Reed is having ribeye steak, asparagus and homemade bread for dinner…

Oh, and four star TE/DE J.P. Holtz committed to play his college football at PITT this evening.

This is a big get for Chryst & Co. in that Holtz is a highly ranked local prospect who was targeted by Wannstedt, Graham and Chryst as a player they very much wanted on the Panthers.  He most probably will line up at the TE position for us and seeing the way Chryst used TEs, sometimes in a two TE set, he may be able to contribute sooner rather than later.

Currently PITT has only two ‘true’ TEs on the roster in Hubie Graham and Brendan Carozzoni with converted WR Drew Carswell and converted QB Anthony Gonzalez working into the rotation at that position.  I wonder if Carswell might move back to WR as he has the size at 6’4″ and 215  that this staff likes and has used there while at Whisky.

I don’t envision Holtz playing much as a true freshman but one never knows.  Hubie Graham will probably get the bulk of playing time at that position and let’s hope he gets more passes his way.

Here is an interesting fact: in 2010 our TEs caught 21 passes; under Graham in 2011 they had 45 receptions.  I hope we incorporate the TEs into the offense at least as much as last season.

Personally I really like Brendan Carozzoni and want to see him get more action on the field.  He only caught four passes last season but showed flashes of what he can do in the UCONN game when he had three catches for 36 yards.

The big question, at least in my mind, is which of these TEs are going to excel in the run blocking aspect of the position? I think Bostad will incorporate that into the offense more than we saw last season.  We really were spoiled with Nate Byham in that role.

There is also the chance that the staff may want Holtz on the defensive side of the ball as he excelled there also.  He’s a multi-talented kid who has great athletic ability.  Plus he looks like he’s forty years old already so he’ll definitely be able to get into bars without being carded.

Holtz was a Jack of all trades in his career at Shaler as he contributed in many ways:

As a senior, Holtz ran for 337 yards on 72 carries. He caught 19 passes for 332 yards and scored 15 touchdowns.  J.P. Holtz says he played mostly running back during his junior season and had 14 total touchdowns (rushing and receiving). He says he can bench 305-pounds.

Holtz plans to major in education and reports a 3.0 core GPA. He is taking the SAT in June.

So, congrats to J.P. Holtz for picking the University of Pittsburgh for his college choice and let’s wish him the best of luck while here.

Holtz had originally committed to play at Penn State then reviewed his options after the Sandusky scandal broke and they had their coaching change.

Well, that was fun. Just a quick check-in before I wander Oakland for fun and to grab a bite to eat.

Got in last night well before the storm hit. Have to say, it was fun driving the Volvo S60 last night. I also want to make it clear that at NO TIME did I learn that the V6 325HP car can easily reach 120 mph on the Ohio Turnpike. NEVER. IT DID NOT HAPPEN.

Took the car out in the slush and snow for “fun” this morning (and to get some bagels). Not surprisingly, since it is a Volvo, it handled it all easily. It almost felt like cheating.

Good time at Gameday. The Oakland Zoo brought the energy. Others brought them donuts.

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Angry. Frustrated. Depressed. Resigned.

Those are just some of the emotions running through Pitt fans last night and into today.

Five game losing streak. Three straight losses at home. The culmination of the team giving up last night.

So what is the media — local and otherwise — saying about this slide.

Time for a brief and depressing rundown.

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For oh, so many reasons.

The obvious is that he will manage to be the 4th Pitt football head coach in just the last 12 months. Yeah, yeah, 62 years for 2 PSU coaches or whatever.

That’s not why the next coach has it so bad.

The fan base is at an all time low in terms of  just coping. Expectations are low, and I’m willing to bet so are the willingness to hear any excuses.

All that talk about how Pitt is now a basketball school and blaming it on the move to Heinz Field and no on-campus stadium. Bull.

It’s about the W-L.

There’s a belief. There’s hope. There’s an expectation with Pitt basketball of success. When was the last time you truly felt that about Pitt football? Not just for the season, but the next few years? I mean, you could look back on the previous couple and then look ahead and say, “yeah, it’s happening.” Instead, it’s been, “this year could be the breakthrough to start something… I hope.”

