilities.   There has been a lot of hue and cry over a ‘late recruiting start’ which is unfounded compared to PITT’s recent recruiting history.  In addition, PITT just had a Head Coach in Dave Wannstedt who was pretty good at pulling in four and five star players but didn’t have much to show at the end of the day with those kids on the roster.

  This April 2011 article on Scout.com written by Scott Kennedy addresses those drafted in the first round of that year. As to Kennedy’s article, I discount the number of stars players in the 1^st round have as being too small a sample and of their being projected as to how well they will play in the NFL and on the specific team that drafted them.   It is fun to read and talk about but IMO it isn’t enough to base a solid discussion regarding player’s production in college though.

  So, using the NCAA rankings for 2011, I did some in-depth research based on the question “What were the star rankings coming out of HS for the Top Ten performers in college football this season?”  Basically I want to know how the top ranked players performed in the setting that we all care and talk about which is college football.  These rankings list top 100 players in Division I in individual categories so the sample used below is the top 10%.

  I used Scout.com for the number of stars assigned to these players as HS seniors.  If Scout had the player unranked (UR) then I checked Rivals.  To make it as fair as possible I used any star ranking between Scout & Rivals for the averages so that an “unranked” wouldn’t skew the result downward.  To cover all aspects of the game I used three categories on offense: Rushing yards, Passing efficiency and Receiving yards per game.  I also used three on defense; Total tackles, Passes defended and Sacks.

The results are pretty surprising I think…

OFFENSE

RUSHING                                                   

1. LaMichael James, Oregon    3
2. Bobby Rainey, Western Ky.   2
3. Monte Ball, Wisconsin   3
4. Ronnie Hillman, San Diego St.  3
5. Trent Richardson, Alabama   5
6. Bernard Pierce, Temple   UR/2 Rivals
7. Zach Line, SMU   2
8. David Wilson, Virginia Tech   4
9. Robbie Rouse, Fresno St.  UR/2 Rivals
10. Terrance Ganaway, Baylor  2

2.8 Stars on average                                      

(more…)

Over 2 years ago, I made the following observation regarding a certain sports talk shock radio host:

…does anyone really believe Mark Madden has “reliable sources” anywhere in college sports? Really? The Pens, sure. Maybe even the Steelers. But at Pitt? In basketball? He barely acknowledges the existence of the sport.

This came after Madden cribbed a piece from The Big Lead over the open Oregon job, only he repackaged it to claim he had “sources” telling him that Dixon was heading to Oregon after the Final Four.

So you would think everyone would learn a lesson from this. Mark Madden, however, would hope you would forget it when he teased this on Twitter yesterday.

(more…)

On Thursday I posted an article that listed some things I felt would be interesting and important to look for during the Spring Game this year.  Here they are below in bold with a snippet of text from that article following in italics.

Can Sunseri carry practice success onto the field under competition?  “I want to see if what we are seeing and hearing about Sunseri’s calm demeanor and accurate deep throws in practice can translate into completions at game speed.”  All three QBs got a nice amount of reps yesterday and each stayed with the squad they were assigned; Sunseri 1^st team, Myers 2^nd and Anderson 3^rd.

Sunseri did not play to the level which he has been over the last four weeks of practice and in truth was showing more of the same repetitive mistakes we have seen from him during past games.  He was overthrowing open receivers and had an INT returned for a TD by Tags.  His stats on the day were a mediocre 13-27 for 147 yards and one TD.  Rivals.com paints an accurate picture of how things progressed for him in this article:

Quarterback Tino Sunseri completed 13 of 27 passes for 147 yards but missed a number of throws that would have put points on the board. Twice on the first drive, Sunseri overthrew tight end Drew Carswell, once on a flag route then again on a fly where a blown coverage left him wide open. That trend continued as the afternoon wore on.

 “I think that guys were running open,” Sunseri said. “You just got to put the ball on people, understand certain route depths and just keep competing.

This quote from Sam Werner’s coverage in the P-G is pouring fuel on the fire as it is just more of the same:  “Obviously you’re disappointed you didn’t score, but there’s still positives in that,” Sunseri said. “You moved the football.”  Less silver linings and more sunny skies please, enough of the positive attitude after the fact.  He did nothing yesterday to dispel the “Practice Hero” label that’s for sure.

