I had nothing. Coming out of the long weekend, there wasn’t much else to offer. Maybe there will be something in the afternoon, but the morning had no news. So a big hat tip to Chris who e-mailed me about this article from Wilkes-Barre:

Tyler Palko was proud to lead the University of Pittsburgh football team to the Big East championship and a berth in a BCS game last season.

Now, he wants even more.

“We’re not anywhere near where we need to be right now. That’s someone talking who’s a perfectionist,” said Palko, who enjoyed a breakout season as Pitt’s starting quarterback last year.

“I want to win a championship. The Big East championship’s nice, but I want to win a national championship. That’s the kind of mentality that needs to be back. It’s coming, slowly but surely. You can’t build Rome in a day.

“But we need to get back to really earning our respect. You have to go out and fight for it.”

A former West Allegheny High School star, Palko was a featured clinician Saturday at coach George Curry’s annual Quarterback Clinic at Berwick High School. The 6-foot-2, 220-pound senior looks to possess the perfect mentality to guide an up-and-coming Panther program that needed to win several key games down the stretch to capture the league crown.
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He’s excited to work with new head coach and former Panther Dave Wannstedt.

“It’s a mentality. He’s from Pittsburgh,” Palko said of Wannstedt. “It’s not that coach (Walt) Harris wasn’t tough. But coach Harris wasn’t from this town. You have to be from Pittsburgh to understand. It’s a little bit different.

“This city is just hard-working, blue-collar people who want perfection. They want to win and they want to win now.”

Slight factual correction, Palko is a Redshirt Junior, not a Senior. We aren’t ready to see him leave quite yet.

Apparently in Berwick, Ron Powlus, Sr. is not worth mentioning. The clinic is technically the Curry & Powlus Quarterback Skills Camp (PDF).

Though, let’s be fair. Only Coach Curry has his own instructional videos available.

I just hope that this sort of clinic Palko helped at, is within the quasi-legal rules of the NCAA. Probably is, as long as he isn’t used for marketing purposes.

What? You were expecting in-depth, detailed analysis of the offensive line? Now?

No, just some more draft rankings and mock first round projections. This time from Sportsline.

In ranking the power forwards, Chris Taft is actually ranked 2nd behind Charlie Villanueva. I’m still puzzling over that one. Two players who lack much in the way of heart and drive. Just talent and “upside.” Despite that, in none of their draft projections does Villanueva go ahead of Taft.

In the ranking of point guards, Carl Krauser gets the most love in any of the rankings. He comes in at #10 overall. “Strong will and tenacious commitment to defense will land him on an NBA roster some day.” Still sounds like they don’t put him much better than late 2nd round at best.

There are 3 mock 1st rounds as picked by 3 of their writers. Taft goes anywhere from 9 to 15 at this point (the mock drafts are updated periodically, so it may change later). Two of the writers — Tony Meija and Greg Doyel — mention how Taft has fallen out of favor with the Knicks at #8 because of his work ethic.

Matt Lawrence puts Taft at #15 to the NJ Nets:

All season long, the Nets severely lacked a consistent big man. Taft is a bit raw offensively but is a beast on the glass and the defensive side of the ball. He could develop into a Udonis Haslem-type player.

Doyel has Taft at #10 for the LA Lakers:

Finally, someone will take a chance on Taft. Chris, meet Kobe Bryant. He’s better than you are right now. He’s better than you’ll ever be. So do what he says.

Meija has Taft picked #9 by the Golden State Warriors:

The Warriors’ perimeter puzzle is in great shape, so look for them to go big and hope Taft’s great upside eventually shines through.

I don’t mean to be so down on Taft. He was great for Pitt as a freshman. His sophomore year was more of a disappointment because of expectations. He never caused problems and did nothing to embarrass the school or program. He was right to leave for the NBA. The money is too good not to go, and he didn’t seem to have too much higher to get in the draft.

