Kinder definitely fumbled. That was the correct call there.

The personal foul on Blades was an absolutely atrocious call. The guy was still in bounds and running up the sideline; what is Blades supposed to do? Politely ask him if he wouldn’t mind stepping on the white line? And why the hell wouldn’t one of the other officials overrule the guy who threw the flag? Ugh.

Officiating definitely seemed biased but we would have lost even if all those calls go in our favor.

Someday we can only hope we’re the undefeated ranked team that Trangrehese tells his officials to favor. But so far we haven’t gotten those kind of calls in hoops games…

You cannot lose to Rutgers at home. I cannot believe that they let Rice run for 225 yards. That is a joke.

IF you take a look at replays from the 63 yard run, the guy with the best angle on Rice has the referee get in his way…some more fuel for the fire

The late hit wasn’t that at all, and it essentially demoralized the defense because leonard completes the big run and gets 15 unnecessary yards on top of it.

but lets face the fact that pitt lost this game. pitt couldn’t control the lines, pitt couldn’t keep any drives going, and pitt was the team that stupidly refused to put another man in the box because paul rhoads wants a cushioning defense. ray rice running for 215 yards is unnaceptable, and not all but much of the blame should fall on rhoades.

i have never seen a team lose moment like the way pitt did when they scored the td (one of the best plays of palko’s career), capitalized on foster’s mistake on the KO to down him at the 10, and then gave up a 65 yard run.

Rice is still running for yards against us…

One positive was watching Revis run Rice down from behind. That probably helped his draft stock. That kid is a real player, maybe one of the best we’ve had at PITT.

Did anyone notice how much this game reminded them of the Pitt – Notre dame game a few years back?

Opponent has rusher with over 200 yards (Julius Jones), lackluster play from their QB (Brady Quinn)….couple this will soft non-run-blitzing defense from Pitt, an 0-line that got dominated up front and couldn’t protect their QB (at the time it was Rod Rutherford).

The similarities are striking.

Just goes to show…the more things change….the more things stay the same…

Sorry for the following up my own post…My mood is the same as every other Pitt fan right now.

Officials were poor throughout the game. I wondered if they called the late hit on Blades – which I still can’t fathom – specifically because they are worried about something like the UM-FIU mêlée happening.

It was a big play (mistake) because it directly led to Rutgers first TD.

The late hit call was correct. It turns out that there is a little known rule that if the player is heading out of bounds, the defender should just assume that he will go out of bounds. The defender is supposes to “yield.” Blades should be ashamed of himself for hitting a guy after it was obvious that he would be out of bounds sooner or later. Seriously, I think that call was the worst call I have ever seen. Really. Worst call ever. Worse that the Oregon/Oklahoma call. What a pussy call. You would think we were playing basketball here.

Who cares about that call? We let Rice run for over 200 yards. That is simply ridiculous. The defense should be ashamed of themselves.

Post-game analysis, Rutgers was better than Pitt on both sides of line. And I’ll admit that Rhodes’ lack of adjustments hurt. But Wanny’s game plan was to get an early lead and make Rutgers throw. You can’t do that when Turner drops a 30-yard pass, Buches has a drop, and Kinder fumbles early, all critical moments. The game was a field position game in the 1st half, and they key mistake was made by Revis when he could have fair caught a ball on about the 20 but instead let it bounce to the 2. Individual mistakes won’t let you win when the other team’s lines are better.

And I was one of the people who asked if Tranghese called the refs and reminded them that Rutgers was ranked higher.

So it’s a loss, but I wasn’t that upset because Rutgers was obviously faster and stronger. Palko kept us in the game. And I think Hillgrove said during the game that Schiano’s had enough time to establish his program and this is where Wanny wants to be. Just don’t let up at South Florida.

And I think this quick Rutgers team could potentially beat both WVU and Lousiville, both teams that have looked human lately.

What bugs me about the game is this: what happened to the short passing game?

The team has had a lot of success with that quick three-step-drop-and-throw rhythm passing game this year, and it seemed like they had no interest in even trying it last night. Why?

I had a long rant…but thought better of it. I am just so tired of this crap maybe they should never play a night game at home on espn.

