No this isn’t about Terrelle Pryor, Ohio State, Bill Stewart and/or West Virginia. Though, I understand the confusion.

It’s another look at Big East expansion and the next media contract. I’m going to keep this one relatively brief.

Villanova is still out there. Trying to get things lined up so it can be included in football in the Big East. They got some good news this week in that the soccer team that owns PPL Park is undertaking an expansion plan without Villanova being in the picture. Albeit, the pace may be an issue.

(more…)

If there is one story to read, this SBJ article on how Fox and ESPN teamed up to give the Pac-12 their huge deal, and keep NBC/Comcast out of the game.

Prior to that call, executives from ESPN and Fox were resigned to losing the Pac-10’s media rights to Comcast, which had told the conference weeks earlier that it would bid $225 million per year to pick up the rights for Versus and NBC. Neither of the current partners, ESPN nor Fox, had the shelf space to bid that much individually.

In early April, NBC Sports executives, led by Chairman Dick Ebersol, gave a presentation in New York, according to conference sources. Pac-10 officials left the meeting believing that Comcast viewed the Pac-10 as an important piece of its plans to build NBC Sports and Versus. Steve Burke, CEO of NBC Universal, also was present to meet and greet Pac-10 executives, but he left before the meeting started.

Despite the strong bid, the conference recognized its long relationship with the two incumbents. The Pac-10’s media consultant, Evolution Media’s Chris Bevilacqua, proposed an idea to Skipper: What if the two media giants joined forces and combined their bid?

The intrigue of that, and the concerted effort by the Mouse Monopoly and House of Murdoch to work together on keeping NBC/Comcast out of the picture is astounding. Beyond giving the Pac-12 control and content to have their own network on top of this, the Pac-12 also retained all digital rights to their games. That’s huge for inventory and future packaging.

But there is a lot more to this story , and bodes well (hopefully) for the Big East.

(more…)

It came up as it always does in the doldrums of the offseason. It gets picked up by desperate college football media looking for any little tidbit. It gets meaningless controversy going for 15 minutes. It is then forgotten until next year. Rinse and repeat.

I am of course, referring to Pitt-Penn State not playing in football. Usually it is when one coach or the other (and occasionally both) gets asked about it.

Todd Graham being the new guy, and Joe Paterno now a recluse, means Graham gets to get the question this year. Honestly, I don’t even want to read the article.

It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see Pitt and Penn State play annually in football and men’s basketball. It’s that it just isn’t happening for probably at least 10 more years. I see no point in wasting time in that pointless issue given the timeframe.

In the annual spring/summer effort to make it up to my wife for not doing things for 8 months because of Pitt football and basketball, most weekends are now heavily occupied with either family activities or house chores. This past weekend involved building a 4×8 raised garden bed. All went well until I started driving stakes into the ground to help anchor the bed. Whacked my thumb with a mallet. Glancing blow so I managed not to break it. Instead took out a divot of flesh at the top of the thumb. Suffice to say I didn’t feel much like typing for a few days. Still hurts.

Actually a good deal to get to, but the big news is the pending Pac-12 media rights deal. It’s a whopper.

The Pac-10 Conference has agreed to a media rights deal with ESPN and Fox that is worth more than $2.7B over 12 years, according to multiple sources. A formal announcement could come as soon as tomorrow. The deal, which averages out to more than $225M per year, includes football, basketball and Olympic sports rights. It is more than triple the conference’s current deals with ESPN and Fox. The conference is holding some rights back that it still hopes to use for a dedicated channel.

Now the offices of the Pac-12 get their cut, so it isn’t like each team will get $20 million per year, but it will be up there.

(more…)

Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend and holiday. Tried to get started on the long, long list of outdoor projects around the house, but the rain has been so frequent that not much was really accomplished. Well, aside from a lot more crap in the garage that needs to get out of there. Not sure if there has been two consecutive dry days in the Cleveland area for the past few weeks — well without the temperature dipping below 40. The lack of a spring this year has been worse than normal. That or I’m just old and cranky, and less tolerant of the weather.

So, for nearly a month, the links have been accumulating related to football. I’ve been lazy. The writing of Reed has let me slack off on this stuff. Now it’s time to clear it out — even if it’s a little dated.