Coming into 2011, I thought Todd Graham was going to have a rough time if Pitt didn’t win right away. Partially because of the way he pushed and promoted high expectations. But because the media wasn’t going to play as nice as they did with Wannstedt at first.

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I’m drafting an ‘end of the season’ piece that I’ll post in the next couple days but here are some thoughts on the “news” Zeise writes about today in the P-G.

There is nothing out of the ordinary when you have division and complaint after a major coaching staff change.  I wrote back in April that in spring practices it looked to me like there was across the board ‘buy-in’ from the players on roster. The players I watched were all excited and active in going about their practices and drills and the ones I talked to were very upbeat and looking forward to the season.   I think that’s pretty much true today also, with some exceptions.

Playing .500 ball during the season didn’t help smooth the transition between a new coaching staff and the new styles of play as much as a winning season would.  Graham pumped these kids up with some pretty high expectations and those dreams of a big season for the seniors not only didn’t happen but it became pretty obvious early on that it wasn’t going to.  Coming back down into reality means there are hard landings sometimes.  That probably skewed some upperclassmen’s opinions.

One thing we fans have to realize is that all the romantic visions of players and staff linking arms and singing Kumbaya just never happens no matter how much fans want it to.

It’s obvious that a few players didn’t like the firing of Dave Wannstedt and have let that influence their senior seasons.  Nix is one I believe and that may be the reason he hesitated on getting back in the lineup.  I don’t think it was any coincidence that he felt better and played the last two games of the season, one of which was the holiday national broadcast of the Brawl.  He had to show the NFL scouts that his injury wasn’t chronic before draft day and he couldn’t take a chance that he’d be able to do that in a bowl game… as PITT certainly wasn’t guaranteed to land in one.  (more…)

In case anyone thought I was just making stuff up regarding Pitt getting sent to the BBVA Bowl in Birmingham, solely for TV. There is this bit of information.

…the BBVA Compass Bowl pitting 6-6 Pitt against 6-6 SMU. That last one’s particularly interesting because, according to multiple sources, the Birmingham game didn’t want the Panthers back for a second straight year, and Pitt was so opposed to the idea it threatened to boycott. Seriously.

So how did that matchup still end up happening? One word: ESPN. Its subsidiary, ESPN Regional, owns six of those low-rung bowls, including the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s and BBVA Compass games. And lest anyone tell you otherwise, head honcho Pete Derzis ultimately decides who plays where. He’s the reason Marshall is playing in St. Pete instead of Pittsburgh and why SMU is in Birmingham instead of … somewhere else.

The bowls are purportedly for the “student-athletes,” and arguably they still are in places like Pasadena and Orlando. In Birmingham or St. Petersburg, however, they’re for three hours of television programming, and the teams are ancillary figures.

And as Zeise noted, it is not like the Big East was going to do anything to help Pitt.

The bottom line is Pitt was trying to work something out with the Beef O Brady’s Bowl but the Big East made it pretty clear that they weren’t going to help Pitt’s cause and they basically told Pitt it was headed to the BBVA Compass Bowl because that bowl needed someone who might actually attract a television audience. (Believe it or not, Pitt might not be good at selling tickets, but people will watch the Panthers on TV which makes them attractice to a bowl like this, which exists almost exclusively as cheap programming for ESPN.

That’s part of why Pitt kept ending up on weeknight ESPN showings. We like sitting in our couches — not burning them.

I have enjoyed Twitter more than I thought.

The one thing I have tried to avoid doing is following and commenting on players who tweet. Whether you call them kids or not, they are cocooned in college. They will make mistakes. Forget that everyone can see and read this. Hell, plenty of grown-ups regularly mess this up.  And I can’t help but think about how lucky I am that none of the social media (and evidence) was around when I was at Pitt.

That said, Tino Sunseri has managed to make things worse with this tweet:

Oh. Tino. No.