It’s just, I don’t see him having the determination to succeed in the NBA. He doesn’t seem to have the drive and determination to be a better player. He says the right things, but never shows it. If physical ability and size was enough players like Bimbo Coles and Michael Olowokandi would not be punchlines.

Several Pitt football players seemed to have found part-time jobs at the Senior PGA. They are working security.

Notre Dame is strengthening its unofficial ties to the Big East in football. They will play at least 2 more BE teams (in addition to Pitt) each year starting in 2009. The deal is for about 8 years.

West Virginia is already getting anxious about its secondary. Especially for the Backyard Brawl. No really.

Lee — who joins Antonio Bryant and Larry Fitzgerald as notable receivers at Pitt in recent years — could spell trouble when he brings his game to Morgantown on Thanksgiving Day.

Sure, his 1,297 yards on 68 catches — 10 of which hit paydirt — last year make him a potent threat. But that’s just the black-and-white of it.

Consider this: with a secondary that was much better than this year’s unit is expected to be, the Mountaineers could do absolutely nothing with Lee during a 16-13 loss at Heinz Field last November.

He caught six passes for 124 yards, despite miserable on-field conditions, a lackluster game from quarterback Tyler Palko and the presence of Adam “Pac-Man” Jones, now prepping for his rookie season with the Tennessee Titans.

Sure, this is way early, but at first glance the Backyard Brawl this year might come down to Greg Lee vs. the WVU secondary.

Give the early advantage to Lee.

Never too early to rattle a rival.

Pitt AD Jeff Long is confident that Pitt will sell out its season tickets this season. This despite the fact that sales are about where they were last year (when the sales dropped by about 8,000) and the increased mandatory donations.

Seems like a toss-up to me. On the one hand you have what is expected to be a pretty good team with a new coach who has already brought a lot of energy and attention to the program. On the other hand you have increased overall prices and a home schedule that, outside of ND, is not exactly one built to excite — Youngstown St., UConn, ‘Cuse, Cinci, and USF.

Even Coach Dave Wannstedt is tired of all the talk about the Pitt-Penn St. stuff:

“I don’t see it happening,” said Wannstedt, a former Pitt player. “I really think it’s a dead issue.”

Penn State has already filled its 12th game with Temple, getting two home games out of the three-game series. The Lions reportedly want a similar deal with Pitt, but athletic director Jeff Long has publicly said that Pitt will not accept anything less than a home-and-home series with the Nittany Lions.

“We’ve expressed how we feel about it and our reasons why,” Wannstedt said.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno was in Pittsburgh earlier this month, and he said scheduling Temple was as important as scheduling Pitt because of the Penn State fan interest in Philadelphia. Wannstedt seemed peeved that Penn State would put Pitt into the same class as Temple, which was ousted from the Big East Conference after consistent futility.
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“I don’t see it going anywhere,” Wannstedt said, “at least in the near future.”

The near future being the rest of JoePa’s life.

Bad craziness, man. It starts with Chris Taft.

DraftCity is saying that Chris Taft’s stock in the draft is falling. Right now, they put him at #14 (Minnesota), but think he could slop further.

Chris Taft has been holding numerous private workouts over the past week in a gym in New York City, taking advantage of the fact that many of the NBA decision makers were in town for the draft lottery. DraftCity has spoken to a couple of people who watched him in those workouts, and the feedback has been almost unanimous: he’s incredibly overrated.

A few select comments:

“I can’t believe how lazy he looked out there. Does he not get it?”
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“Taft has some of the worst body language I have ever seen from a player his age.”

“Teams are calling up his coach at Pitt, Jamie Dixon, and they are not really liking what they’re hearing about his work ethic and basketball IQ.”

Teams generally do not like to share information with top prospects with each other, but in this case when they are all watching the disaster unfold in front of their eyes, it’s hard not to. Isiah Thomas was reportedly one of the spectators and all he could do was “shake his head in disgust.”

Hard to believe he is blowing it this bad.

