Well, the regular season is over for Pitt, and it looks like WVU is going to the Gator. I thought that Pitt might get the Gator even if they lost because of the Fitzgerald effect, but I guess the Gator Bowl committee didn’t ask me for my opinion…
The only upside to losing the way we did to Miami is it increases the chances that Fitzgerald will stay for one more season. There is no way he gets the Heisman now, and he may come back to try and get it. If I were him, I’d say “to hell with the Heisman, show me the money” and go pro, but I get the feeling he will stay and not challenge the NFL.
Pitt loses a lot of skill players even if Fitzgerald stays (QB Rutherford, FB Polite, RB Miree, TE Wilson, and our favorite, Shaunte Spencer at CB). Palko will be a pretty good replacement, and is probably a better raw QB than Rutherford, who did not benefit from having his own father as his HS coach. That kind of preparation, as well as 2 years to learn some of Harris’ system will help Palko perform better than your average redshirt sophomore.
What we need more than anything is a new offensive line coach, and perhaps a new strength coach. Harris, with all of his flaws, is still the reason why we compete for the skill recruits like Morelli, Johnson and Fitzgerald. If we answer the “fire Harris” call, we better be in a position to replace him with someone damn good. And I don’t mean John Cooper, Lee.
Harris should stay. Remember, Pitt was VERY bad for a VERY long time (at least in the world of college football). He brought us back to the point where we have high expectations again. Let’s not make the mistakes that Posvar made in getting rid of Fazio and Gottfried when they didn’t measure up to our expectations. We entered into the Hackett-Majors era because of those mistakes, and we are still paying the price.
Unless there is a better replacement who is willing to come to Pitt and make a committment to stay here, Harris is as good as we are going to get right now. Lets tweak where we need to tweak (line play, strength and conditioning) and see if we can’t get into the BCS next year when the Big East becomes the Big Least.
Don’t Fire Harris.
