The Explanation of what I’m doing can be found here. Here’s Lindy’s, CBS Sportsline, and Athlon Preview Mags Pitt summaries.
The Sporting News College Football Preview is very unsure about Pitt. They like the team a little more than some, but hedges. In their Total Rankings (p 10) they put Pitt at #42, but then includes them in a sidebar under “Could Fade Fast.” The reason for why is not unreasonable: young talent and major questions about the line play on both sides of the ball.
This preview is big on doing all sorts of lists. One list of players was for “Best QB in 2 Minute Drill” (p 8). Tyler Palko was on this list along with Akron’s Luke Getsy.
TSN preview has lists for the top players by position.
QB: Palko, 12th
ILB: H.B. Blades, 6th
OLB : Clint Session, 19th
CB: Darrelle Revis, 6th
P: Adam Graessle, 5th
Return Men: Revis, 16th
The conference preview sections has various “best” categories. For the Big East (pp 118-120), under “Hardest Hitting LB,” Clint Session is listed. Revis is considered the “Fastest DB.” The genuine, “you can’t be effing serious” moment came when the name Paul Rhoads followed “Best Defensive Coordinator.” Needless to say, I apologized to other people in the bookstore following that outburst.
The copy for the BE preview was written by Paul Zeise, the P-G Pitt football beat writer. Zeise, as you may recall also did the Pitt preview for Lindy’s. Good to see he’s nabbing some freelance work. The preview rankings for the BE:
- WVU
- L-Ville
- Pitt
- USF
- UConn
- Rutgers
- Cinci
- ‘Cuse
Rutgers fans will obviously dislike this ranking. It’s their lowest showing in any of the mags. The USF prediction is looking quite shaky these days. As for Pitt, that was, as in the national preview portion, a little on the hesitant side. The questions about the youth and lines, especially with a more challenging non-con.
For the all-conference squads, Blades, Revis and Graessle all made the first team.
The second team had Mike McGlynn and C.J. Davis on the O-line. Chris McKillop on the D-line. LBs included Session and Revis showed up again for returns.
JUCO transfer Tackle, Jeff Otah was predicted to be “Newcomer of the Year, Offense.” I hope so.
The Pitt Preview (p 125) really didn’t say anything that already hasn’t been said. The team is rebuilding under Coach Wannstedt to run more. There are questions on the lines. The team is young, but 7-5 is a reasonable possibility.