What will Mark Myers do when the spotlight is turned on for more than a play or two?  “Myers has struggled with the short/intermediate passing game.  I watched this happen in practice and I’ll be watching Saturday to see if that is still an albatross around his neck.  If it isn’t then new life may be breathed into the competition for the fall.”  Well, ramp up the campaign slogans again. Myers made a case yesterday that he is to be reckoned with in summer training camp.

Myers was 10-16 with 167 yards and beautiful 58 yard skinny post TD to Brandon Ifill (remember that name).  All spring Myers has been hitting on well thrown deep passes and didn’t disappoint yesterday either by hitting two of them.  His passing all around was OK and he was accurate enough overall to complete 63% of his passes but his short passing game still has a way to go.

Having a 16.7 ypc average yesterday doesn’t hurt his case either.   I don’t know if he’ll be able to sustain that level of play in August but if he can then all the better for the Panthers.  I still think it is a long shot for him to grab the starting position but it is early yet.

(more…)

Just for fun and on the day before the Spring Game I’d like to, again, throw out a few “Mic’d Up” links for you guys to watch while you are screwing around at work on a Friday afternoon.  These come off the PITT Spring Football Insider website and they are shot and recorded in 720p HD.

These are great slice of life looks at our new staff and how they go about relating to and coaching their unit’s players.  I’ll list them from latest to earliest but they are all interesting and informative.

4/12:    (3:40m)     WR Coach Bobby Engram.  You have to laugh a little at the 2:35 mark when he pulls Devin Street and tells him that he should get with Sunseri and practice the deep ball.  You just know there was a massive steam buildup about to explode from Street’s ears right then.  At the 2:48 mark Engram mentions someone named “Jules” and I can’t figure out who that is.

4/5:      (2:40m)     OC Joe Rudolph.  You can see from this clip that Rudolph like teaching the fundamentals and is a stickler for the smallest details.  Watch at the 1:08 mark when he’s running the TEs through blocking drills, then his work with the offensive lineman right afterward.

(more…)

There has been a lot of discussion about the quality of PITT’s QB play so far in spring ball and at this point it could help to fine tune the background info a bit.  Paul Zeise of the Post-Gazette has this to say about our two leading QBs:

The quarterback competition has been tough to follow because neither Mark Myers or Tino Sunseri has really distinguished himself in such a way that there is no contest. I thought by now we would see this happen but it has not. Both have shown flashes but Myers inexperience is easy to see as his decision making is not where it is supposed to be and Sunseri’s physical limitations have been well documented over the past two years and they aren’t going to change. I do think this offense will protect the quarterbacks much better than the last offense – which exposed them – so if either player can develop consistency they should be able to have some success.

That may be a bit more negative than I am and there is a contest regardless of the respective quality, but his observations aren’t far off.  I’m not giving up on anyone though, either Sunseri or Myers at this point…

Going back to last season some PITT fans stated that Myers was being “over-hyped” and had not fulfilled expectations; that is all on the fan’s shoulders IMO.  His national QB rating by the three major scouting services was, off the top of my head, #11, #32 and #103.  They were all over the map with him because he only started one year of HS ball and because scouts saw different strengths and weaknesses in his game.

If you look at what ESPN.com said of him you’ll understand more about what we now realize he was like coming out of HS…

ESPN.com (insider sub) wrote this:

Myers is tall, strong pro-style quarterback prospect who has some good physical tools to develop at the college level. The lefty is bit raw and may be a late bloomer on the recruiting trail. Has very good size for a pocket-passer and better than adequate arm-strength. Big, strong kid who … 

Scout.com saw him a bit differently:

“Has good size and understanding of the game. Makes sound decisions and takes care of the football. Has good accuracy and hits his receivers in stride. Displays good touch and placement on his passes. Footwork and mechanics can be tweaked, which will help him generate more velocity. Has excellent poise and intangibles.”

(more…)

As a follow up for the last piece I wrote about the current camp, here is an anthology of media clips which can give you some background, with sights and sounds, to the 2012 PITT spring practice experience.