But wait, it gets better. A couple days ago I noted a fairly moderate review of Taft’s workout by ESPN.com’s Chad Ford. Apparently it was too negative for Taft’s agent (Insider Subs.).

Banned. That was the word from Chris Taft’s agent, Billy Ceisler, after Insider’s lukewarm blog report from Taft’s workout for several NBA teams.

I was scheduled to be back in the gym again on Wednesday to watch two of Ceisler’s other clients, Antoine Wright and Charlie Villanueva, but got a call late Tuesday night from an agitated Ceisler, who said I was uninvited because of my review of Taft (see below).

There are three problems with that.

First, the review of Taft wasn’t negative. He worked out in a gym by himself. Taft looked fine, but because of the structure of the workout, he wasn’t able to really show off what he is capable of doing well – dominating in the paint. No one wants to see big guys like that shoot jumpers or hook shots over a 6-foot trainer.

I said I didn’t think he helped or hurt himself. I’ve talked to three other NBA scouts who’ve been in the same gym over the last three days and they’ve all said the same thing.

Second, I don’t believe that hiding players – or, in this case, shielding them from criticism – really helps them in the long run.

Ceisler is just trying to do his job – protect the interests of his clients. However, experienced agents know that limiting access only to people who will write positive reviews is a bad idea, because it diminishes the credibility of any positive reviews a player may receive.

This is not looking good for Taft’s future. He’s not showing much, and his agent is an idiot. Someone close to Taft better do something to get him to start socking away a chunk of that signing bonus.

It’s a love-hate thing with recruiting news in late spring. You want any news you can get, but it is hard to put too much stock in anything this early.

Apparently Bob Lichtenfels at PantherReport.com has been very busy this week. While Coach Dave Wannstedt was doing his Eastern Pennsylvania swing, he dipped into Delaware.

Another gem I have found while studying film is Middletown (Del.) defensive end Eric Latimore, 6-6 and 240 pounds. Latimore is a very explosive player off the edge. He has a great frame and a tremendous wing span. He possesses the size and athleticism that college coaches crave. That could explain why a number of programs have been in to visit him this month.

“Pittsburgh, Miami, Marshall, Maryland, Penn State, Virginia, Western Michigan, and West Virginia have been among the one’s who have come to the school,” Latimore said.
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“Dave Wannstedt came here, I knew he was coming but I was kind of in shock that he was here,” Latimore said. “He was telling me about the DE’s he’s coached like Jason Taylor and how they could use a big DE like me at Pittsburgh.”
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“I have offers from Delaware, Western Michigan, and Tennessee State right now,” Latimore said. “I think Marshall and Pitt may offer, maybe a few more.”

And down in Florida, a speedy corner has Pitt among his top choices.

Florida was just one of the schools that came into the school to see Gary, others included Wisconsin, Ohio State, Boston College, NC State, Marshall, Bowling Green, and Western Michigan.

Gary picked up a few more offers this week.

“Minnesota, Iowa State, Louisiana-Lafayette, and Wisconsin offered,” Gary said. “They all on paper except Wisconsin.

The standout corner now holds offers from Pittsburgh, South Florida, Akron, Middle Tennessee, Wake Forest, Kansas, Ole Miss, and North Carolina.

“Right now my favorites are probably Florida, Pittsburgh, and Minnesota,” Gary said. “Florida has always been my favorite, but Pittsburgh has a very good shot.”

It’s nice to read, but right now you just need to take it with a grain of salt.

Pitt technically is listed to play at Ohio U on Saturday, September 10. Then it looked like it would be moved to Friday night, September 9, so it could be an ESPN game. Now, probably because of the curiosity of having Frank Solich as the Bobcat’s head guy, the game may be moved to Thursday, September 8 for ESPN.

