I know, you are thinking, why get up early? Why fight traffic? All for a noon game that most are not as feeling optimistic, as they were prior to the start of the season. The game is on national TV on ESPN2. It all seems very enticing to just stay home and watch the game.

And there’s your reason to go to the game. If you watch the game on TV, you will be treated to the play-calling crew of Pam Ward and Ray Bentley. Spare yourself. Make the trip to the game.

So, I got an e-mail from a marketing firm that specializes in “digital media communications” this afternoon.  They are looking to drive traffic to Circuit City and their fall football marketing. Usually I ignore these type of e-mails since there is usually a questionable tie-in, but this one might be of interest.

Specifically a live chat with Dan Marino set for tomorrow at the Circuit City site. So if you want to go ask him about his Pitt days. Maybe what he thinks of the job Wannstedt is doing. How things went down at the end of his career with the Dolphins with Wannstedt and Johnson trying to push him out. Heck if enough Pitt fans flood the board with questions on what he thinks of what is happening at his alma mater, it definitely would shift things away from the NFL talk that is expected.

Or you can go to this thread and post a question early.

You know what I like about the Q&A with Paul Zeise of the P-G and the blog/reporter’s notebook of Kevein Gorman of the Trib.? They are the places where you get a better sense of their opinions on things and where their biases are. Bias is not inherently bad. It is unavoidable. We all have it, from our experiences, life and everything else. Reporters pretending they can go into some sort of hypnotic, Robert Heinlein “fair witness” state is self-deluding.

Gorman’s post from the other day could be considered dumping the notebook. Just getting all the extra notes and thoughts from the past week plus out at one time. Lots of good stuff.

I’ve been hard on the defense, because I just haven’t seen what I expected from them. Also, with the Wannstedt approach to games, the defense has to be great for Pitt to win. Gorman also saw the defense as less than stellar so far.

Some signs that Pitt’s defense wasn’t all that impressive:

Buffalo’s 15-play, 73-yard scoring drive that spanned six minutes, 54 seconds and gave the Bulls a 6-0 lead with 1:59 remaining in the first quarter was its longest scoring drive since a 16-play, 80-yard drive against Miami last season. That’s Miami of Ohio, not Florida.

Buffalo tailback James Starks, whom Wannstedt said might be the best back the Panthers face this season, finished with 97 rushing yards on 20 carries (or 4 yards more than McCoy on the same number of attempts). It was the highest rushing total by Starks against a BCS opponent. His previous high was 66 yards at Auburn.

And the week before versus BGSU, the Falcon offense was 4-4 in the redzone. There are issues, and it can’t all be pinned on injuries at linebacker. Eric Thatcher comes in for some direct criticism.

He also makes an interesting observation on Wannstedt.

“…We didn’t sustain for 60 minutes. The second game, we did. That was the theme all week in practice. I put together a few gimmick things for them and did some things during the week to really try to illustrate and emphasize that it really is a 60-minute game, regardless of who we’re playing and what the score is.”

To this day, I don’t understand how a coach who so detests gimmicks on the field – such as the Wildcat offense – uses them so frequently off the field.

Heh.

As for his knock on the student section from the BGSU game,

Which makes me wonder where the student section was a week earlier, when Pitt needed some support while trailing Bowling Green by 10 points with 11:52 remaining in the fourth quarter. Does the student section really need a song to be played to stir up some interest in cheering for the home team?

There’s an easy answer to that. The team and the coaches gave the fans nothing to believe at that point. Pitt was being shut out in the second half, while BGSU had scored two more TDs. Everyone recognized what was happening and that the team was going to blow that game. Fans cheer when they believe. Whether it is believing they can hold or rally, the fans need to believe.

I’ve been to enough sporting events to recognize when fans believe or not. When they don’t believe, it’s just not possible to get that energy to do anything more than half-heartedly, briefly, or at best desperately get behind the team. Nothing Pitt was doing on either side of the ball suggested they were going to do anything. Their body language on the sideline was screaming that they were lost. Fans could see and feel it.

And that is the lead-in to Zeise’s rant.

