Feel like talking about the game with Syracuse this weekend? It’s homecoming… Throwback unis…
Yeah, not really feeling it.
Especially when USA Today published their annual college football coaches survey.
October 4, 2018
July 20, 2018
Pitt Athletic Director Heather Lyke has had a hell of a first year. From managing to get rid of Stallings and hiring Jeff Capel to save the men’s basketball program. To all the new coaching hires. I mean the turnover has been astounding — and frankly needed. Couple that with her plans for the facilities, and Lyke has gone from a “okay” hire to a home run.
And just like a coach that blows away expectations in their first year, a new contract for AD Lyke was done.
Lyke was hired in March, 2017, to replace Scott Barnes, who spent less than two years as Pitt’s athletic director before leaving in December, 2016, to take the same job at Oregon State. In 13 months, Lyke has put her brand on the program by hiring six coaches.
Evidenced by two contract extensions for Narduzzi, Gallagher clearly wants more continuity among those in leadership positions than what has occurred in the past.
“He felt things were going in the right direction and the right trajectory,” Lyke said.
Gallagher said in a statement that Lyke is “leading an ambitious charge to transform Pitt Athletics.”
“Her success here is just beginning. I am thrilled that she will continue to push our athletics programs to new heights — and spur positive change for our student-athletes and our university community — for years to come.”
Asked what the extension means to her personally, Lyke said, “It means I get to be in Pittsburgh for the next six years, for sure, and hopefully longer.”
“I really appreciate (Gallagher’s) leadership, his vision for our university and certainly his support for what we want to accomplish in the athletic department. We could have all the great ideas and all the vision that we ever want, but if you don’t have the support from the top and the leadership there, it doesn’t go a lot of places.”
March 21, 2018
That’s it? This is technically the third day of the watch for what the top target in the coaching search does. Seems like it’s been much longer.
Dan Hurley (hopefully) is expected to decide today between Pitt, UConn or staying at URI.
March 20, 2018
Taking a moment from pissing on the angst of Pitt fans that there is no Pitt men’s basketball head coach in place. That present Rhode Island Coach Dan Hurley may not want Pitt.
To bring you this.
Rhode Island head basketball coach Dan Hurley has received a contract offer from Pitt with an annual salary north of $3 million, multiple sources have informed FanRag Sports. Hurley is currently weighing whether or not to stay with the Rams or accept an offer from either Connecticut or Pitt, the latter of which would serve as the more lucrative option.
Sources have also indicated to FanRag Sports that Hurley is likely to make a decision on his future at some point in the next 24 hours.
Hoo-boy.
March 9, 2018
Especially when the relationship crash and burns so quickly.
So, maybe Pitt is trying not to pay the full $9.4 million buyout to Kevin Stallings as previously reported.
In a meeting Thursday in which Stallings was terminated, 93.7 The Fan has learned the Pitt administration offered two paths for Stallings’ impending departure. He could:
- Accept a reduced buyout of $4.8M, which works out to about half the sum of the buyout language in his contract.
OR
- Not accept the $4.8M reduced buyout offer and be met with a “for cause” termination for his actions at Louisville, thus forfeiting the totality of his buyout.
Multiple sources confirmed to 93.7 The Fan that Stallings was unwilling to accept either condition — and a previously reported $7.5M reduced buyout was never formally offered at the meeting to him — so his exact conditions in terms of separation from the University of Pittsburgh remain in flux.
I don’t know.
February 17, 2018
Pitt is not a deep-pocketed SEC or B1G program. Can we all agree on that? There is no Michigan Money Cannon to fire. There is no crazed, big-money booster that will cut a check in exchange for more influence like at Auburn. Pitt also does not subsidize the athletic department on the back of the students or from the academic side of the university (Rutger, UConn — how are things going?). Nor is the athletic department about to take out ridiculous loans that put them so deep that they will head to conferences they don’t fit (What’s up, Maryland?).
Pitt is a fiscally conservative athletic department that is only now starting to receive the full share of ACC revenue. This is only year four of being in the ACC, and Pitt did not leap into full cuts in year one. They also had moneys to be paid to the Big East/AAC upon departure. To say nothing of the new outlays required to be a part of the ACC.
If Pitt wants to fire Stallings after two years, and hire someone with any sort of pedigree/upside; Pitt will need to have a lot of boosters coordinating the cash.
