I really want to see video of the press conference. No reason they shouldn’t put it up on the site. The press conference gets shown on Fox Sports Pittsburgh at 1 pm today. Of course, for those of us who live outside of the region, that doesn’t help. Why do I mention it so soon? Well, today the stories really started, and there is no question that the press conference got tense at points. The media had lots of questions:
Pitt coach Walt Harris was hoping to look ahead to the Panthers’ next opponent yesterday when he sat down with members of the media for his weekly news conference.
Instead of discussing Temple, however, he spent much of the time explaining and defending his play calls from the Panthers’ 29-17 loss to Connecticut Thursday. He also spoke at length about some of the Panthers’ deficiencies and how they were magnified against the Huskies.
…
Harris continued to be grilled about his decisions and his relationship with his players until it was stopped by Pitt sports information director E.J. Borghetti, who said the subject had run its course and that it was time to discuss the Pitt-Temple game.
In the line of questions, there were plenty about whether he was losing the team — not reaching them any longer, not being respected. Apparently there was some wondering about what he thought of what Palko (accurately and truthfully) said.
Palko said he would have preferred to have gone for a score.
“You would like to go for it, but he’s the guy that makes the play-calls,” Palko said of Harris, moments after the game. “Heck, I’m not going to question his calls. If I do, I’d find my tail on the bench.”
Harris, whose team (2-2, 0-1 Big East) plays at Temple (1-4, 0-0) on Saturday, responded yesterday to the sophomore signal-caller’s comments.
“I think that’s probably a comment that, if asked, he’d probably like to have it back,” Harris said. “He’s a coach’s son, and I think that had something to do with it. And I think in the heat of the battle and just getting done with a hard-fought game, you know, I’m sure that was a little bit of frustration.”
Asked if Palko tried to talk him into a different play during a timeout, Harris said, “No, he didn’t.” Then, without prompting, Harris offered an explanation for the third-and-goal call.
“I’ll explain it to you, if you guys are interested in it — after the fact,” he said. “We turned the ball over down there early … We hadn’t played very well offensively. We had third-and-12 from the 12, which, to me, is not a great situation to be in.
“We’ve had trouble getting open at wide receiver and protecting the passer. We have a good field-goal kicker, and I thought going in at halftime, 10-10, considering the way that we played and the hostile atmosphere, I thought it was probably a pretty good deal.”
You know, all of that seems almost rational and defensible, except for some key flaws: that would require Coach Harris to make halftime adjustments and the O-line would have to play better. Since those are few and far between events (and I’m not sure if both have ever happened in the same game), that really does no good. It’s also amusingly noted that the women’s basketball coach “attended the conference to support her colleague.” Bringing out the big guns for support.
As predicted here, there is a list of blunders piece of Harris’ best coaching gaffes of the last 4 years. The ever creative Ron Cook is all over it. Yet somehow, he manages to leave the whole 2001 spread offense experiment out of the piece. No list of mistakes is complete without that.
The notebooks try to look ahead. Well, Paul Zeise leads with the struggling O-line:
It could be a long week of practice for Pitt’s offensive linemen.
The line, which has had its ups and downs over the past two years, is back in the line of fire, only this time the criticism is coming from Pitt coach Walt Harris.
Harris said the line wasn’t the only unit responsible for the Panthers’ lack of pass protection and run-blocking in their 29-17 loss to Connecticut, but it should shoulder most of the blame.
Yes. Yes it should. Former QB and TE and now WR, freshman Darrell Strong, is still not ready enough to play according to Harris. This, despite his height (6′ 5″) and natural ability. If he doesn’t get in the game this weekend, they should go ahead and redshirt him rather than waste him for a year. Oh, wait, they did use him in the Nebraska game. I guess he regressed.
On subject of wasting the year, Freshman RB Brandon Mason is expected to play more behind Kirkley. Mason was hurt in training camp, but his thumb is apparently all healed. It looks like Harris wants to use Mason more, and Kirkley will see his carries drop further.