And the fact that it has been discussed so much on blogs and message boards and even talk radio should tell you the sorry state of where the Pitt football program has fallen. I mean, we’ve spent the past three seasons discussing everything — recruiting rankings, marketing schemes, song selections, logo changes, the ridiculous whining about the script helmets — EXCEPT winning football games. It is not a good thing that all of these things are discussed so much all the time and it is more proof that Pitt really needs a long run of winning games because the fan base is really getting restless.

…

Look, I know some of you get angry with me because I like to poke fun at these kinds of silly gimmicks and these long drawn out discussions about logos and uniforms but I’ve been saying this for years: The best — and at this point as fans are out of patience, the ONLY — marketing program or plan that will put people in those seats at Heinz Field is WINNING FOOTBALL GAMES WITH SOME DEGREE OF CONSISTENCY.

Period.

The athletic department’s marketing people have done a great job with the hand they’ve been dealt but they have gotten absolutely no help from the team and ultimately that is the only thing that matters in this market, particularly for a team that is trying to compete with three professional franchises for media attention as well as fan dollars — if you win and produce a good product, they will ultimately come to watch. Heck, thankfully even the Pirates are starting to find out that concerts, skyblasts, bobbleheads and fireworks are no longer enough to keep people interested in coming back to the ballpark.

So again, as Al Davis says “Just win, baby” and all of this other stuff will go back to being a part of the meaningless sideshow to the main event, which should be the actual football played on the field.

No disagreement. Ticket sales were up this year and they sold out in 2003. As much as lower prices helped, the primary reason was that the expectations were there for the team to win.

The only thing I will say in defense of the discussions is that they tend to come up during bye weeks. Slow news cycles. You know, when there is no game to discuss. So the topics available drift to other things.

Back to the other stuff.

Q: Why is Oderick Turner so inconsistent and looking so disinterested at times? I thought he came from an NFL family (his father played in the NFL). Shouldn’t he know how to play with more passion and intensity?

ZEISE: Being the son of an NFL player only means your dad was a good football player. It doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t take the lessons you learned from him and put them into practice. And when I watch Oderick Turner play it is somewhat frustrating to me. He has all the talent he needs to be a big-time player, I just don’t get the impression he really loves it that much. There are times he makes big plays, but he leaves so many big plays on the field every game he’s become somewhat of an enigma. You contrast the way he approaches things with that of Derek Kinder, who loves to play and it is easy to see if you just watch him run around out there. He plays with heart, with passion – he really goes after it every play. Turner still hasn’t developed this kind of consistency and I fear he might not ever get it.

Turner seems to have everyone frustrated. In a way the comparison with Kinder reminds me of Louisville’s two receivers from last year: Mario Urrutia and Harry Douglas.

Urrutia looked like a game-breaking receiver. He had natural talent, size, strength and speed. He lacked heart and desire, though. Short-arming receptions, shying from contact and just lacking effort at times. Especially compared to Douglas who, while shorter and not as fast, had more desire and you knew would do whatever it took to make the play — and he did.

Urrutia frustrated Cardinal fans while Douglas was embraced and beloved.

On the subject of Bill Stull going deep, he somewhat defends him.

Q: Do you think the reason why Pitt doesn’t throw the ball downfield more, is because Stull is not an accurate downfield passer? The deep balls that he did throw weren’t even close.

ZEISE: No, they didn’t throw down the field that much before Stull was the quarterback, either. Certainly it is not his strength and I agree that the deep balls have been atrocious, but a lot of that had to do with timing and that is something that can be corrected. Stull just threw them up for grabs, didn’t set his feet, didn’t wait for his receivers to get into stride, just chucked them. This is something they need to work on obviously but they have two weeks to get the timing of these things down. But he threw one to Jonathan Baldwin last Saturday that showed he can do it (even though it was a half-yard out of bounce). He just needs to work on it.

When you expect to throw one deep ball per game, how much can you work on it? Given the accuracy issue, I don’t know why they don’t at least take a chance with going more to the middle on a deep pass. Well, actually I do know, the fear of the interception. Still, if you send Baldwin or even Dickerson their natural athletic ability combined with a little more room might give them more of a chance and give Stull a little more confidence in throwing deep. Plus, since Coach Wannstedt loves the field position issue, an interception on a deep ball might be as good as a punt.