December 6, 2017
Extensions. Contract lengths. Those are all vague concepts when it comes to contracts for college coaches. The buyout is the thing, and a new contract/extension for 7 years (or a 2 year extension if you prefer) certainly will up the buyout.
Sorry, burying the lead. During the basketball game last night, there were tweets coming out of an extension in the works for Coach Pat Narduzzi. Along with increasing the salary pool for assistants.
Sure enough.
October 6, 2016
In a few years when Florida State fans, boosters and probably their board of trustees complain that the TV money from the ACC Network isn’t enough/keeping up with the SEC (because we all, damn well know they will be first in line to complain), we can all remind them that they were the ones leading the charge to leave the money on the table to keep their extra non-con game.
Not that they will care or even accept any blame.
August 27, 2016
I can’t even bother to work up some requisite outrage over a dumb name, a likely dumb trophy and corporate sponsorship.
The Pitt vs. Penn State football series will be tagged as the Keystone Classic presented by Peoples Gas as announced Friday by both institutions. The first meeting in the newly dubbed series will occur Saturday, Sept. 10 in front of a capacity crowd at Heinz Field 12 p.m. – ABC or ESPN). The Panthers are also scheduled to play at Penn State Sept. 9, 2017 in the second meeting of the four-game series that will continue in 2018 and 2019.
“We are extremely excited about renewing this great series and grateful to have Peoples Gas on board as a presenting sponsor,” said Pitt Athletic Director Scott Barnes. “The Pitt-Penn State matchup will serve as a marquee game of the early football season and I know our fan base will be out in full force for the matchup. This has been a great collaboration by the two institutions both in scheduling the game and securing a corporate partner.”
Pitt media rights holder IMG worked closely with Penn State media rights holder Learfield to secure Peoples Gas as the presenting sponsor of the series. The partnership includes Peoples Gas’ corporate mark embedded in the series logo as well as various branding, social media, activation and community assets. In addition, both schools are working with their licensing partner CLC on creating a line of merchandise featuring the Keystone Classic logo.
/shrugs
August 25, 2016
Have to start somewhere…
Most of the offseason around the ACC has been about the speculation that the ACC Network was never going to happen. That the losses in the last year at ESPN over cord-cutters and a shrinking subscriber base meant that the Mouse Monopoly was not going to add another channel devoted solely to a conference. ACC schools would have to just accept the extra $3 million/year each on the present deal.
Never should we count out Ninja Swofford. Last month came the surprise announcement by ESPN and the ACC of the long-discussed, but seemingly doomed to never happen ACC Network.
ESPN and the Atlantic Coast Conference will launch the ACC Network – a comprehensive linear and digital network, it was announced today by ACC Commissioner John Swofford and ESPN President John Skipper at the conference’s annual Football Kickoff media event in Charlotte, N.C. The 20-year partnership will provide ACC fans unprecedented access to live events via a comprehensive, multi-platform network. It also provides for the extension of the conference’s existing rights agreement with ESPN to 2036. ESPN is the ACC’s exclusive worldwide rights holder.
Beginning in August 2016, fans can access more than 600 exclusive live events from across the conference via a digital live-events channel ‘ACC Network Extra’, immediately available to users who have access to ESPN3 via WatchESPN and the ESPN app, with that number growing each year. More than 1,300 ACC events will be distributed across the platforms in 2019 when the linear network launches.
Sure the cable channel won’t roll out in 2017… or 2018. But, it is coming.
May 22, 2016
I was trying to decide what I wanted to put up on a rainy Sunday afternoon (at least rainy here in MD) and saw a great Sports Illustrated article written in Oct 1962 by a previous Pitt Chancellor, Dr. Edward Litchfield, about the national debate if Grant-In Aids (athletic scholarships) were a good thing to have on college campuses.
This intro below is a personal bit about why this article strikes my fancy. The article itself is the other audio bar.
Here is the body of the article – excuse the small mistakes if you will, I’m not a professional at this. I especially like the contrasts between Litchfield’s descriptions of Pitt athletics then and today’s state of college football. There are some great points made here – especially some timeless ones that hold true today.
Hope you enjoy it!
“Camel Driver” – try putting that on a kid today! I also love that we stole almost a whole opposing team –
Far back in 1903, for example, out-university felt mortified to have been defeated two straight years by the football team of little Geneva College. Football in those days seldom made much money at the box office but many colleges recruited passionately, simply because they found defeat unbearable. In the wake of our losses to Geneva, corrective action was deemed imperative and there seemed only one surefire way of seeing to it that we beat Geneva the next year. We took it.