I’m actually annoyed by this for purely selfish reasons. My in-laws are actually OU fans and go to the games. We were going to go to the game and it would have been my chance to finally get my daughter to her first Pitt game. Even on Friday night, it looked to be doable. Not on Thursday, though. Right now it looks like it will have to wait. There is an official ban in our group on bringing spouses and children to the games (which I support). That likely will not be changing for a few more years, at least until one other in the group has a kid (Lee). Then a tipping point might take place.

A puff piece on Pitt recruiting coordinator and tight ends coach Greg Gattuso. While all of the other new coaches on the staff have gotten 0-2 pieces, Gattuso keeps getting attention. A lot of this is because of the writers’ familiarity and relationship to Gattuso. As the former head coach at Duquesne for 12 years, he is probably the easiest guy for them to talk to and interview.

According the SI.com mock draft, Chris Taft does not get drafted in the top 14 lottery picks. They have the Knicks at #8 picking Center, Channing Frye of Arizona. They rank Taft as the 16th best player in the draft, and hedge.

Taft, one of the few true centers on the board, is ranked low on this list because he did not make much progress between his freshman and sophomore seasons at Pitt. He showed a few flashes of stardom but never developed into a real star or expanded his offensive game. Still, Taft could go in the top 10 if an NBA team is convinced he will break through in the right atmosphere.

[Emphasis added.]

Please note that ESPN.com listed him as a Power Forward in the NBA, and #1 in that group.

As for Krauser’s hopes, he can at least take a little encouragement from the fact that he appears to be on the short list of underclassmen to get the much sought invite to the Chicago pre-draft camp (Insider Subs.).

In addition to Krauser, the other underclassmen from the Big East on the list includes: Torin Francis, ND; Brandon Bowman, G-town; and Amir Johnson, Louisville signee.

The list is not finalized and this was not dealing with Senior players. So Troutman’s status for Chicago is still quite unknown.

Rob Lichtenfels at Scout.com has his Pennsylvania Top 50 posted (this is different from whatever Scout.com lists as its “PA Top 50”).

A few things stand out to me. First, I can’t believe someone from my high school is listed as the #2 prospect. That just doesn’t happen. Not since the days Sam Bowie was a senior at Lebanon High was there this much attention for a LHS athlete.

The second thing is how important Dave Wannstedt’s Eastern Pennsylvania roadie was. 6 of the top 10 and 9 of the 15 kids are from the Eastern part of the state.

The final item is that Pitt has verbals from 3 of the 50 already.

So the football coaches poll will dip a toe into transparency by revealing how they voted in their final votes. Why do I have a feeling they will find that even too hot and try to pull away after next season.

Former Tennessee QB Brent Schaeffer is starting his round of visits to schools he might transfer. First up, Clemson.

Chandra Schaeffer said her son will visit at least Clemson and Texas A&M. He will not visit South Florida because he saw the university out of high school. Schaeffer also sent release forms to Central Florida, Miami, Maryland, Pittsburgh and Miami (Ohio).

Schaeffer is permitted to make five official visits, as if he was a high school recruit again. He recently spoke with Clemson coach Tommy Bowden, and his mother said Brent wants to remain a quarterback.

Since there has been no word about what Flacco is doing, I imagine Pitt has to be working hard to get him to visit.

Since drug testing athletes is all the rage these days, the Big East might start doing more. It is, however, trying to let the NCAA lead on the issue.

Three weeks ago, I noted the change by the NCAA in standardizing media guides. I made the following observation:

This strikes me as a really stupid thing. This means the useful stuff like history and records may be struck from the media guides. Hopefully, they will just shift that sort of thing to being online, as a special supplement to get around the rule.

Now, a West Virginia columnist milks it for a whole column. He takes a shot at bashing Pitt’s media guides:

My personal favorite is Pitt, where the guide that details a 13-member basketball squad annually weighs more than the one that contains information on a 100-plus-member football team. How do they do that?

It’s called paper stock. There are different weights. Hope that helps in your ongoing understanding. For the record, the basketball media guide had less pages than the football this past season.

He also thinks it will be bad that the history and records will be relegated to being “only” online.