Because there is so much info about PITT football floating around I thought it might be helpful to use PITT’s  ‘one stop shop’ to see and hear the latest on how the spring practice is progressing.

As they did last season, the PITT SID department has produced some professional quality shows and video clips as advertising for the program and the upcoming season.  They offer them under the umbrella of their spring practice website – Spring Camp Insider.  It is a compendium of new releases, local media articles, radio interviews, video clips and the Pitt Spring Football Insider Shows. 

These shows are between 19 minutes and 28 minutes long and provide a mixture of players and coaches interviews, practice film clips and commentary by Jon Burton and Pat Bostick.  Content is added to this site every day and I suggest you bookmark it to check for new stuff.  The shows and films are shot in HD with great audio and, as stated above, are expertly done.

In additions to the excerpts below the Spring Camp Insider site list many staff interviews which I think helps to give us fans an idea of who the coaches are and what they are like.

So, here is a list of what I found most beneficial to a PITT fan to get up to speed about how the camp is going so far.  I’ve included hyperlinks and some personal notes on things I think can enlighten us fans in our discussions.  I’ll list them from latest to oldest…

(more…)

Guess it sums up the CBI. Both the Trib and P-G did not bother sending their beat reporters to the Pitt-Butler game. So, the articles from each paper were written by Indiana-based freelancers.

I’ve waited until spring practice is a third finished before chipping in an article because now we have something of substance to talk about as far as playing actual football goes.  There seems to be a different attitude around the Southside these days.  Gone is the jumping up and down and swearing things are going to fantastic, dammit!!

This version is business, business and more business.  There doesn’t seem to be much false bravado by either the players or the staff.  It feels like that all know that there is a long road to hoe to get back to what a good, solid program is and they want to do it the right way.

Paul Zeise reports hard hitting and fundamental football… “Pitt is playing football again, at least football the way people here in Western Pennsylvania want to see it played.”  That and the OL is shaping up to be the ‘smash mouth’ run blocking unit that PITT and Pittsburghers love to watch.

Our new OL coach, Jim Hueber will take no crap this year judging from his first interview.  You have to laugh just a little when a new coach states that “we have some kids who may not want to be here”.  This coming after we just had a whole coaching staff who ‘didn’t want to be here’.  Perfect!

Now, about that pesky pass blocking…

That said, the reports out of camp are pretty typical interviews and post-practice press conferences – that is if you can actually sit and listen to one of Chryst’s from start to finish.  I really like Paul Chryst and think he’ll be just what we need but it is tough to watch him answer the questions thrown at him when you can tell he really doesn’t want to be there anyway.

PITT is again putting out a nice spring practice website this year with a slew of articles and interviews after each practice.  Here is the March 20^th version.

(more…)

Hell of a damning piece on Ben Howland and the turmoil at UCLA. No real scandal. No recruiting violations. Nothing really that I would consider outrageous behavior by the players — outside of Reeves Nelson — to suggest an institutional issue. And the defense from former players is underway. Nonetheless, it is a piece that makes Ben Howland look really, really bad. A piece that those UCLA fans who want Howland out are citing as evidence.

The first thing to note from a Pitt perspective, none of this touches Pitt. The issues surrounding UCLA and Howland are only for the last few years. It is pointed out that there were no problems at UCLA in the first several years under Howland. It has only been recently. What it suggests more than anything else is that Howland was too hands-off about what the players were doing, expecting them to all be self-starters who kept things in check. Go figure, not all kids — especially high-major talent — might be less disciplined.

The group he had at first was much like what he had at Pitt.

(more…)

I have a ton of other things that I should be writing. Yet I have to get this out of my system.

I last wrote about the role of the Poynter Institute in acting as the ESPN ombudsman, back in September. Specifically, about how badly they were doing in that role. I have tried to stop worrying about them, because it is a fruitless thing to let annoy me.

That Poynter wants to take it’s elitist, high-minded, ethical standards and toss them away for ESPN is their business.

Then I saw Awful Announcing’s great takedown on Poynter’s latest defense of ESPN — regarding Tebowmania.

(more…)