Pitt Assistant Coach and vital NYC recruiter Barry Rohrssen went on his own recruiting trip yesterday to interview for the associate head coach job at St. John’s. He stands to be offered more money and a better job title, though Pitt would likely match the money.

As part of the recruiting trip, St. John’s AD and new head coach took Rohrssen to the Knicks-Nets playoff game at Madison Square Garden last night.

One thing working against Rohrssen taking the job are the looming sanctions from the NCAA. The rumors suggest loss of scholarships and probation.

Pitt got a verbal commitment for the 2005 football recruiting class. LaRod Stephens, 5′8″, 165 RB from Johnstown, PA. Pitt was the first to offer him a scholarship. He was drawing interest from PSU, WVU, Indiana and Ole Miss. Last season, Stephens was an Associated Press first-team All-Class AAA all-state selection and the Tribune-Democrat Player of the Year.

Pitt is now pursuing a prep star from New Jersey. Alex Galindo, small forward, is considered the #65 player in the country, and will visit Pitt this weekend. He orginally committed to UTEP, but the coach there left for Texas A&M. Galindo also has a visit planned to Kansas and possibly Rutgers. According to the report, Pitt does not have a scholarship available to offer him unless a member of the 3-player incoming class or a current player leaves the team. Pitt, though, is acting like they will have a scholarship available.

The restructuring the contract of Pitt basketball coach, Jamie Dixon, seems to be proceeding. A new contract could be announced on Monday.

Now the bad news. Assistant coach and vital recruiter, Barry Rohrssen, could be lured to St. John’s. He would be installed as associate head coach, and make twice as much as what he makes at Pitt.

Almost a week after PSB mentioned it, the Pitt Athletic Department put out a press release on Fitzgerald being on the cover of NCAA Football 2005. The game comes out some time in July

EA Sports has a website for the game, and an interview with Larry Fitzgerald.

EA SPORTS: What’s it like being selected to be on the cover of a video game?

Larry Fitzgerald: You work your entire career to put yourself in the position to do something like this — be on the cover of such a prestigious game, a game that will sell over two million copies. It also creates a lot of attention for my school as well; it will help recruiting, and help my team as well, so it’s just great for all parties.

We can only hope.

A little tiff may lead to bigger problems later on, or it may lead to nothing. Here are the details so far.

Maybe I’m not the right guy to be writing this. I’m not hung up on the past greatness of Big East basketball — specifically those mid 80s when the Big East showed all of the other conferences how to get the national exposure and TV money with ESPN and CBS. When the Big East was the basketball conference. Half the time, I read something about it and it seems so overdone.

I also can’t get too worked up over it, because Pitt wasn’t among the best of the Big East for much of those halcyon days. Reflected light is mostly glare to me.

What the Big East had at that time were some good/great coaches at 5 of the 8 schools that now seem to loom even larger over their schools. Making it that much harder to go forward.

Boston College was always middle of the pack. UConn was a bottom feeder, as Calhoun only arrived in 1986 to start building the program. Pitt had a brief surge of talent in the late 80s, but is more remembered for Jerome Lane’s backboard shattering dunk, than for the way that squad underachieved under Paul Evans. These three schools are not included.

Villanova has struggled for years to even approximate the magic of their time under Rollie Massimino (and Rollie struggled to copy that success for a while before he eventually gave up while at Cleveland State a couple years ago). They have shown glimmers but have never gotten close.

Providence briefly had Rick Pitino on his way up the coaching ladder. Until this year, that was usually the only context in which Providence was mentioned — as a footnote in the Pitino resume.

Seton Hall and P.J. Carlesimo had their great run in the 1989 NCAA to lose in OT to Michigan (or did they? How does it work with Michigan and the pay offs and the taken down banners?), but P.J. may be more remembered for being choked by Latrell Sprewell when he was coaching Golden State.

Jim Boeheim and Syracuse were perpetual underachievers, especially considering the talent they had. Boeheim is still there and finally won the big one, but you have to wonder about one day down the road.

St. John’s under Lou Carnesecca still draws wistful words from the media. Everyone likes Lou. He won at St. John’s with style and grace — apparently. He retired in 94 and has haunted the program ever since. Sitting in the stands at the games, being interviewed whenever their game is on national TV. He has been involved in all the coaching hirings — yet he has no accountability for the failures.