The mystery of Dave Wannstedt’s personnel decisionmaking is an ongoing debate.

Q: What is the coaching staff’s aversion to playing the younger talent (ie. Ransom over all the other lb’ers)? There seem to be several options I have considered, a) loyalty to upperclassman, b) young players are not smart enough to learn their assignments, c) players were overrated as recruits or d) coaches don’t seem to be able to coach up their younger players. How do other schools across the country seem to be able to untilize freshmen in multiple roles but Nix can only play limited minutes and Baldwin is only able to run a fly pattern once or twice a game?

ZEISE: I think this is really rather simple and we’ve been through it before — everything we know about Dave Wannstedt’s football philosophy can be summed up in a few words “always err on the side of caution.” That is just how he is built and what he believes in. It is why his teams are always so seemingly conservative, it is why he punts twice from inside the 35 against Bowling Green and plays for field goals and field position — that’s just what he believes in. And the extension of that is when it comes to personnel — he favors experience because theoretically experienced guys make fewer mistakes. But that’s an NFL thing too, as you don’t, in the college, have the luxury of reloading with experienced guys since you only have them for four years (or five). I do think it is puzzling what is going on with both Baldwin and Lucas Nix but by the same token, it isn’t anything that is new or that we haven’t come to expect. It is just one of those things — if you look at the coach’s football philosophy, it is easy to understand why he’s hesitant to green light freshmen playing time.

Yes, it’s the most logical explanation. I think most fans know it. It doesn’t make it right, and the stubbornness of Wannstedt on this along with so many other things — even as he keeps losing support and games — defies reason. You would think at some point he’d actually take a look at his record at Pitt. At Miami. At Chicago and say, “Hmm, maybe it wasn’t all just injuries, bad luck and not ‘catching break.’ Maybe I need to change some things.” Apparently not.

I can’t say this surprised me one bit. I expected a noon start for this game. The mouse monopoly hasn’t decided at this point whether it will be on ESPN or ESPN2.

That depends in part on what/how Iowa looks in their in-state rivalry game with Iowa State this weekend. If they lose to the worst of the Big 12 North, expect this one on ESPN2.

Looks like another game of heading to Pittsburgh before sunrise.

Please, please, please. Don’t make it this easy.

Q: OK, cut through the BS — what is your prediction for this team?

ZEISE: I usually don’t give predictions per se, other than to give a range of where a team should be and so here is what I’ll say. I see a team, who, if it plays well, should be 8-4. In other words, the talent level on this team is, from what I can see and based on experience and knowing what kind of schedule it is going to face, good enough that it is very fair to expect eight wins from it. So eight is the cut-off in my book and less than eight is underachieving while more than eight is overachieving. So if you ask me what I am expecting from this team I’ll say 8-4, though I could make a very strong case for 10-2 or 5-7 if you’d really like me to.

So, that isn’t a prediction. Just an expectation.

Then don’t. Don’t do a write-up for preseason magazine where the “Overview” part has you writing, “It is hard to imagine this team won’t get to at least eight wins.”

I actually like Paul Zeise’s writing. I think Pitt is rather lucky that both dailies have good writers on the Pitt football beat. Zeise, however, can’t pretend that his freelance writing gig is totally unconnected.

Like it or not, the preseason mags aren’t just about providing a synopsis on a team. People buy them to see what the expectations and predictions are. I’m sure Zeise did not have anything to do with the slotting of Pitt at #23 in Lindy’s. But he took the work-for-hire, and associated with them. The language can be parsed, to say there is no prediction. It sure seems that way, though.

Okay, power rankings, polls and such. Stewart Mandel at SI.com starts Pitt out at #23 in his power rankings.

After watching a recent Panthers practice, I’m convinced that this is a bona fide top-25 team, with a superstar tailback (LeSean McCoy), a stud freshman receiver (Jonathan Baldwin) and a dominant D. But the O-line will keep them from rising much higher.

