There’s still plenty of material to get through, but I’ll focus on the Pitt stuff for now.
I noted in the video clips yesterday that Coach Wannstedt talked a bit about Palko, then Palko answered questions about himself and his goals. Palko stressed how his stats didn’t matter, only winning the game. Well, it can be argued that some of his stats do matter for the winning.
While this will be Palko’s third as captain, the point is clear: As Tyler goes so go the Panthers.
Last season, the first in Wannstedt’s system, the disparity between win-and-loss statistics from the quarterback tells the tale. In the Panthers’ five victories Palko threw for nine touchdowns versus two interceptions and rushed for six more. However, in the six losses Palko passed for eight touchdowns, ran for none and had 14 interceptions.
Wannstedt hopes Palko can be as comfortable coming into this season as he is. “I know our team better, I know what our guys can and can’t do. … I am a lot more comfortable, a lot more confident.”
Palko added, “Comfort comes from success. You pick up more as you have success.”
Another good way to be comfortable is if the O-line actually gives you a chance to make some reads and throw the ball without being buried in the turf.
It has been mentioned before, and most are aware that the move to the 12 game schedule is probably a harsher double-edged sword for Big East teams than most. The PAC-10 took advantage of it to go to a 9 game conference slate to actually allow all the teams to play each other. It also means they still only need to find 3 non-con games each year. All the other BCS Conferences stayed at 8 games in conference, but the Big East with only 8 members has to schedule 5 non-cons as opposed to 4.
The thing all coaches seem to agree, though, is that freshmen will play a bigger role than ever with an extra game. Injuries will be the primary reason.
“They may have to play out of necessity,” West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said. “With a 12-game schedule in the same amount of weeks, there’ll be less time for guys to recover from injuries.”
The effects will be felt not only on Saturday afternoons (or in the Big East’s case, Thursday and Friday nights). It will carry over to the practice field.
“It’s a long season,” Louisville coach Bobby Petrino said. “You have to be real smart about what you do on your bye weeks, what you do when you have days off and when you have weekday games. It’s a real challenge to take care of your players and make sure they’re as sharp as they can be.”
Coach Wannstedt knows Pitt would be playing a lot of Freshmen this year, regardless of the number of games.
“We’re going to have to play (freshmen) just because of our lack of depth,” Wannstedt said.
“When you bring in 25 guys and you have 85 on scholarship, that’s a little less than a third of your team that’s freshmen. So they’re gonna be in a position to play. How much and who, I don’t know.”
The ones most likely to get playing time are Dorin Dickerson, Elijah Fields, Nate Byham, Jovanni Chappel, Aaron Berry and Kevin Collier.
Wannstedt said he hasn’t yet determined whether Dickerson and Fields will be on offense or defense, let alone which positions they’ll play.
“The first four days (of preseason camp) before we put the pads on are going to be real critical,” Wannstedt said. “We’ve got to make a lot of decisions.”
Wannstedt said Berry, who “might be the best receiver on the team,” will begin camp as a cornerback. Byham’s path to playing time opened up when tight end John Pelusi blew out his knee during the offseason. Chappel enrolled in January and was dynamite during spring drills.
Coach Wannstedt is planning something a little different with the incoming players for the first week or so of practice.
But that presents a problem: How does he accurately and fairly evaluate the freshmen during training camp while still giving the returning veterans the opportunity to prove they deserve to keep their spots, or move up, on the depth chart?
The answer? It’s surprisingly simple but could be a stroke of brilliance — separate camps for the first week.
“It isn’t fair to ask freshmen to compete with upperclassmen when they don’t even know the plays,” Wannstedt said yesterday during Big East football media day.
“And it isn’t fair to ask upperclassmen who have been busting it for our program for two or three years to take a backseat while we evaluate younger kids trying to take their jobs.”
For the first five days of training camp, the veterans and those returning players among the two-deep depth chart will practice in the morning; freshmen, redshirt freshmen and some veterans further down on the depth chart will practice in the afternoon.
“By NCAA rules you can only have one practice per day during the first five days, but as long as it is within the time restraints and as long as the players are only out there once, you can split the practice up,” Wannstedt said.
“And I just think that given where we are as a football program, it is important for us to have the two different groups work separately for the first week because it will give every player on our team an opportunity to get a lot of work in.”
Paul Zeise, the P-G Pitt football beat writer, seems quite taken with the idea. I don’t know if any other programs do this, but it does seem like a pretty good idea. The time limits are on the players not the coaches so the coaches can effectively run two sets of drills.
The only downside could be the ever elusive concept of team chemistry by separating the players — especially the new kids — from the main units, you do make it harder to get all that bonding, unity, and respect for each other established early.
Of course, those are intangibles, and that wasn’t the problem last year. It was the product on the field that was why Pitt had a disappointing year. And Coach Wannstedt — who has always had a reputation as a “players coach” sees the benefit to the upperclassmen as well.
“It will give the varsity player who is battling for a spot a chance to prove to the coaches he is the guy, and it will give the freshman kids and younger players a chance to prove what they can do as well as get a lot of reps in and learn the system.”
Back to Media Day, and the one dark spot on what was a less defiant more upbeat event than last year, was the uncomfortable fact that in an 8 team league it seems to be a 2 team race.
There are problems, for sure. There appears to be a sharp drop-off in talent after the top two, with league linchpins Syracuse and Pittsburgh coming off poor seasons. The Orange, in Greg Robinson’s second year as head coach, was picked to finish in last place again this season.
“I still think for us to reach our maximum potential, Pittsburgh and Syracuse need to get back to where they were,” Tranghese said. “When they do, then I think we’ll start to really be what I think we can be.”
Hopefully, Pitt can shake things up this season.