Then there is Georgetown with John Thompson, Jr. The big powerful, bully coach. The man who truly established the Big East as the tough league. With a punishing, bruising defense first style that turned out one successful big man after another. Ewing, Mutumbo, Mourning. The man single-handily made Georgetown a national name in college basketball. He did a fair job of taking it back down. Georgetown and Thompson seemed to be coasting on reputation by the mid 90s. There was a brief resurgence when Iverson fell into their lap for a couple years, but the program was sliding and Thompson didn’t seem to care. His abrupt resignation during the season in 1999 drove home his apathy. The program was turned over to his longtime assistant, Craig Esherick, at Thompson’s request. Esherick failed miserably as a head coach and recruiter.

Without question, given the geographic proximity to so much hoops talent, St. John’s and Georgetown have been astounding in their failure. Both schools have completed miserable seasons and fired their coaches. With about a week apart, both schools have hired new coaches.

St. John’s hired Norm Roberts, a NYC native, and top assistant under Kansas coach Bill Self. Roberts has been an assistant to Self for the past 8 years at Oral Roberts, Tulsa, Illinois and Kansas. Roberts is a very good recruiter who has maintained his NYC ties. Carnesecca met with Roberts and other candidates and backed the hiring (just as he did with the previous 3 coaches that came after him). Roberts is 38 years-old, and served as head coach at Queens College, his alma mater, from 1992-1995. His record, 24-84.

Yesterday Georgetown hired John Thompson III. No one even disputes that being the son of Thompson, Jr. played a big role in him landing the job. JT III was head coach at Princeton, his alma mater, and is 38 years-old.

Both were easy hires because they came with the stamp of approval from a coach that the alumni and boosters (read: big money donors) revere for the success and national prominence they brought to the school. It sells well, and gives the administration room to distance itself if things don’t work. You never know if the hire will work out well. I do know that the schools took the easy way. Georgetown by staying within a family tree, and St. John’s by having Carnesecca bless the hiring.

So far, it hasn’t worked for either school.

Less than a week before the NFL Draft. I don’t know what it is about the draft, that I find myself watching a couple hours of it every year. It’s really not that interesting, lots of blather, plenty of downtime between picks, and not much in the way of surprises. Still, I get entranced by the slow kabuki dance of draft. The video phone calls sponsored by some communications group, the interviews with coaches and GMs swearing they got the guy they wanted no matter what the situation, and of course, the hair of Mel Kiper, Jr.

Watching the draft to see where Pitt players would go, at best, would mean tuning in around 4 or 5 pm on the first day to see the second round. Pitt would have one or two guys go in the 2nd-3rd round and maybe one or two others on the second day. This year, Pitt has 10 guys draft eligible, with 9 likely to be drafted. They will be taken throughout the draft this year.

Player, overall rank (out of 379), rank by position.

Larry Fitzgerald #1 WR - #1
Shawntae Spencer #64 CB - #10
Kris Wilson #94 TE - #6
Lousaka Polite #147 FB - #1
Lewis Moore #153 OLB - #10
Claude Harriott #177 DE - #18
Brandon Miree #222 RB - #17
Rod Rutherford #240 QB - #14
Andy Lee #327 P - #4
Mike Morgan NR OT - NR (expected free agent signee)

The player rankings are very, very rough aproximations as to where the player might go in the draft. Some positions get valued higher (cornerback, quaterback) others tend to be undervalued (fullback, tightend).

Some thoughts on what the “expert” takes were.

Spencer — They see a fair amount of upside on Spencer, and the report seems to have been before his workout. Their summary was about right, though, especially this part, “Lacks recovery speed if he makes a mistake. Inconsistent in coverage, suffers occasional mental lapses.”

Wilson — Surprisingly down on Wilson. He’s just a little undersized. They argue that he’s already near his max potential, so his ceiling isn’t that much higher. “Wilson most likely will be selected in the mid-to-late rounds and will probably level off as a backup or reserve H-back.” I’m biased since Wilson was one of my favorites from this Panther team, but he is not that much smaller than your average tight end. I remain convinced that he could end up as a starter in a couple years.

Polite — Fullbacks are late draft picks. Even if you are the best at the position.

Moore — A bit of a project. They see him going on the second day.

Harriott — Lots of potential, but his poor play and injuries this season really hurt his draft rank. At best he’s going near the end of day one, but likely day two. My feeling is that he’ll go near the end of day one. His position is one that is always in demand.

Miree — They see him being drafted, but no real NFL future. Mainly because he doesn’t have a good burst of speed or very good at catching the ball. Some team will take a shot at him on day two, because he is a strong north-south runner. He is willing to go inside without dancing trying to find the hole.