Last year Todd McShay at ESPN/Scouts, Inc. picked Pitt as his sleeper team from the Big East. If at first you don’t succeed…

I’m going back to the well with Pittsburgh. In fact, I like the Panthers so much they’ve become my pick to win the Big East in 2008. Coach Dave Wannstedt and his staff have recruited well the past four seasons, so the talent is in place to make a run.

Junior Bill Stull has been sharp in camp, emerging as an efficient quarterback for the pro-style scheme. As long as Stull protects the ball and makes sound decisions, RB LeSean McCoy will do the rest. McCoy rushed for 1,328 yards and 14 scores as a freshman last season. He should be even more potent with a full season of experience and a full offseason of conditioning under his belt.

MLB Scott McKillop and DE Greg Romeus anchor a defense that should again be one of the Big East’s most dominant units this fall.

The Panthers should be 4-0 heading into their October 2 showdown at South Florida. Playing Rutgers and West Virginia at home should also help them navigate through a difficult schedule down the stretch.

Not a shock that McShay is high on Pitt. He’s a player evaluator. In those terms, Pitt makes sense as his pick.

ESPN.com’s Big East writer, Brian Bennett has burning questions (there’s ointment for that) for Pitt. Three questions to be exact.

The first question is about the overall depth of the team. The final question concerns the coaching. Gee, what could the middle question concern?

2. How will the offensive line hold up?

Pitt replaces three starters from last year’s line, including NFL first-rounder Jeff Otah and fourth-round pick Mike McGlynn. Head coach Dave Wannstedt hasn’t expressed much confidence in new starting right tackle Joe Thomas so far. New offensive line coach Tony Wise, who spent the last 18 years in the NFL, needs to get this group in shape so it can block for LeSean McCoy and keep Stull upright.

Thoughts of the state of the O-line are now bordering on obsession for me. I need this season to start, just so I can see how they look for myself.

For those of you not planning to actually be at the game, it airs on ESPNU at noon this Saturday.

Awful Announcing has the crews working on this Saturday. It looks like Dave “wow” Armstrong and Larry Coker.

Additional useless information is that Armstrong has a book to push and for only $4500 he will speak at your corporate function.

Larry Coker has a wikipedia page and  his video from 2002 where the then Miami Hurricane coach “shares examples of how sportsmanship is taught in his program” is marked down to $9.99 — as is an autographed picture of Coker.

Q: When is homerism good?

A: When it’s your guy who is being the homer.

Give the WWLS some credit for finally grasping that they should let the video clips be embeddable. Now if only they would cut a deal with RedLasso.

The preseason blogpoll is complete. Individual balloting by bloggers here. My ballot was here. Pitt gets little love from the college football blogosphere.

I did the visiting lecturer thing about Pitt for Every Day Should Be Saturday a couple days ago.

If you use Google Calendar I put Pitt’s football schedule out there. It includes any TV coverage. If the time is still TBA, I defaulted to 12pm. In the Google Public Calendar search, paste the following Google ID: 9cldc578j0hk5nt7jajmsskp9s@group.calendar.google.com to find it.

Heh.

Cue “Cease and Desist” letter from ESPN in 3… 2…

Finally, the Octonion returns. Just in time.

Well, Kevin Gorman noted nearly a week ago that Stewart Mandel from SI.com was at a training camp practice, so you knew a story was coming from him. The focal point, of course, has to do with LeSean McCoy.

When the backups came in, No. 25 morphed into the team’s loudest, most exuberant cheerleader, waving a towel, letting out a whoop and demonstratively signaling every first down.

No. 25 is LeSean “Shady” McCoy, a preseason All-America tailback whose path to prominence closely mirrors that of the Pitt program for which he’s quickly become the indisputable face.

…

Fast forward a year and you can see the pieces starting to fall in place around McCoy and McKillop.

