(This one’s for you, Marco.)

Coach Wannstedt and Assistant Coach Greg Gattuso were in Altoona yesterday. It’s part of Dave Wannstedt’s regular May barnstorming the state.

Pitt reportedly is among the colleges that have offered Mountain Lion standout A.J. Alexander a scholarship, although NCAA rules forbid Wannstedt to confirm or discuss the recruitment of specific players.

“I’m out on the road most of the month of May,’’ Wannstedt said. “Nobody knows more about the football team than me as the head coach. It’s important for me to get out and meet people. I want to let them know that Pitt’s alive. We’re still here.’’

…

“I didn’t realize how improved Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers are,’’ Wannstedt said. “Everybody can talk about the Big 10, the Southeastern Conference, but look at our wins out of the conference. The Big East will have three of the top Heisman Trophy condidates next year in Brian Brohm, Patrick White and Ray Rice. The biggest challenge is just the competition in the Big East.’’

Arguably, it’s four if you also include WVU’s Steve Slaton as well.

Now here’s the bad news for the Big East. You know how the SEC regularly gets ripped for playing nothing but patsies in the non-con. The top teams in the Big East looks just as bad — except for two programs with varying degrees of struggles.

While the rest of the conference opens against the likes of Buffalo, Elon, Eastern Michigan, Murray State and Southeast Missouri State, Syracuse opens against a Pac-10 school (Washington) and follows with two Big Ten teams (at Iowa, vs. Illinois). The Orange then begin conference play at Louisville, and, after a visit to Miami (Ohio), play host to West Virginia and Rutgers. That’s no way to revive a program. Pitt is the only team in the conference to play road games against the big three — West Virginia, Louisville and Rutgers — and also must visit Michigan State and Virginia.

Sigh.

It’s now confirmed that South Carolina assistant coach, Ken Potosnak, has interviewed for the assistant coaching job with Pitt.

Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon received permission last weekend from USC coach Dave Odom to interview Potosnak, who expects Dixon to make a decision in about a week.

Potosnak said he is interested in the job because Pennsylvania is his home state.

And if Greg Dave Odom doesn’t win this year, Odom is likely out of a job and so will Potosnak.

Coach Dixon didn’t have to rush the decision since the late signing period is meaningless with all of Pitt’s 2007 scholarships filled.

Good news for Pitt, the NCAA’s Academic Progress Reports have been released, and Pitt (PDF) is still in good shape.

For several years, we have been hearing and reading about how the APR would really start to improve for Pitt football once they started taking into account the post-Johnny Majors (the Walt Harris) years, and sure enough the multiyear APR for the football team it hit 948 this year. That’s well above the 925 minimum and apparently in the 70th-80th percentile among football programs.

In basketball, it was only 907, but because the sample size was too small (not enough players who were eligible to graduate) there are no penalties. Next year will be the big year as the 4th year will be included. Pitt does appear to be in good shape to meet the standards by that point.

UPDATE: I also did a general post for AOL. Not many BCS schools had scholarship losses in basketball and football. Arizona football lost 4 scholarships, Iowa State basketball 2 scholarships and Cincinnati basketball 1 scholarship.