*&^%$!!!!

after this weekend i am retiring from watching football. The Pitt game was the worst officiated game ever and so is this Steeler game. Let them play what the f^%&^%^%*%&*%&%

The wide receiver bubble screens didn’t work because (A) Rutgers was too big and fast, and disrupted the play and (B) the blocking receivers did a pitiful job of slowing said tacklers down. Had they blocked, more might have been accomplished.

The short over the middle passes weren’t there becuase the safeties were up in run support (imagine that) and clogged the holes.

Palko came to play, as usual, but the rest of the team just didn’t. The fumble was atrocious. Is it too much to ask for the defense to be able to stop the damn run? We have the best secondary in the conference but it doesn’t matter. Why would you throw the ball against Pitt if you know you can destroy us on the ground? Wannstedt and Rhoads need to make some adjustments otherwise WVU will embarass us like OSU did 10 years ago.

Basketball is right around the corner.

I’m not sure what game you guys were watching but I’ll take it from the top.

1.) Pitt was the better team hands down.
2.) The officials called one of the worst games I’ve witnessed in 5 years.
3.) Pitt WRs choked when they were needed the most.
4.) Paul Rhodes can’t call big games…matter of fact he makes a living at sucking at it!
5.) Pitt hasn’t won a big game since Walt Harris…how much longer do we have to say…next year!
6.) It’s called Blitzing, try it some time Paul / Dave!
7.) How the hell does NJ have such big guys on the line and we don’t?
8.) Pitt wins that game 2 out of 3 times…
9.) Another big deflating loss to a ranked team…go figure…I’m so sick of it!

1.) Pitt was the better team hands down??

Dude, are you sure you were watch the Pitt/Rutgers game? Rutgers dominated both lines. They were probably 12/12 on 3rd and short. Exactly what aspect of the game did pitt win? The refs may have made a couple of bad calls but none of them had to do with Rutgers coverting all 3rd and shorts. Rutgers is better. They will compete with Louisville…not WVU though.

It’s one thing to be a fan and really love your team, and it’s another to watch last night’s game and still believe PITT is better than Rutgers.

Take away all the bad calls, dropped passes, poor defensive coaching and the fumbles and what do you have left? Rutgers still beating us up on both lines, and Rice and Leonard still rushing for good positive yardage and first downs all night long.

We are a better team than last year, and not as good as we will be in the next few years. But that’s where we are.

on our touchdown drive we went 65 yards in 1:55 why did we not put the game in Palko’s hands earlier it dosent make any sense to me and bennett had 2 dumb penalites that really cost us

No one is going to like to hear this on this board, but knowing expectations from before the year started, and after last year’s awful season – if you would have asked me in August to just put Pitt at 6-2 at this point in the year, I would have said yes, not even hesitating.

Guys, this team can (and likely will) go 8-4 and go to a decent bowl. Frankly, after last year, I’m taking that kind of progression.

Call it defeatist thinking, but it’s true.

1.) Pitt was the better team hands down. Are you serious!!!
2.) The officials called one of the worst games I’ve witnessed in 5 years. get over it. We wouldn’t have won if we got all the calls

4.) Paul Rhodes can’t call big games…matter of fact he makes a living at sucking at it! Nothing new here
5.) Pitt hasn’t won a big game since Walt Harris…how much longer do we have to say…next year! Walt Harris is gone, stop bringing up his name
6.) It’s called Blitzing, try it some time Paul / Dave! agree
7.) How the hell does NJ have such big guys on the line and we don’t? I have no idea
8.) Pitt wins that game 2 out of 3 times… You’re smoking something
9.) Another big deflating loss to a ranked team…go figure…I’m so sick of it! We all are.

Aaron, that’s not defeatist thinking, that’s where we are, and even with games like last night the level of play in this year’s team has progressed from last year.

Even with all the angst of last night, I still think we might have a chance to steal a game against Louisville – maybe keep it close going into the 4th quarter and come out on top. Not that we will, but I’m not chalking up a certain loss at this point.

As good as Rutgers is, and I think they are very strong, we were down by 6 at the half, and by 3 in the fourth quarter. Pretty close, and close enought to have come out with a win with a lucky break or two. We’ll get some turnovers going our way against UL hopefully.