The return of a healthy Stull and Kinder, the presence of talented tight end Nate Byham and veteran receiver Oderick Turner, and, in particular, the arrival of highly touted receiver Jonathan Baldwin should provide for a more balanced offense. The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Baldwin, from longtime Pitt pipeline Aliquippa High, is an incredibly gifted athlete who, in a red-zone drill last week, twice leapt over defenders and artfully kept his body inbounds on touchdown catches in the corner of the end zone. Physically, he resembles former USC standout Dwayne Jarrett. While he’s still learning the intricacies of a college offense, he will undoubtedly become Pitt’s go-to receiver sooner than later.

Defensively, the Panthers’ most important recruit may be their new coordinator, former SMU head coach Phil Bennett, whom Wannstedt lured after Harris holdover Paul Rhoads left for Auburn. Prior to his six-year tenure at SMU, Bennett served as Bill Snyder‘s defensive coordinator at Kansas State from 1999-2001, when the Wildcats never finished lower than fourth nationally in total defense.

Seven starters return from last year’s surprisingly successful unit, and Bennett said he recently told Snyder in a phone conversation that “I think we have the same type of players here that we had [at K-State].” They include not only McKillop but also freshman All-America defensive end Greg Romeus, versatile safety Eric Thatcher, lockdown corner Aaron Berry and physical defensive tackle Mick Williams.

Health and the offensive line. The two question marks.

Bruce Feldman at ESPN.com listed his top-10 impact defensive players. At #6…

Scott McKillop, Pittsburgh, LB: He’s been called a huge overachiever, but that actually takes some credit away from just how instinctive and tough the Panther middle linebacker really is. He led the nation in tackles in 2007, averaging 12.6 tackles per game and sparked the Panthers to be the country’s fifth-ranked defense. The latter point is pretty amazing when you consider the injury-ravaged Panthers (5-7) were the only team among the nation’s top 14 defense to win fewer than nine games in 2007.

This seems like a good time to note that McKillop and McCoy were both put on the watchlist Walter Camp Player of the Year Award. The award goes to the best player in college football. Past Pitt winners include Tony Dorsett, Hugh Green and Larry Fitzgerald.

Here’s the list of the all 35 candidates. Florida, Clemson and Wisconsin also have 2 candidates on the list. Ohio State has 3. From the Big East, George Selvie of USF and Pat White from WVU are also on the list.

The ESPN.com Big East blog (now manned by ex-Louisville beat writer from the Courier Journal, Brian Bennett) has a fairly entertaining Q&A with kicker Conor Lee.

How did you become a kicker?

CL: I played soccer my whole life and just started kicking on my grade school team. I actually quit football, and my freshman year of high school, the kicker for our team tore his ACL. That was the second game of the season and they asked me to come out, and I was playing varsity the third game of the season. It was almost meant to be.

Then I went to Fork Union Military Academy to try to get recruited more. But the recruiting didn’t go like I had hoped and I kind of got sick of it, so I walked on here in January of 2004. I just wanted to go somewhere and try to get the job.

…

Do people ever ask you how one brother [Penn State’s Sean Lee] became a linebacker while the other is a kicker?

CL: Yeah, and I would switch sides and be a linebacker if I could, to be honest with you. (Laughs). I was a pretty good football player when I was younger but I was pretty the much same size back then as I am now. The growth stopped for me and kept going for him.

You had two big field goals, including a 48-yarder at the end of the first half, in Pitt’s 13-9 win at West Virginia to end last season. How big was that moment for you?

CL: After that win, a couple days later it kind of sank in how important it was. I used to go to Pitt games when I was a kid, and I remember the game against West Virginia that went to four overtimes and Pitt won, and when we upset Miami at home. But that was quite possibly the biggest win in university history. I mean, I realize there was a national championship here, but what went down that night, how we were 28-point underdogs in their place, they’d never lost a night game under coach Rich Rodriguez and they were going to go to the national championship game and we just ruined it. Being a part of that was amazing.

…

You’ve already graduated and are currently working on your MBA. Is that tough to balance with football?

CL: The materials are similar to my undergrad — I was a business and economics major — but the amount of work is doubled. But I have a lot of time. I’m only taking three classes and also, being a kicker, it’s not like I really need to study the opponent as much as a quarterback would.