Oh, you can still get that information, but you’ll have to do it online. I’m lucky. I can actually get a hard copy of it myself because the NCAA has agreed to allow schools to publish a separate records book (black and white and photocopied, thank you), available to the media, not to recruits.

So, now, let me get this straight: The NCAA will allow media guides to become publications (albeit smaller) aimed at recruits, which was the problem in the first place. But the group now strictly forbids schools from passing out to recruits copies of the supplemental records, which no recruit in the history of athletics has ever wanted. And meanwhile, the media guides have strayed even further from any actual usefulness to the media and, at the same time, will no longer contain a lot of the information that fans like to have for their 10 bucks.

Yes, sir, sounds to me like another problem solved by the NCAA.

Does he sit in a press box these days? Every reporter has a laptop and an internet connection — even in West Virginia (probably). The odds are, they barely crack open the media guide when it is all online. Of course the media guide is about selling the program and the school. Not just to the recruits, but to the fans.

As I’ve thought about this more, and I see more potential good out of this. At least with respect to Pitt. This will force Pitt to better develop and create more useful and searchable records of its stats and history. Right now, it doesn’t have to. It just uses its media guides and puts them in PDF format to page through. It’s easy for them, and it looks decent. The other bright side is that you can download your own copy to retain without having to spend $15.

But to have more searchable stats on the web, how is that a negative. Pitt is only moving forward with its season by season stats in football and basketball. They aren’t going back to past years for the same details. They seem to have done more with basketball, regarding searching stats, but a lot is still accessed as PDF files.

Looks like after a couple days with a small flurry, I’m starting to scrape again.

From Bruce Feldman’s excellent blog (Insider Sub.), he runs down the top-10 nicknames for college football players today.

10. June Bug (Charles Spencer, Pittsburgh OT): There has to be one guy here with one of those ironic nicknames, and the 6-5, 315-pound is deserving of the hype. He did make All-Big East last season.

I did not know that. I’m guessing Spencer might be less than thrilled for everyone to know that now.

Recommended read, the Ivan Maisel story on how WVU and Marshall got their deal brokered.

Okay, Milwaukee is on the clock in a weak draft. Now the lists of players and where they rank should really start rolling.

Over at ESPN.com, they still have Chris Taft in the #8 spot (Insider Subs.) being picked by the New York Knicks in their mock 1st round draft. Others from the Big East in the 1st round include Hakim Warrick at #15 to the New Jersey Nets and Charlie Villanueva at #23. When I saw Villanueva going to the Kings, I immediately thought he was the perfect choice to replace Chris Webber. They thought the same thing:

Villanueva has the skills of a lottery pick and the heart of an NBDL all-star. He has all the skills to be a perfect replacement for Chris Webber on the Kings front line. But will Rick Adelman, or whoever is coaching the Kings, ever be able to trust him? For all of his skills, Villanueva has always be a “me first” player. Then again, maybe that’s what makes him the perfect replacement for Webber.

I guess it was too easy.

ESPN.com also has a list of Top-10 players (and then a bunch more) by each position (Insider Subs.).

Chris Taft is listed as the #1 Power Forward prospect. In the “Best of the Rest” category, WVU’s Kevin Pittsnogle is #10, ND’s Torin Francis is #11, and Chevon Troutman is # 13. They ranked Francis higher than Troutman? I realize Troutman is a marginal free agent possibility, but Francis?

At the Point Guard position, Carl Krauser comes in at #6 in the “Best of the Rest” group (or #16 overall for PGs).

At the risk of putting the jinx on the Baseball Team, I have to point out that Pitt is letting everyone listen to the radio broadcasts on the net for free.

The first game is on Thursday at 3:30 pm against St. John’s.

Depending on the outcome, Pitt will play again on Friday at either noon or 3:30.

Let’s go Pitt!

