Things have been continually hectic. Part of that is because FanHouse is doing conference previews and starting yesterday we are rolling out Big East previews. Matt Glaude (‘Cuse), John Radcliff (WVU) and I are handling the previews and Big East posting all season long. More Posts coming today through Saturday. You should be able to key in on just the Big East previews by going here.

Absolutely no connection, but worth looking at: Beer Pong Tables of the Big East.

Dennis covered the depth chart, and beat writers in Pittsburgh can rejoice that they don’t have to deal with Nick Saban berating them for even speculating on such a thing.

Zeise put down the Harris-Wannstedt player divide rumor started on FoxSports/CollegeFootballNews.com/Scout.com. What makes it really ridiculous is that the numbers don’t work for a real divide. There are only 24 Seniors, fifth year seniros and redshirt juniors according to the ’07 Pitt Media Guide, p. 107. Just a quick eyeball takes out at least 3 who are transfers or JUCOs. That brings the total number of players who had even 1 year of being coached by or had regular contact with Walt Harris to maybe 21. Only a quarter of the locker room. Even if you pretended that all of them had some resentment to Wannstedt percolating under the surface, it just doesn’t work.
Yes, several juniors and redshirt sophomores were recruited by Harris, but they still signed LOIs with Wannstedt already hired and have only been coached by him. That story may have been believable in 2005 or even last year to some extent, but  not at the start of year 3.

Coach Wannstedt is also not phased by the things that have happened over the summer and training camp.

Wannstedt said most of those problems have been resolved and the ones that haven’t, such as the loss of Fields and Kinder, are the same kinds of things every program is dealing with. He said the players have rallied around each other and have not missed a beat.

“I’ve been doing this for 33 years and I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way, some easy some I had to learn the hard way,” Wannstedt said. “When you have adversity, you have to understand the adversity you are dealing with at the present time doesn’t impact your life, or in our case your team, nearly as much as how you respond to it. That’s a real key principle for us.

“Good football teams overcome adversity, not by dwelling on it but by figuring out how to use it as a positive. If you have a solid foundation, and we have a great foundation with the backbone being our coaches and support system provided by the university and athletic department, then you won’t waver or falter when adversity hits.”

The angst and freaking out should be left to the fans. We have much more practice at freaking out over these things.

You probably know that Tuesday afternoon was Pitt’s first scrimmage — and the defense got the job done. In Wednesday’s Post-Gazette, Paul Zeise took the info (most of which we already knew) and started to sort out the depth chart.

Over the next week, it’ll become even clearer.

“This is a big week for us,” Wannstedt said. “We have another big scrimmage Saturday then, after that scrimmage, we’ll be able to zero in a little bit more. But we have three or four good days of work and then the scrimmage and by then I think the guys will start separating themselves.”

The QB situation is going to take more than the rest of this week to be figured out.

Junior Bill Stull has a firm grip on the starting job and has separated himself from redshirt freshman Kevan Smith and the rest of the pack. He will be the starter Sept. 1, but the wild card is freshman Pat Bostick, who Wannstedt said still has a chance to play his way back into the mix.

So even once the season starts (with Stull likely starting), could we still possibly see Bostick take over the starting job a few weeks into the season? And not many questions at the running backs spot, except wondering how many touches LeSean McCoy will get.

Zeise perfectly describes the fullback situation as, “Not much drama here — Conredge Collins is the starter…” One change at fullback I would like to see? How about getting Collins more carries. It seemed like it would have worked last year but maybe with the emergence of McCoy it won’t be necessary.

The theme with the wide recievers is how they’re being shifted after Derek Kinder’s injury. Turner, Porter, Pestano, and McGee are all being moved up and will see the bulk of the playing time there. Kinder’s absense could lead to more balls thrown towards the tight ends — which have already been covered at length.

All of the info on the offensive skill players isn’t anything new or surprising. Everything gets a bit more unclear when things move to the line, also noted in Chas’ post yesterday. Mike McGlynn can be mentioned at center, guard, and tackle and he’s the wildcard. Where he plays is determined by what he shows and how the other linemen perform. Nothing can really be set until we figure out what’s going to happen with him, but where ever he plays he’ll be counted on to be a leader and do a good job.