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I’ll get to the Backyard Brawl I swear. Honestly, though, there isn’t much at the moment. Everyone seems to be low-key. I think both sides are doing anything and everything to avoid the bulletin board. In the meantime, some stories from the game last night and a couple others I’ve been meaning to link.

Game recaps focus on the outstanding block by Travon Woodall in the final minute. No one knew Woodall could sky like that. Last year, I recall stories where Ashton Gibbs claimed he could dunk. Still haven’t seen it. After what Woodall did yesterday, I believe Woodall can.

And of course, there was the attention to the turnovers.

La Salle, which had averaged 80 points in its first three games, shot 43 percent and had a hard time scoring against Pitt’s half-court defense. The reason the Explorers were in the game until the final minute was Pitt’s poor offensive execution and turnovers.

The execution had its problems. There was a large stretch starting at about the mid-point of the first half until under 2 minutes in the half, where Pitt only scored 3 points. In that stretch, Pitt had 4 turnovers and shot a dismal 1-8.

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(I’m sure Chas will have something to say on this matter also but I wanted to get this up while events are unfolding.)

The news that broke in the middle of Pennsylvania this week should have shocked no one.  The child abuse issues with Jerry Sandusky had been reported as early as 1998, with subsequent reporting on the convening of a PA State Grand Jury almost two years ago.

We pretty much all knew that some sort of charges would be leveled. What was surprising was the extent and boldness of Sandusky’s crimes and the blatant misdirection and covering of facts by the Penn State athletic department, campus police chain of command and the university’s administration, up to and including President Spanier.

For those of us who have been living under a rock for the past week here is a reference page from the Pgh Post-Gazette that has links to articles covering this story.

For those of you who have the stomach for it here is a copy of the aforementioned Grand Jury Report.  I really mean it about the warning – what you will read in there can literally make you sick to your stomach.  Not just the physical actions conducted by Sandusky, but the decision making by everyone involved with this at PSU.

From a janitor who witnessed Sandusky in action, to Mike McQueary, who saw the most heinous of crimes against humanity play out in a locker room shower, through Coach Paterno, Tim Curley the AD, Gary Schultz who is a university Vice-President and oversaw the campus police and on to the University’s President, there was a turning of a blind eye to what is the most basic responsibility of an adult… the protection of our children.

Not one person either stopped the crime being committed or reported the incidents to the local civic authorities.  That is unbelievable, truly unbelievable, for the rest of America to understand.

Their moral compasses pointed directly to Penn State University and never once wavered.  (more…)

Basketball season is getting much closer. One exhibition down. One more on Sunday. The season starts next Friday.

From playing in Greece to Cyprus to Israel to Canton? Interesting travelog for Tyrell Biggs, the 15th overall selection in the NBA D-League draft by the Canton Charge.

Biggs wore thick, black-rimmed glasses Thursday, looking like an imposing Steve Urkel. But there is nothing Urkel about his game.

The broad-shouldered Biggs can play the 3 or 4 position and is not shy about contact. He’s got range out to 20 feet, a back-to-the-basket repertoire, long arms and a good feel for the overall game.

Jensen loves the fact that Biggs played at Pitt for head coach Jamie Dixon and went through Big East battles.

“I always talk about my mindset being the same as the Cavaliers,” [Charge Head Coach Alex] Jensen said, referring to the organization’s emphasis on defense. “Tyrell is the same way, playing for Coach Dixon, one of the most successful college coaches in the last decade.

“So when he comes in, he already has that mindset and understands it.”

Best of luck to Biggs, and when the NBA returns I hope he can find  a spot.

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Lots of open tabs. Some with direct Pitt stuff. Others not so much.

Attendance, attendance, attendance. The Wednesday UConn non-attendance issue was a popular topic of angst. I’m not going to rehash the reasons/excuses. I didn’t make the trip, but I knew that even before I ordered season tickets. Chris Dokish looks at Pitt’s (paid) attendance relative to many factors to conclude, that things aren’t really that bad. I’m just not too worked up over it. Especially when I look at the conference to where Pitt is heading.