Not pre-season prognostications really, just starting to look at what will be out there it seems. Dennis Dodd at Sportsline profiles Louisville and the overhaul of college football:

The neighbors aren’t exactly next door, mind you. The new Big East extends from Connecticut to Tampa to Louisville, the westernmost outpost of the new league. Eight teams in eight states. Might as well call it the Big Let’s Do Whatever We Can To Keep This Thing Together In Order to Keep Our BCS Berth.

No shame there, especially since such shuffling is the reality of college football these days. The Big East’s situation is tied directly to the ACC starting the latest realignment tsunami two years ago. The fallout: Eighteen teams (15 percent of I-A) have found new homes since the end of 2004.

And I keep coming back to the question: What was in it for the MAC to take Temple? Kind of hurts their credibility, don’t you think?

Dodd also does a brief schedule scan to highlight the best games of each week:

Notre Dame at Pittsburgh: Weis vs. Wanny in each coach’s first college game as a head man. Great — OK, really good — quarterback matchup: (Tom) Brady Quinn vs. Tyler Palko. Given each team’s knee-jerk fans, the heat begins right away for the loser.
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Pittsburgh at Nebraska: On a hot September afternoon last year, Palko came of age in the second half against Nebraska. This will be tougher. Bill Callahan has had a year to work out the kinks, and the Panthers have to go on the road to Lincoln.
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Pittsburgh at Louisville: Welcome to the Big East’s newest rivalry. Both programs should arrive at this date the top two teams in the reconfigured conference. Figure on a combined 80 points and a couple of 300-yard passing games by Palko and Brian Brohm.

Don’t you want Pitt to beat Nebraska, just to see Mark May rub it in Trev Alberts face? I know I do.

Speaking of looking ahead, it seems someone down in West Virginia is a little concerned about how Coach Wannstedt could set back the ‘Eers.

But his biggest impact on the WVU program might not be on the football field — at least not initially. According to published reports out of Pennsylvania, Wannstedt is hitting the state’s high schools hard in attempts to keep quality recruits home.

If he’s successful, a deep pool of talent might be a little shallower for the Mountaineers. A list of past standouts — former linebackers Grant Wiley and Adam Lehnortt come immediately to mind — is evidence of how important recruiting in Pennsylvania has been for WVU over the years. If Wannstedt is able to keep just two or three players home, it could have an effect on West Virginia football going forward.

Just an alarmist or seeing a real probability?

Yes we are talking basketball and I can hear the collective groan from everyone at the prospect of me complaining about the non-con yet again.

So here’s the potential good news:

Pitt, which has needed a little more beef on its schedule, could be adding Wisconsin for the coming season. The Panthers ranked No. 264 in nonconference schedule strength last season.

All indications should be that Pitt might want to beef up it’s non-con match-ups if it wants to come close to the TV exposure it has received in the last couple of years.

The Big East is all about pleasing the TV executives (Insider subs.) and if Krauser doesn’t come back to Pitt, those of us out of the Pittsburgh media market will be on a forced diet or springing for the ESPN Full Court.

Kevin Pittsnogle, Carl Krauser and Torin Francis could have an effect on the entire television schedule for the Big East.

How? According to Tom Odjakjian, the Big East associate commissioner, the league won’t finalize its television schedule until it knows whether these three players are staying in the NBA draft.

Odjakjian told ESPN.com prior to this week’s Big East meetings in Florida that the league is waiting to determine how good West Virginia, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame figure to be before pushing for select television games.

And television dictates the 16-game league schedule for the inaugural 16-team 2005-06 season. Each Big East team will play 13 of the other 15 teams and will play three of those teams twice. Any team that is missed next season will definitely be on the schedule for 2006-07. Home and road sites won’t be determined until the opponents are set.
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Pittsburgh clearly needs Krauser back to be considered an elite Big East team next season. The Panthers already are losing Chris Taft and Chevy Troutman inside.

If you’ll excuse me, I have to start plotting how to slip a $200 charge onto the cable bill next fall.