WVU will blow us out of the water I think, unless something drastic changes in the defensive coaching philosophy. Strong as ever on the ground and their passing game is getting better as the season progresses.

Looking forward to the SFU game, and the team rebounding, which they have shown they can do already once this season.

We really don’t know who has the better team because once again the coaches don’t give the players the best chance to win. If we took dickerson’s redshirt away then use him. I mean give him the football 5-10 times a game. It’s hard to sit there in the satnds and watch your favorite team essentially say, well we hope the base defense will eventually work. Problem is it didn’t and it never does. Yes, we were supposed to be right around here record-wise, but we are not playing well. We LOST that game, Rutgers didn’t win it.

P.S. This time in 3 weeks Pitt BBall is 1-0.

Why can’t we recruit nj? we used to do a pretty good job out there. I still think we should have been in shotgun all night. have no idea why you have 5th year senior and don’t turn him loose.
tommy campbell = bigger faster version of zeke gadsen turn him loose. against a “bigger, stronger” team big hits and resulting turnovers are key. do mike phillips and sam bryant have to wash their jerseys after the game? they could have played better sitting up in sec 523 with me.
next year w/out palko will be very grim. both louieville and wvu games will be ugly. uconn and south fla are playing better lately. not a sure win either one. i thought rutgers d backs were over matched. the shots downfield that were droped were open yet never went back to them. go to max protect and let the wr beat his man once in a while!

We will be okay next year without Palko. There is plenty of young talent on the offensive side of the ball. Offense has not been a problem for Pitt. Our defense sucks, frankly. Rutgers should never beat Pitt at home. How many times has Michigan lost to Indiana at home? There is absolutely no excuse for losing to them in any sport. I am f**king sick of looking at box scores where the opponent has running backs with 200 plus yards. This is routinely the case when we play a decent team. That or screens going for 80 plus yards. Pitt should be ashamed of themselves for their disgusting performance yesterday evening.

I personally think both Paul Rhoads and Matt Cavanaugh should have been out of the job a long time ago. How long does Cavanaugh get a grace period for being an alum? His qualifications include being a terrible offensive coordinator in the nfl and playing for pitt. Thats all it takes to get the job now a days. Rhoads is just downright terrible, did he not notice Rutgers had a total of maybe 3, at most, different running plays that burned us over and over? Yet zero noticable adjustments. Cavanaugh on the other hand can’t coach his way out of a job no matter what. If it wasn’t for Palko he would look as bad as Rhoads most games. In my opinion they both deserve their jobs about as much as i do. Rutgers no doubt out played us but seriously these guys are terrible.

Defense, Defense, Defense everything is the Defense’s fault. RU scored 6 freakin’ points in the first half. While enjoying great field position the entire half. The D did all it could to keep Pitt in this game. In the end it just got worn down plain and simple. This team’s depth problem is catching up to them. The D-line has no depth what so ever and these guys are getting wore down. Mick Williams has been a major disappointment I really thought he would have a great year. But that hasn’t happened yet..

As I said before, Same Old Shit…Same Old Pitt. I am absolutely disgusted by this game. Why do I torture myself and fall into the trap of starting to believe in this team only to be disappointed time and time again???? We never ever beat any teams that we arent supposed to beat…especially at home. VTech doesnt count, they choke every year and lose to two or three teams they shouldnt. I am just sick over this..and we wonder why Pitt cant get good crowds…well this is why. Who the F wants to keep going to watch us get embarrassed over and over and over again. At some point you just say enough is enough. Speaking of the crowd it was 50k and was very loud throughout the game whenever the team needed it. And how did they respond…another enormous disappointment.

Bottom Line: Pitt is still a joke. We beat up on a few cupcakes and lose every game against a legit team. Thats just the plain ugly truth and it pains me to say it but you know what they say the first step to recovery is admitting the problem.

In Cavanaugh’s defense, the Ravens just fired the guy who replaced him as O-coord.

The ONE difference between what is going on now and all the Harris years is: We are getting kick ass recruits. In all the time Walt had: 1 5 stars and 2 4 stars….most of our recruits were 2 stars. If you think we have bad coaching, well if we can at least have good players, we should start winning. Don’t underestimate the kind of players Wanny is bringing in. Things will change after he has been there 4 years. I know as Pitt fans we are tired of hearing that, but for the first time in 30 years, we are getting the players. Walt’s best recruiting class was ranked #25, all the others never cracked #40. Wanny’s first was #9. Not bad.