Miami tried to one-up Pitt on their Thursday night game. They at least had a beautiful evening. Then there was Maryland on a Saturday (click to see the picture).

Eric Prisbell wrote that there “appeared to be no more than 10,000 fans at Byrd Stadium.”

“Saturday’s abject eyesore, where lower-level tickets at Byrd Stadium were going for a penny on StubHub? That’s more than frigid, rotten weather. That’s unacceptable,” Mike Wise columnized.

At least Pitt’s tickets on StubHub were 99 cents. We will fit right into the ACC.

Honestly, I’m not too stressed on attendance. It’s frustrating at times, but the fact is there are a lot of Pitt fans hanging back right now. Frustrated by the past decade, maybe even the past 30 years. Happy to cheer and support the the team (and even buy tickets), but not quite willing to make that final action of going to the games. The only way it changes is with Pitt winning.

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Did you realize that if you lived outside of the Pittsburgh area and your internet provider does not give you ESPN3.com, there was a very real chance of not seeing a Pitt basketball game until the the beginning of December? Terrifying.

Well, the cancelled games from the NBA lockout offer Pitt fans the first tangible benefit. The November 16 game against Long Beach State has been bumped from ESPN3.com to ESPNU. It has also been bumped from a 7pm start time to 9pm.

Was in the middle of working on this post. It was going fine. Nearly finished. Exploring the idea of the rumors that both Louisville and WVU were going to announce a move to the Big 12 by next week. What it would mean to Big East survival (or not), that the departures could accelerate chance of Pitt getting to the ACC sooner — or have to wait longer b/c they need the bodies, and whether the possibility of 11 teams in the Big 12 suggested that maybe Notre Dame to the Big 12 in all but football could be a reality.

Then… KABOOM!

West Virginia has been invited to join the Big 12 Conference, college football industry sources told CBSSports.com Friday.

The Mountaineers will accept the invitation, sources said. The Big 12 is expected to officially announce the invitation later today.

The Big 12’s board of directors voted Friday morning and chose West Virginia over Louisville. They will stay at 10 schools, a source said.

So now we are back to where things were on Tuesday.

That’s a shame for Louisville (and for Pitt and Syracuse).

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Can you believe that there is no Pitt football this Saturday, but basketball instead? It’s true. The first of a couple exhibition games tip-off this Saturday at 4pm.

The fighting LaRoche Redhawks will make the arduous 12.5 mile trip to the Pete. The defending Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) champs will look to show everyone that just because they are D-III, they are more than exhibition patsies.

Anyone buying it? No. Good. I’ll just shift to some general basketball stuff for Pitt.

In his first season at Pitt there was a vocal minority declaring Dante Taylor a bust. Why? I counted three basic reasons. The first was that he wasn’t DeJuan Blair. An outlying freak who was able to be a big impact player as a freshman. The second, he was a McDonald’s All-American. Pitt hadn’t had one of those in a couple decades. Any McDonald’s All-American is immediately assumed to be a potential NBA star, and headed there early. Third, his recruiting class included two one-and-done big men in DeMarcus Cousins and Derrick Favors. Sure they were the top-top five players nationally and Taylor was somewhere in the teens. When you just ranked big men, they weren’t that far apart.

Luke Winn at SI.com helped debunk some of the hyperbole with some useful data, and an actual comparison of other top-ranked big men of the 2009 class in their freshman year also debunked some of the idiocy. I listed 14 top big men (PFs and Cs). All but four of them (Cousins, Favors, Daniel Orton and Tiny Gallon) are still playing college ball in their junior year.

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I’m en route to NYC for Big East Basketball Media Day for Wednesday. The good news, is the trip is fully paid for by someone else. The bad news, I’m not going there as a media-type person that gets to ask questions.

I am going courtesy of Volvo and their Biggest Fan of the Big East contest. I will be the Pitt representative. More on that aspect in another post, on another.

The immediate upshot is getting to observe Media Day, and will be tweeting things from there. So, follow along.

Disappointed that I don’t get to ask each coach a question. Spent part of my Saturday evening while drowning my sorrows coming up with questions I would love to have asked:

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