We lured to our campus most of the Geneva players and the following season, 1904, defeated Geneva 30-0. During the balance of the decade Pitt football teams lost only 13 of 71 games. Now what sort of boys were they, do you suppose, that could be proselyted so frivolously? Because many of them have passed on, we were able to trace only 17. Of that number, four were physicians, five dentists, two attorneys and one a Ph.D.
May 21, 2016
Here is the Peak’s PantherLair podcast on the Trib’s website – he talks about the uniform roll-out and other things. But specifically about what a ringing success the whole day was for Pitt athletics – from social media to returning players to the event itself in the evening. He also talks about how the Pirates don’t give a crap about Pitt at all… as we read in Chas’ piece earlier.
He also addresses the current facilities improvements and what was done by previous FB HCs. I like the fact that this administration is dedicated to long range upgrades and it’s starting to come to fruition.
(By the way – remember what Peak says here about Narduzzi’s using comparisons to other football programs when asking fans and boosters for $$$ to renovate the facility’s meeting rooms, weight rooms, etc… Pitt football does not exist in a vacuum and we have to play catch up to keep up with programs that have forged ahead of where we are now when you read the last part of this article.)
Chris Logue of Pitt Nation Sports always has interesting articles and is a damn good wordsmith. Here he writes about the QBs, or not, of the future for Pitt.
“Despite the success from a Pittsburgh standout and the myriad of congratulations the star (Phil Jurkovec) received after his commitment, it seemed like a dumpster-fire moment on Twitter from “Pitt-faithful.” Oddly enough, mostly aimed at Pat Narduzzi’s immediate “inability to recruit” after an incredible wrap to his 2016 class and the praises that sealed that envelope. 
The story that remains in the middle of the announcement, for myself at least, is everyone seems to have forgotten about Thomas MacVittie, a prized steal for Narduzzi last season.
To state that MacVittie did not produce the same attention through his senior season as Jurkovec had through just his sophomore season is excruciatingly obvious. But, the two may be more similar on the field than you may think.
Its a good read and should bring some of us back from the brink.
May 9, 2016
Even if nothing comes of it, the late-spring/summer brings talk of conference realignment/expansion/chaos. These days, most of that is emanating from the Big XII.
Conference meetings have been happening. The ACC has theirs this week. The Big XII had a preliminary meeting last week, but don’t have their real meetings until after Memorial Day.
It always boils down to money, but the Big XII is wrapping this one up primarily in the matter of the College Football Playoff. How a more members and an unbalanced schedule is actually a plus for getting teams into the CFB playoff.
April 29, 2016
No, nothing about Laremy Tunsil’s moment of honesty — before a PR (or assistant agent) hurriedly hustled him out of his press conference. Good times coming to Ole Miss.
The satellite camps are still allowed. This has been one of the sillier controversies of the spring.
The SEC and ACC pushed for a complete ban — and got one — on the camps because of paranoia and wanting to protect their natural recruiting areas. They can dress it up however they want, but it was only about protecting their own self-interests. And yes, Coach Pat Narduzzi was fully in support of such a ban, but I still don’t get it.
December 10, 2015
That didn’t take long. On the heels of being the only new coach in a major conference to improve upon the previous season’s work, football Head Coach Pat Narduzzi has received a contract extension.
Two years will be added to Narduzzi’s original five-year agreement, ensuring he will remain the Panthers’ head coach through at least the 2021 season. Financial terms and other contractual details were not disclosed.
“Pat Narduzzi has adrenalized Pitt football on and off the field,” Barnes said. “We are proud of what our program has accomplished this season. Moreover, we’re excited about what our student-athletes can continue to achieve–on the field, in the classroom and in the community–under Pat’s long-term leadership.”
“I’m greatly appreciative and humbled by the support and faith that Scott Barnes and Chancellor Patrick Gallagher have shown me,” Narduzzi said. “The University of Pittsburgh is an incredible place with incredible people. My family and I plan to make Pittsburgh our home for a very long time and we’re glad the leadership at Pitt feels the same way. It is an honor to serve as Pitt’s head football coach and I’m continuously energized by what we can, and will, accomplish here.”
Yes, yes, we all know. These contracts mean nothing as far as really keeping a coach if a bigger school wants to unload the dump truck of cash. Yada, yada.