This is the first week this season I think that I’m not going to have any Pitt OR Steelers football glory to keep me happy throughout my week.

Ummm… I guess I could be happy the Penguins won or something, but it’s not the same.

We’ve won 6 games, qaulified for a bowl game early and have exceeded *realistic* expectations for young team and revitalizing program. Last year I would of been more than happy to have 6 wins at this point. You don’t go from 0 to 10 in one season…there are usually some levels in between before you get to 10. A lot of folks need calm down. We can probably still end up with 7-9 wins.

By the way, I just looked out my window.

I saw Rice running down the road in full pads being chased by H.B. Blades. So I guess that one commenter is right, Rice is still running for yardage on us!!

you should expect 9 or 10 wins when you dont play anyone and we supposedly have all of these 4 and 5 star recruits. Not to mention some guys who will be playing on Sundays next year: palko, Blades, Revis, Graessle etc….we need to stop sugarcoating this and accept what we are

Keeping it positive…
Blades (19 tackles) and Session (10 tackles) were outstanding. They will be difficult to replace next year. Enjoy watching them while you can.

those 4 and 5 star recruits are all freshmen.

Exactly Jon.

The vast majority of Wanny’s recruits are freshman. I believe he only was able to get a few recruits in during the short time after he took the job in late 2004 (Stull was one of them I believe).

We’re going to get better. With the class that came in and the classes to come, it’s all but guaranteed. Wait until Wanny’s first full class hits their junior year. That’s when we’ll be seeing REAL improvement.

But so far this year, we’ve already improved. I’ll take 8-4 or 7-5 with a bowl game over having a losing record anyday.

It’s silly to let losses to good teams shake your faith at this point.

Rex, everyone here IS accepting who we are. We’re a mediocre team that, because our schedule is kinda soft, we’ll end up 8-4, instead of 6-6. If you were expecting 10 wins this year (with half a team that didn’t make a bowl last year), I think you were the only one doing the sugarcoating.

Not to get into a whole rant or anything, but I always see people complaining and whining about how nobody shows up to the games, and how we can never get over the hump, but then when we lose a game, people start acting like we’re Temple.

Just for the record:

RUTGERS is GOOD. REAL GOOD. This isn’t 1993, and they aren’t going 1-11 every year anymore. We didn’t lose to a 1-AA team last night. No, we weren’t “embarrassed” last night, as much as some of you want to think. We still are 30th in both polls, for Pete’s sake! It’s not like people saw this game and said, “oh, Pitt sucks hard” – they probably said, “damn, Rutgers went into Pitt and played tough and won”. I’d bet anything that for every person that lost respect for Pitt after this game, 1,000 gained a lot more respect for Rutgers.

I guess people can dismiss me as a fan that doesn’t truly care, but you have to look at the big picture sometimes. Jimbo said it perfectly, “It’s silly to let losses to good teams shake your faith at this point.”

Reading these posts one has to wonder exactly what the expectations for the PITT football program are. To think we are ever going to consistently (year after year & decade after decade) be in the Top 5 or Top 10 each and every year is pretty far fetched. You only have to go back to the ’70s and ’80s, when we played the best football in our modern history to see that we have never done that on a consistent basis. Top 25 for a 8 year stretch is about the best we have ever done – even in our Glory Days with the best players to wear Panther uniforms.

All of our “National Championships” save one – 1976, were before WWII when college football was parochial, and Western PA really had the toughest HS football anywhere in the country on a consistent basis. It’s not like that anymore.

Can we be a consistent Top 25 team? A resounding yes! Is that a worthwhile goal for PITT? In my eyes it is, and one that we can achieve. But, to think that we are ever going to be a football factory like USC, Ohio State, Notre Dame etc. and have that kind of modern day success is, to me, not going to happen. We’ll have our ups and downs, make runs at BE and Natl titles some years, and play in some major and minor bowl games. So, if we can maintain a consistent winning program I believe we will have met our program’s realistic aspirations.

Any school’s success is going to be like a sine curve, up for a stretch and down for a stretch. The best programs never go down to far for too long. Our long term focus should be to never have another decade like the 1990s.