Rutherford — They hate his mechanics. “Rutherford has very good athleticism and arm strength, and he did a fine job of operating within the Panthers’ West Coast offense. He is a developmental quarterback prospect who would best fit in a similar NFL scheme because of his experience and style. Rutherford is rough around the edges and must improve his mechanics, accuracy and ability to read defenses, but he is an intriguing late-round prospect.” I see him on the practice squad playing the role of Mike Vick for teams getting ready to play the Falcons.

Lee — They actually think Lee could get drafted as opposed to simply being a free agent invite. For a punter, that’s pretty good.

Larry Fitzgerald will grace the cover of EA Sports upcoming NCAA Football 2005 video game (no release date announced).

More details have been coming out regarding the new Pitt radio deal with Clear Channel. First some kudos to AD Jeff Long for getting this accomplished. We at PSB have waiting for improvements in the media/PR game. This is an important step that we’ve been waiting for since the AD Long started implementing the revised radio shows and even a little new PR weekly on Fox Sports Pittsburgh.

I have one suggestion for Long regarding the radio shows — make sure they are streamed on the internet. Either let the stations do it, and provide a link on the Pitt website, or do it yourself. I know Lee listens to the Ohio St. stuff on the web, and it is a great way to reach the fans that don’t actually live in Pittsburgh — not mention a way to build up fan support and interest for other radio stations in the state to carry the shows. And for these shows, do not do it through Yahoo!, so that you have to pay an annual fee. These are not the games. These are informational/propoganda shows. You want them distributed as widely as possible.

There was a little more about the deal in both papers yesterday. The Post-Gazette was a little weaker in details:

In a new deal that started with middle-management talks last summer, the Panthers hike their on-air presence by a minimum of 3 hours weekly during football and 1 1/2-3 hours weekly during basketball.

Football broadcasts will contain a 90-minute pregame and 60-minute postgame show, simulcast on both stations. Then, on the AM all-sports outlet, there will follow a 60-minute “Panthers Hotline,” a call-in show previously heard five years ago — after football games only, though.

Basketball games will include a 30-minute pregame and postgame show, to be followed on the AM by the new basketball version “Panthers Hotline.”

Also, there will be Walt Harris and Jamie Dixon coaches shows, most likely on 104.7, which Clear Channel regional vice president John Rohm called the flagship. Fox Sports Radio 970 also is AM home to the Steelers and Penguins, whose game broadcasts would take precedence over any conflicts with the Pitt basketball schedule. WPGB’s schedule won’t run into any conflicts, Rohm said, because Clear Channel’s WDVE-FM (102.5) is the Steelers’ flagship and WWSW-FM (94.5) is the Penguins’ flagship.

Tomorrow, Harris and Dixon are scheduled to make the radio rounds on the air with those FM stations.

Hosts for the new shows haven’t yet been selected

That last line isn’t totally true. There isn’t a new host for the “Panther Hotline,” but the other show not mentioned — is “Panther Prowl.” This show is hosted by the Tribune-Review’s Mike Prisuta and Joe Bendel.

Clear Channel has six stations in the Pittsburgh market, and will be cross-promoting the shows on the stations. They claim that the Pitt programming will be an important piece of their programming on 104.7.

In addition, football coach Walt Harris and basketball coach Jamie Dixon will have weekly radio shows, on Fox Sports Radio 970. Other media personalities expected to be involved are Stan Savran, Ellis Cannon, Guy Junker and Rob King.

While Pitt football will have a 90-minute pre-game and 60-minute post-game show, its men’s basketball team will have 30-minute basketball pre-game and post-game shows. Both will be followed by the one-hour “Panther Hotline” call-in show on 970.

“This is a great step into the future for the University of Pittsburgh,” Long said. “Our past relationship had been inadequate for where the program had risen to.”
…
Clear Channel regional vice president John Rohm said its in-house research department projects the shows to be top-3 in the market, with WPBG-FM (104.7) to be the “exclusive home” of the Panthers.

“Sports are the backbone of our operations,” Rohm said. “We’re looking to dominate.”

Added Long: “That’s what is appealing to us. We’re not ancillary. We’re part of the backbone.”

Now if AD Long would only do something about the logo…

To get in the mood for the Blue-Gold Game, how about some of the Pitt songs (you need Real Player).

The Pitt Victory Song

Hail to Pitt!

University of Pittsburgh Alma Mater

And as a brief aside, Hail to Pitt! and the Pitt Victory Song are great college songs, but they point out the stupidity and disconnect of the University’s insistence on being called Pittsburgh rather than Pitt. They can’t and wouldn’t change the songs, but the school now hates to be called Pitt, even though the URL for the school is still www.pitt.edu. They really need to give up the whole Pittsburgh thing and go back to Pitt. I’ll have to get back to this issue another day.