Over the weekend was the big feature on defensive coordinator Phil Bennett. Not about his defensive philosophies or the standard fare of players talking about new attitude and how much they like playing for the guy. This was the personal side with how he lost his 1st wife to being struck by lightening and the importance of work (coaching) and family kept him going.

In a rare move of actual promotions, Pitt actually sent out an e-mail yesterday promoting the story. Even more, they had links to a video of DC Bennett talking about getting the defense ready. If they actually embraced the last couple years of internet video, they’d have links to allow the embedding rather than having to launch it separately. That’s more on the CSTV system that operates the Pitt website and this stuff, though. They are still using Windows Media Player.

There’s also a video montage of the practice from Saturday. Not much to really take from it other than seeing Jonathan Baldwin make a spectacular one-handed leaping grab. He’s wearing #82, but trust me, there is no confusing his presence.

Another weekend feature was on the drudgery of players going through training camp.

It’s one that is based on precision, as every minute is accounted for during camp from the time the players awake by 6 a.m. until their 10:30 p.m. curfew. Sleep becomes a precious commodity, and the sound of the whistle an annoying way to wake up.

“I set my alarm clock one minute before and one minute after they blow the whistle,” said senior left guard C.J. Davis, in his fourth training camp. “I hate the whistle. Sometimes, it’s hard because you get out of practice and feel like you just laid down and then you hear that whistle at the crack of dawn.

“The days are long, but the nights go fast. It always feels like we don’t get enough rest. Our strength coaches say that too much of anything is not good for you, so I’ll have to take their word for it.”

…

Before they know it, they will put in a 15-hour day at Duratz Athletic Building filled with meetings, practice and more meetings.

I’m assuming there’s food.

Perhaps Georgia Tech AD Dan Radackovich misremembered?

Or perhaps it was AD Steve Pederson and Assistant Athletic Director/Football Operations Chris LaSala?

You may recall Post-Gazette beat writer Paul Zeise wrote this.

There are rumors flying around the Internet that Pitt and Georgia Tech are nearing a deal to play a home and home in football. As it turns out, they seem to be just that — rumors, and not very credible ones.

How do I know?

I asked Steve Pederson — who in turn asked Chris LaSala — and both laughed as they said they have never spoken with Georgia Tech.

Since I was likely the source thanks to a loyal reader and an Atlanta resident, I couldn’t back up the “rumor” at the time. The station only put the first half of the interview on their site.

Thankfully there are all these technological things like e-mail and mp3s. So, I e-mailed the producer of Mayhem in the A.M. at Sports Radio 790 The Zone in Atlanta, Scott Klug. He was nice enough to send me the MP3 of the second part of their interview with Georgia Tech AD Dan Radakovich.

Here’s the final 1:47 of the interview where they do get into the non-con football schedule.

GT AD Dan Radakovich Interview

Is this conclusive that it will happen? No. Does it suggest that Pitt and GT have done more than a little talking? I’d say so.

So, at least now that “rumor” has a source.

Which as a slogan is definitely not as played out as “This is our country.”

The players are excited for this season.

“If not this year, when?” tight end Nate Byham said when asked about the mood of the team. “There’s no more excuses, there is too much talent here, too much talent with experience — we’re hungry, this is our year to blow up. We’re expecting big things, even bigger things than people on the outside expect from us. We know we have a lot of work ahead of us, we also know that we’re hungrier than we’ve ever been, we’re more talented than we’ve ever been and we’re ready to get started on this thing.

“All of us came to Pitt because we knew that we’d be in this situation, that Pitt was ready to explode and we wanted to be a part of it. This is our year.” Offensive guard John Malecki added, “We don’t want to hear about youth, no more ‘we have too many young guys,’ no more of that stuff. This is it, we need to go out and get it done. We’re working so hard, we’re pushing each other, we want to be good and you look around here and look at all this talent, my goodness, I consider it an honor to line up with this much talent every week. It is our time to shine.”

Brief aside. According to the Pitt Media Guide, John Malecki is 6-3 and 280 pounds. Try and picture him saying “my goodness.” Now try not to giggle.