DW has this program moving in the right direction, the BE is moving in the right direction and we are seeing a general rise in the level of football – recruiting, W+Ls, and yes, competitiveness. I’ll not compare this version of PITT football to Harris’ last years because it serves no purpose. I’ll be patient and enjoy what I can as a fan, even if there are some setbacks along the way.

By the way – Sagarin has the Big East ranked as the 3rd best conference. We’ve passed the Big 10 with the Big 12 and ACC in the distant rear view mirror.

3 unbeaten teams in the top 16 will do that.

This team is not getting better. Getting better means beating teams you arent supposed to beat or at least playing at their level. We will get trounced by wvu and louisville and neither game will even be close. Rutgers will also get beaten badly and exposed by wvu which will just show us that Rutgers isnt that good..just because they beat us didnt prove anything. This team is not better than any of the Walt Harris era teams. How many times do you have to let a team run on you for 300 or 400 yards before you realize something isnt working? At some point you have to expect your team to win some tough games and to pull an upset every now and then… stop leaving them off the hook.

Sorry if Im ranting, this game really set something off for me. I guess its just the continuous disappointment and inability to ever pull off the big win. I am sorry that I cant be as positive as some of you. I know our record is better this year but until we beat a real team it doenst much matter. I guess its another year of “theres always next year”.

I know one problem with attendance is this: of all of you who are alumni, how many of you actually live in Pittsburgh? Maybe 15% I bet. Pittsburgh has no jobs, people don’t stay there after graduation. You won’t get much young alumni at games.

The big east is much much better. Better than the ACC. Who would have though that too years ago?

first, call a spade a spade….rutgers has wins over north carolina, illinois, ohio, howard, navy (combined recors of 15-22). this is rutgers and will always be just rutgers, have to beat them EVERY year, quit making excuses.

is there anybody here that didn’t think they would try and run the ball?? what was the defensive scheme to stop the run? what adjustments were made?

the game could have been ugly, they missed a field goal, dropped a touchdown pass, did almost anything they wanted at any time. it is time to start expecting MORE not justifying how good rutgers is! everybody should be TICKED, we lost to rutgers! unacceptable any time, any year, any place……….

Rex, I’ll be hypocritical and compare Harris’ tenure and what we have seen so far from Wanny:

Harris was 52-44 over his 8 years at PITT, with a career winning percentage of 60%. His first three years were 13-21.

Wanny is 11-8 so far at about 57% win percentage, in a year and a half.

It took four years for Harris to have a better than .500 final season record. I’m thinking DW will probably be at that point in this, his second year.

Point to this? People gave Harris a grace period before he started producing. DW should be afforded the same.

I am with Rex on this. Pitt should never lose to Rutgers, especially at home. Two years in a row is ridiculous. Stop saying Rutgers is a great team and we played them tough. That game was close for 30 second when Palko made one of the best plays of his career, the rest of the game was complete domination. Rutgers is not that good, in fact I think Michigan State is better than them. Their quarterback and receivers are just terrible. If they ever have to throw the ball they will lose by 3 touchdowns, at least. Pitt showed the country that they are a complete joke. Attendance has nothing to do with young alumni not being in Pittsburgh and everything to do with Pitt football disappointing the crowd anytime there are expectations. Pathetic!

attendence problems might also have something to do with the price of tickets these days. Although i know tickets aren’t cheap anywhere at pitt the cheapest seats go for $30 and if you move down a section you end up paying at least 20 more. I’m not sure about all stadiums but when i went with a freind to a michigan game it was $40 for almost every seat in the stadium. Some people just can’t afford that much for tickets.

Basically, I guess it boils down to who is willing to admit Rutgers is a good team and those who won’t (or can’t).

I’ll say it again: this isn’t 1993, and no matter how much you want to beat Rutgers 70-7 every year, it ain’t happenin’. Get over it.

And to back up John’s point:
I am a young alumni. Want to know why I don’t go to Pitt games? It’s TOO DAMN EXPENSIVE. It has NOTHING to do with some of the crap reasons I’ve heard here – like “oh, well we can’t beat teams that we shouldn’t beat at home.” A Pitt football game, including transportation, food, alcohol, the tickets, and incidentals would run me around 300 bucks for one day of entertainment. Not to mention the six hours in transit. I was planning to go this last weekend to the Rutgers game, but when it costs me, a 23-year-old entry level employee, one whole week’s paycheck and six hours of travel, it’s just not worth it.

