Always good when walk-ons earn their way to full scholarship.

Pitt rewarded redshirt junior walk-ons Frank Kochin and Austin Ransom on Friday by giving them scholarships for the 2007 football season, Panthers coach Dave Wannstedt announced.

Kochin, a 6-foot-4, 280-pound offensive tackle from Keystone Oaks, played in all 12 games last season as a member of the point-after and field-goal units. Ransom, a 5-11, 210-pound receiver from Williamsville, N.Y., is a special teams star who had three tackles in 12 games last season.

The calculating, cynical, cold-hearted part of me, though, worries about whether Pitt can afford to give up those scholarship spots.

This might be worth remembering in the first game or two.

Q: How has Bill Stull looked at practice compared to the other quarterbacks of the past?

Zeise: That’s a tough question, to compare players who aren’t much alike. To be honest, Rod Rutherford and Tyler Palko had more similarities than either has similarities with Stull. He is a different kind of quarterback than those two. He has improved greatly since the beginning of camp and he seems to have a good command of the offense. The key for him will be getting off to a good start and finding his confidence quickly. If you remember, it all clicked for both Rutherford and Palko in their second or third career starts.

[Emphasis added.]

Of course, both were under a different offensive system, but it took both until the second-half of their second game as starters (2002, Texas A&M; 2004, Nebraska). Getting comfortable under center in real game situations for more than a couple snaps for the first time since he was playing high school ball in 2004 is still going to be very different.

Either someone asked him about it or Coach Wannstedt was feeling a little defensive about his job performance and the so-called “hot seat.”

Wannstedt believes the Panthers will take the next step soon and start winning at a higher level, but he isn’t going to cut corners to achieve that success. He said he knows he has the full support of the decision-makers at Pitt as well as his players and that he will get things turned around in the very near future.

“I’m just doing things the way I believe they should be done and, whether people believe it is the right way or the wrong way, I don’t really care,” Wannstedt said. “I’m to the point where I know that I am representing this university right, I know how to build a program and what it takes [to win] and I know that our chancellor is on board with that, our athletic director is on board with that and I know our football players are on board with that.

“End of discussion.”

I’m guessing it was a mix of the AP article and all the preview mags that have used the words “disappointing” and “underachieving” to describe the team’s performance the last couple of years that prompted this kind of response.

I don’t find the AP article particularly upsetting since it does reflect a good deal of fan feelings. The feeling that things should be further along and there better be something to show for this season; contrasted with the sense that it will happen and that things are getting closer.

He has several strong recruiting classes on hand, more depth and more speed than in the last two seasons. What Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt hasn’t yet enjoyed as he enters his third season at his alma mater is improvement — in the offense, in the defense, in special teams.

Most of all, in the won-lost record.

…

Despite Pitt’s lack of success the lack two seasons, it’s evident Wannstedt still has strong support among those who hired him, athletic director Jeff Long and chancellor Mark Nordenberg. His players appear to respect him, and the struggles of the last two seasons mostly created cries for patience from top boosters, rather than cries to oust him.

But this is a pivotal season for Wannstedt, and he knows it. Harris’ third season was the one that propelled him and the Panthers to a string of five consecutive winning seasons and bowl appearances. But this third season was the one that proved the undoing of Majors his second time around; of Hackett in 1992, of Foge Fazio in 1984.

It is a big season. Everything that is talked about — whether amongst fans, from the media, the athletic department — it is either explicit or implied that 2008 is the year. That’s the year everything will come together. All the frustrations, losses, bad stuff will all be worth it as 2008 unfolds as Pitt ascends. Not a national championship, but challenging for the Big East. Showing that a lot will continue beyond that season and that it has all been worth it.

2007, though, is about showing that Pitt is getting to that point. That the defense is actually better. That the lines are improving. That Pitt can have a running game. I think most fans are trying to be patient. Wanting to believe in Wannstedt and what he is doing. We see the recruiting rankings and have to be encouraged. On the field, though, has been different.
Regardless of what happens in 2007, there’s going to be a lot of pressure on Wannstedt and Pitt for 2008. The difference is that if 2007 goes in the tank, the mood from the fans going into the 2008 season will be with an “..or else.”