The theme “this is our time” was something that was repeated time and time again yesterday by players and even some coaches. The team is experienced, talented and healthy and, more importantly, it has enough depth to withstand injuries early in the season. As Malecki, Byham and many of their teammates said, there is no reason the Panthers shouldn’t be good this season. Even coach Dave Wannstedt, who is usually cautious when talking about expectations, said he’s as excited as he has ever been heading into a season, but he knows none of the hype will mean a thing when the team begins camp today.

The expectations internally are good. If the players aren’t hungry for success after the last few years, then there’s a real problem. They are right, no more excuses — which would also be a good theme for this season — the players and the coaches have to make things happen this year.

Right, Coach Cavanaugh?

Cavanaugh’s resume hardly suggests a fast-break kind of guy, but that might have been a function of the systems in which he worked. In Baltimore, a don’t-screw-it-up offense won a Super Bowl in 2000 (but only after almost screwing it up by going five consecutive games without a touchdown).

If the line plays reasonably well this season, Cavanaugh should have the opportunity to prove he can, in fact, deliver a prolific offense.

I asked him about the too-conservative rap. He said the talent on hand has always dictated his style of offense.

“Two years ago, when (quarterback) Tyler (Palko) was a senior, I don’t think anyone considered our play-calling conservative,” Cavanaugh said. “We scored the second-most points in Pitt history.”

True, but Pitt only ranked fourth in the Big East in scoring that year in conference games. It racked up its biggest numbers against cupcake non-conference competition.

I hope Cavanaugh is really that way. The issue, though, is even if he is will Coach Wannstedt let him.

…Wannstedt forcefully defended the play-calling, saying, “I said this in my opening press conference: You throw the ball to score points; you run the ball to win.”

Maybe that thinking needs to change to something like this: You score points by any means necessary until somebody tells you to stop.

If that means 35 carries for LeSean “Shady” McCoy, great. If it means staying with a successful passing game — even with a lead — until victory is secured, so be it.

This is the change in football. In both the pros and college. You can’t stop throwing the ball. Even if you have an incredible talent running the ball and an impressive O-line blocking up-front. It’s about making sure that the other team can’t come back. Not just running time off the clock to make it harder.

Pete Carroll got it in college. He was a defensive coach, but he recognized the offense has to go, go, go. He turned his offenses loose. By contrast, Chan Gailey the now ex-GT coach was an offensive coach but never seemed to get it. He never let the offense loose. It was always too tightly controlled, predictable and too often stoppable.

Okay, enough with the downer stuff. Back to the unbridled optimism.

“It’s weird. If I head out to the mall or something, people are coming up to me and asking me about Pitt,” said West Allegheny graduate Dorin Dickerson, who moved from linebacker to tight end during spring practice. “Everywhere we go, it’s been like that. People want to know about Pitt, Pitt, Pitt. That’s all we hear about and it’s a good thing. Now, we have to deliver.”

It’s a position most of Pitt’s players haven’t been in since high school.

“Look at what’s happened here since we beat West Virginia,” Stull said. “You saw the recruiting aspect of it with all the guys who came over here after the win and the guys who decommitted from other places to come here after that. It really sparked something special. But that’s over now and we can control what happens from here.”

The thing to look for come the season will be if the team brings the same effort and intensity in every game. Are they responding each time. Are they ready from the start of the game to the end? That’s going to be part of the challenge for the coaches. Show that they can reach the kids and have the players ready consistently.

The training camp will be about proving who should be starting at spots. Then comes the time to prove it.

”When I have a conversation with someone who’s excited for this upcoming season, my first reaction is, ‘We gotta prove it.”’

Indeed. The Panthers enter this season – Wannstedt’s fourth as Pitt head coach – with very high expectations. Pitt can be found in most college football preseason Top 25 poll. Shady McCoy and Derek Kinder are on the watch list for the Maxwell award (annually presented to the nation’s most-outstanding player) and Scott McKillop is on the preseason list for the Chuck Bednarik Award, which is given each year to the country’s top defensive player.