I’ve spent an hour every Friday trying to find somewhere to watch the game, searching through other alumni, and bars where I’ll be the only Pitt fan there watching – so, my non-football attendence has nothing to do with my desire to root the team on, and everything to do with simple economics. I just can’t afford it.

If Pitt were a top-10 team then you and every other alumni would happily pay the $300 for one day of entertainment. That is a fact.

Wow, we all should be ticked and not stand for this anymore. What do you suggest we do – suit up on Saturdays?

Here’s what we should do – if this loss really, really bothers you, tune it out. If your opinion of PITT and it’s program is so low that you can’t stand it, get another hobby or switch your emotional and financial support to something else.

Pointing out a team and coaching staff’s weaknesses and mistakes are one thing, explaining how those mistakes can and should be corrected is another, and speculating on what the results might be is part of being a fan. But ranting on and on about what has already happened, serves no purpose.

Well put Reed, but it is only Monday. Hopefully I’ll be over the loss in time for the next game, I definitely will be by next season. I think it is helpful to vent a bit. That loss was painful.

I’m just not going to get down on my team and call them “pathetic” when they truly aren’t. We can’t stop the run- we can’t and we won’t, it’s not surprise. Why? Even though everyone knows it’s coming, it doesn’t matter when you DON’T have the players to do so. Two or three very good players on D will not offset the D line’s inability to not be manhandled. You can know it’s coming, but to have that ability to do something about as a team is another. Most of these guys are still left over from the old regime. The situation probably won’t change untily Dave W’s recruits are upper classmen. Do some people not understand this? Walt didn’t recruit the best players for the lines, this is no secret. Walt’s teams couldn’t stop the run and this is no secret either. We can insert Dave W’s “four or five star recruits” but they are all underclassmen and no matter how much potential they have, they will be dominated by experienced upper classmen. I am kind of surprised that everyone thought we would do really well against the run week in and week out. However, I will state that it’s still unexceptable to give up as much as 200 yards on the ground. Perhaps that is where some of the blame lies on the D coordinator, I don’t know. But we aren’t going to do good or even average against the run for a year or two.
The other thing– if you think we are complaining about the attendence now, after this L it will probably be even worse (I am sad to say). I live in central PA and I would pay the $200 every year for season tickets if I didn’t have to work so much on the weekends. I was able to go to most games last season, but the $200 for 7 home games isn’t all that terrible to me. At first I wasn’t sure, but $200 probably touches the limits of my tolerance. I would think long and hard about season tickets if they went up anymore though. Not many alumni stay in the city or even western PA, and that is why a city school like Pitt must keep the tickets reasonable. Residents in the city will only compare everyone and anything to that other team that plays at Heinz.

Omar I agree with what you said earlier, it is time we expect more…why is that unreasonable.

Reed, I see your point but you cant really compare Harris’ first 4 years with DW’s tenure. Harris came to a dead program with a crumbling stadium. The program was on life support. DW inherited a team that while not great had a lot of talent at the skill positions, had good senior leadership, and a team that has been consistently winning since 2000 with brand new first class facilities.

I’ll say it again, It is time to expect more. If we lost to Michigan or USC then I am willing to overlook things because we arent at that level yet. But we should be at Rutgers level right now and not in a few years. I’m sorry thats just my opinion.

Usually, I think that the Pitt crowd is pathetic, but I have to say, on Saturday night the crowd was as loud as I have ever heard it. I actually heard, for the first time, a large portion of the crowd do the P-I-T-T LETS GO PITT chant. (Which I think could become one of the signature crowd chants in all of college FB, if so many people would stop inserting a negative cheer for PSU where a positive cheer for our own team belongs.) The crowd was the loudest of the night when we pinned RU at their 10 after closing their lead to 3 points…and what did we get? You all know the story. Bootom line: We have to start winning more of these “ESPN” under the lights games then we loose. Recruits watch TV too!