Starting with the newest news, though, another Michigan transfer (paywall). Cullen Christian asked for and received his release from Michigan last week. Since Christian went to Penn Hills and several of his coaches at Michigan are now at Pitt — well, the math seemed obvious. This is a really good get, though. Christian was one of the top recruits in Pennsylvania in 2010. One of the top CB recruits in the country. He was a 4-star recruit and an US Army All-American. Injuries and attrition at Michigan forced him to play a lot more than he should have — 10 games. Look forward to seeing him out there in 2012.

(more…)

Adding to the intrigue of Big East expansion and the Villanova situation, the Big East media rights will be available after the 2013 football season. It’s one of the reasons the Big East invited TCU last fall and Villanova decided to pursue the idea of expansion. The Big East needs to make itself as pretty — and as stable — as possible if it wants to get a deal even close to what the other 5 BCS conferences are (or are going to be) pulling in their latest deals.

Still with more than a year to go, ESPN and the Big East are already talking.

Typically, with a deal expiring at the end of 2013, talks wouldn’t have started until next year.

ESPN currently pays the Big East an average of $36 million annually as part of a six-year contract for all of its sports. While initial numbers being floated may not be as rich as the ESPN/ACC deal that was struck last spring, it would still mark a major boost for the 16-team conference.

Sources indicate the early numbers range from $110 million to $130 million annually, but conference sources describe those figures as a starting point for any negotiation. The initial offer would fall short of the $155 million annual payout the ACC will receive from ESPN in a deal that kicks in this summer. But the bold push by ESPN shows the network wants to lock down college rights in the face of increasing competition.

The ACC deal, which is the closest analog for the Big East will pay each school some $12 million/year in the new deal.

(more…)

Sorry about the late start. The morning was lost due to a pediatric cardiologist appointment for my son. Born with a heart issue, so there are routine check-ups to make sure all is well. All is fine, but it just took a while to get everything done today.

It is less than a week until the Villanova Wildcats make their decision on football and the Big East. In a related note, the most evil Wildcat of them all — Scottie Reynolds — lost it in a NBDL game.

VUHoops has the must read article on the subject. Quick executive summary: Looks like they are going to make the move to 1-A football.

We’ve covered the subject before, but I’m sure that won’t stop anyone from strongly repeating their feelings on this. I’m fine with it.

(more…)

My sister lives in Houston, so I have a place to stay. I’m still working on the wife accepting the idea of me running away for the first weekend in April — without returning to find the locks changed.

Here is the entire schedule for NCAA Tournament basketball games. Pitt is set for Thursday, 3:10 pm on truTV (Ch. 246 if you have DirecTV). Calling the game will be Tim Brando and Mike Giminski.

The log5 analysis puts Pitt’s chances of winning the whole thing at 7.5%. Lowest of all the #1 seeds.

Let’s look at the Southeast bracket snap judgments:

(more…)

As a rule, I’m not a fan of “zero tolerance” policies. I don’t think its’ the ex-lawyer in me, I’ve never been a big supporter of them. Too many overreactions, and no shades of gray. Everyone wants the bright-line rule, but life isn’t that neat and tidy. And all too often they are reactionary not to actual problems but to the glaring spotlight of attention and scare reports.

/climbs down from soapbox

Pitt made no such announcement yesterday when Coach Todd Graham and AD Steve Pederson met with the media in light of the SI.com story that featured Pitt as the #1 team in terms of arrests in college football. The implications are there, but then they were already in place when Graham (and Haywood for that matter) was hired.

(more…)

Crud. I wanted to focus on basketball today and for a little while. That went out the window with the SI/CBS News freakout piece on Criminal Records in College Football. I still would have ignored it as being yet another piece without a lot of context, but plenty of scary numbers and implied accusations.

But there’s a problem. Pitt got to be the poster-boy for this.

Few football programs had a more difficult season in 2010 than the University of Pittsburgh. Led by running back Dion Lewis, a Doak Walker candidate, the Panthers were the preseason pick to win the Big East and go to a BCS bowl. But things quickly began unraveling — on and off the field.

In a span between mid-July and late September, four players were arrested for four separate, violent crimes.

…

Before this rash of arrests, Pitt had no procedure for screening football recruits for past trouble with the law. But after Knox’s arrest Pitt’s athletic department implemented a new policy requiring coaches to seek more detailed background information on potential recruits.

“This evaluation is not a legal criminal background check,” the school said in a statement. “Rather, it is a checklist of questions that attempts to gain greater knowledge of the behavior and citizenship of an individual prospect from a variety of people.”