Those three players give Pitt some of its best big-game talent since Larry Fitzgerald was hauling in TD passes at Heinz Field in 2003. Add in a third-straight nationally ranked recruiting class and this is certainly the most-talented squad of Wannstedt’s tenure with the Panthers.

The more I think about it, the problem I have with “this is our time,” as a theme is that it can be suggestive of some sense of entitlement. That the team is owed a big season after everything the past few years.

I’d like more of a theme to be about “taking it” or “proving things,” or “no more excuses.”

There’s what is posted in a media day transcript, then there is the information that gets left out or is supplemented by the athletic department in the form of handouts. Case in point, Maurice Williams is gone from Pitt for good.

Enrolled at Edinboro: Former Strong Vincent High star Maurice Williams is enrolled at Edinboro, coach Scott Browning confirmed Monday.

“He enrolled last week,” said Browning, who declined further comment.

At Pittsburgh’s media day Monday, coach Dave Wannstedt confirmed that Williams is in the process of transferring.

A quarterback in high school, Williams played wide receiver at Pitt as a true freshman in 2007 before becoming academically ineligible for the upcoming 2008 season.

Williams was initially expected to redshirt this season and resume play for the Panthers in 2009. Then Pitt gave Williams permission to talk with Edinboro earlier this summer.

If academically eligible, Williams can play this season. If not, he’ll have to sit out until next season. Edinboro opens practice Thursday.

Well, that’s that. Good luck to Williams. If he really has NFL dreams like his talent suggested, he’s made it that much harder on himself to get there.

Kevin Gorman blogged lots of goodies. Players who are gone besides Williams also include Shane Brooks (academics), Dan Loheyde (medical hardship), Sherod Murdock (suspended indefinitely then left team) and Dustin Walters (quit).

I love when the classic cliches are broken out immediately. Coach Dave Wannstedt’s opening press conference from this afternoon broke out some greats in the opening statement.

“As we get started the enthusiasm and the energy amongst our players and our fans is very evident. I think that’s good and that’s exciting. From a coaching standpoint, it’s excellent to see your players have legitimate enthusiasm. At this time of year, every player and every coach on every level feels their team has a chance to finish near the top. However, when you step back, there is a select group that can truly accomplish that. That said, when we start practice tomorrow, the only way you make it an exciting season, and a very rewarding season is to take it one step at a time. As we install our offense, defense and special teams, we have to make sure that we have solid back-to-back-to-back practices, building as we get ready for the season. When I have a conversation with someone who’s excited for this upcoming season, my first reaction is ‘we gotta prove it.’”

Obviously the “one step at a time” is one one of the all time classics in the sports cliches. A slight variation to “one game at a time.” Still, by my count I see 3 classics. The “everyone feels they have a chance to win” and a very underrated practice/spring training cliche relating to building towards the opener.

For the most part, there isn’t a lot to the press conference and that’s a good thing. No surprises regarding players being suspended or having academic problems. No NCAA Clearinghouse issues at this point.

All of our freshmen are here, they’ve all been attending summer school, and they’ll all be practicing tomorrow. As I stand right here, I’m not counting on any one of the guys to be a necessary performer for us to go out there and win games. Do I think that some of these freshmen will contribute? Yes I do, but I can’t say exactly who that’s going to be. Obviously, you have a need for greater depth at certain positions, so that will definitely play a factor.”

Interesting on responding to the issue of the player he thinks will break out this year on defense.

“The one corner spot has the guy with more talent maybe than anyone, and that’s Buddy Jackson. He’s a redshirt freshman who needs to just mature. If we can get him to a point where we can just trust him, then he could be a guy we’re talking about as a starter. He ran the fastest time on the team in the spring, and with his height and weight, he’s the picture perfect image of how you want a corner to look. If we can just bring him along a little bit, he definitely has the potential to make an impact.”

Maybe he feels Greg Romeus has already broken out in his freshman year, but a lot of people nationally are expecting him to be the next big star for Pitt (he’s mentioned in most of the magazine previews and some other bloggers have contacted me specifically about him).

There’s more about the offensive line being better conditioned, Dorin Dickerson being a perfect fit at TE, Gus Mustakas ready to go and more.