Getting torched for over 200 yards by one back consistently is about more than just talent. That is a lame excuse. Teams with superior talent lose all the time. Look at Team USA in basketball. Sometimes a coach or a group of players can simply say “…we can’t let this happen anymore.” Go to youtube and watch the replay of the 63 yard run. H.B. Blades does not fill the gap. That is not what a well coached team does.

Rex, you’re correct and that’s why I had said in an earlier post that comparing the two coaches is pretty pointless – and then I did it anyway. But, my thoughts are that while we should, as fans, expect good things from PITT football – everyone’s opinion of what to expect will differ.

I’m willing to give a new coaching staff a couple years to get things moving in their direction. I think we are seeing it already in some ways. It’s exciting to be a fan, and disappointments come with the territory. And, while I speculate with the best of them (my prediction for Sat. nite was 27-17 PITT) I also understand that I have to take the good with the bad.

If we should be at a certain level, and we are not – what do you do? Well, make staff coaching changes for one – and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen in this offseason. I should hope DW takes a good long look at just where our weaknesses are – rushing defense specifically, and over all defensive deployment generally. i.e. Rhoades’ input.

Secondly, take a good look at the Head Coach’s vision for the program and if it fits. I’m not sure about this, and have a niggling belief that DW might be a little too stubborn in his pushing the power running game at this point, and with this group of young players. Sometimes I wonder if there is a big difference between coaching in the Pros and in College, and if he is having a hard time adjusting. But, again, I’ll defer for a couple years.

Thirdly, we can get better on field personnel. I think DW’s done pretty well with that so far in his recruiting, and seems to be continuing it this year.

Lastly, we can make sure the meetings, practices, and games are being entered into as a team, and that internal disruptions and distractions are minimal. Again, sounds like that was a problem last year, and has been corrected well. But, I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. I do know that we suffered a big loss to MSU, could easily have tucked our chins down and tanked, but instead bounced right back. If we can do the same against SFU and U Conn after this much closer and more dramatic conference loss, I’ll have to think that DW has the kids pretty well in hand.

If we are having these same aguments at the end of 2007 and 2008 then the program will have to really take a look at itself. For now though, I think I’ll give DW the benefit of the doubt and ride out this season, however it plays out.

Reed I agree with a lot of what you said. I was always willing to give Rhodes the benefit of the doubt but I dont think I can anymore – I think his time here has come and gone. You would think that DW has some old connections with quality defensive coaches that could step in next year and turn this HUGE peoblem around.

at sportsline.com.I have just started a private league but need alot of people to play.It is alot of fun for basketball fans.It is a PRIVATE league so u are going to need the paswword and league name so here it is:League name-pittsburgh ballers.league password:steelers .I live in pittsburgh but am a BIG NBA fan.we have a live draft on 10/25/06 at 5:30…this is gonna be alot of fun!

AS for the pitt game i say we should fire rhodes!I ams so sick of him…he had OVER a week to prepare for this rushing attack and didnt!Why did we have 2 safety’s 20 yards off the line of scrimmage?!?!Also are LB’s should have been up on the line.WVU is going to run all over us.We should beat USF,uconn, and maybe UofL…cant wait until about two years when pitt can get there GREAT recruiting class on the field…

As a student 3 or 4 years ago, I remember the crowds he had for the VT and Miami games. They were packed, loud and very intimidating. We can draw the fans, but sadly we just have to have a national ranking to do so. I’m confident those crowds will return in the years to come. I’m behind Dave W., and I’m behind Pitt! There are two parts to college football: recruiting playing the recruits when they’re ready. We’re getting the recruits, just wait for their time folks.

Gees!, Howling running Howlings from tackle to tackle??? Why does Pitt try to run Howlings like he is Jerome Bettis – off- tackle, up the middle, etc.for little or no benefit? Couldn’t the coaching staff – try anything else or open it up to better use his and Palko’s speed and running talent better – maybe more option plays right or left for a change? Meanwhile “You have to go into the game with the players you have, rather than the players you want” to paraphrase Rummy and then we all know what happened to him and his intransigence.

[…] pretender. Pitt was 6-1 and Rutgers was 6-0. One of those teams was going to turn out to be a fake. It was Pitt as that was the 1st of 5 straight losses to doom the […]