It’s a good first step, but doesn’t go far enough. An unprecedented six-month investigation by Sports Illustrated and CBS News found that Pittsburgh had more players in trouble with the law (22) than any other school among SI’s 2010 preseason Top 25. The joint investigation involved conducting criminal background checks on every player — 2,837 in all — on the preseason rosters of those 25 teams. Players’ names, dates of birth and other vital information were checked at 31 courthouses and through 25 law enforcement agencies in 17 states. Players were also checked through one or more online databases that track criminal records. In all, 7,030 individual record checks were performed.

Pitt chancellor Mark Nordenberg and athletic director Steve Pederson declined requests for comment, but the school issued another statement, which said, “We have publicly acknowledged the unacceptable number of off-the-field incidents involving members of our football program during the past season. We have addressed these with the appropriate sanctions and spoke out against such behavior.”

And if you believe the undercurrents of rumors/message boards with the subtext of AD Pederson’s comments after Wannstedt’s firing, then you know part of the way it was addressed.

(more…)

Pitt baseball has been improving under Coach Joe Jordano. So much so, that you can actually listen to some of the games this year on the radio and via a livestream.

WPTS has Pitt baseball broadcasts this year. The first one is this Saturday at 3pm against IPFW

If you are in the ‘Burgh Pitt’s student radio station is 92.1 FM. Otherwise you can listen on the WPTS Website.

Anyways, here’s the press release and broadcast schedule.

(more…)

It still holds up, for violent fun.

Spring football practice kicks off in about a month. Coach Todd Graham is starting the media rounds anew. As Mendy Nestor in the Pitt Athletic department was kind enough to let us know this morning.

Coach Graham is meeting with the media today. Every time I listen to him talk I get fired up.

She also attached a camera-phone shot of the meeting.

So, we know a rash of stories on Coach Graham and Pitt football will be in the pipeline.

(more…)

There’s a rhythm to certain things. Especially in the media and debating polls. After the Number One team loses.

In a situation like this weekend where Ohio State lost a close one at Wisconsin — where no road team wins. You get the arguments that the No. 1 team, maybe shouldn’t fall just because they lost. Especially when you look at where and how they lost. You have the debate about the 2 and 3 teams. Maybe the No. 4 team, but that seems too far a reach. Especially since it would mean dropping the No. 1 team all the way to No. 4.

In particular with Pitt, and the initial reaction to the win on Saturday. Everyone acknowledges that it was a great win for Pitt. A tough road win, against a top-10 team in the toughest conference. Done without Pitt’s leading scorer. But the debate kind of leaves Pitt out of the discussion, for vague reasons. Whether it is tired, inaccurate claim that Pitt lacks sufficient offense, or another team is just playing so much better than everyone else right now (Texas), or another is has the most NBA-potential talent and depth (Kansas), or that the other has the best NBA prospect (Ohio State).

(more…)

Woke up this morning feeling good. This, despite staying up way too long trying to let the alcohol work its way out of my system and trying to come down from the game. Big wins do that. They carry over and just make things better.

I was thinking about how Villanova out rebounded Pitt. The key was not that Nova was so good inside — outside of Yarou. It was that the inside guys for Nova, weren’t trying to corral it right away. They were playing tip-drill. Bounce it around, keep it out of Pitt’s hands, and get it outside where there was space.

Aside from the rebounding, Pitt just did a little more a little better than Villanova. Pitt shot a little better than Villanova overall. They got to the free throw line more than Nova. They turned the ball over less. They passed the ball better.

(more…)

I was somewhat taken aback with the gushing from punditry and others both on Twitter and ESPN following Pitt beating the Hoopies in Morgantown. Yes, Pitt was down Ashton Gibbs and it was in Morgantown, but largely this is what Pitt does when a starter goes down. Don’t freak out, play their game and gut it out.

We’ve seen it in the past when Levance Fields was hurt and the team lacked any sort of true point guard. The team, adjusted to the circumstances and still played their game. It may have been a little harder, and uglier but Pitt would get through those spells still winning more than they lost. Why, then should this be any different?

Pitt started out struggling in the first half. Trying to find the right spacing. Some surprising line-ups on the floor at points (Patterson, Zanna and Moore out there at the same time?). Essentially, a bit of experimenting on the fly.

(more…)