No, not thirsty for alcohol but some football. I amaze myself sometimes — the only thing left for this Pitt football team to do is show up and go through the motions and somehow I manage to still get excited for game days. The layoff between last Wednesday’s game brutal loss and Saturday’s probable loss has been a long one. That final play still lingers in my head.

This weeks Big East picks:

(2) South Florida over Rutgers — Huge game going on right now. I’ll admit my huge man-crush on Matt Grothe.
Louisville over UConn — I hate UConn football. They stink, but we made them look so good.
(19) Cincinnati over Pitt — Yes.
(11) West Virginia over Mississippi State — WVU had a week off to get Pat White back to full health…watch out.
Buffalo over Syracuse — I don’t know if this is an upset or not.

This week’s Blog Poll Top 10 looks like this:

Rank	Team	PPB	StdDev	Delta
1	Ohio State (35)	23.9	2.0	2
2	South Florida (26)	23.2	2.5	3
3	LSU (5)	22.0	2.2	2
4	Boston College	21.5	2.4	—
5	Oklahoma	20.9	2.1	1
6	South Carolina	19.2	2.1	1
7	Oregon	18.2	2.6	2
8	Kentucky	17.8	2.9	9
9	Arizona State (1)	17.0	4.2	2
10	California	16.6	2.9	8

USF is closing the first-place gap, but they need to beat Rutgers to keep their amazing season alive. Right now they’re tied at 10 with 9:00 left in the 2nd half.

You probably heard about Wannstedt’s injury. He’ll coach (or whatever he considers “coaching”) from the press box ala Joe Paterno after he took this shot.

P.S. — At least when Steve Pederson left Pitt, our football players didn’t do this.

Cinci is one of the top teams in the country at forcing turnovers. In their loss to Louisville, that didn’t happen. The Bearcats lost. Doesn’t seem like much of a coincidence since it cost them at least two field goals with 2 costly turnovers inside the 20. All the while not getting turnovers from the Cardinals.

The turnovers also make a big difference to the offense, which has benefited from extra good field position when the defense forces an error from the opponent.

But against Louisville, UC’s average starting field position was its 23-yard line and only began a series once in Cardinals territory. That makes life tougher for the Bearcats offense.

Conversely, on three of the four Louisville scores, the Cardinals only had to move the ball less than 55 yards to score a touchdown.

Pitt’s defense, by hideous contrast, has not forced a turnover since Grambling.

Pitt is among the worst teams in Division I-A when it comes to taking the ball away from its opponents. The Panthers are No. 110 out of 119 I-A teams in turnovers forced. They have just six in six games.

…

Wannstedt then cited Cincinnati’s turnover ratio. The Bearcats are the No. 1 team in NCAA Division I-A in forced turnovers with 25. He said there is a direct correlation between that number and Cincinnati’s 6-1 record and Top 25 ranking.

And all six turnovers Pitt has gotten have been interceptions and special team fumble recoveries. No fumble recoveries by the defense. At all.

Naturally, Coach Wannstedt blames it on the early deficits Pitt has been in.

“You don’t get a chance to force them into some bad throws,” Wannstedt said. “That has a lot to do with the lack of turnovers. We’ve played either even or behind against most of our opponents, and when that’s the case, quarterbacks don’t feel pressure. They don’t feel like they have to force anything. And the play-callers on the other side are a little more conservative. That probably has something to do with it, too. I know it does.”

Something I could buy into except that really only applies to the UVa and UConn games. Otherwise, the games were close and that excuse is crap. It was back and forth with Navy. Michigan State was never comfortable on offense. No turnovers by a defense that doesn’t attack.

Quietly, without much fanfare, Pat Bostick has been allowed to speak to the media. It started after the Navy game when he actually was permitted to speak about the game right afterwards.

Now, while no one is still discussing the reasons for his week long hiatus right as training camp started, he is talking with some comfort to the media.

Bostick is continuing to work through the “personal issues” that caused him to miss the first week of practice, but has found solace on the football field and in the film room since being elevated to the starting lineup late last month.

“I think for the most part, I’ve settled down,” Bostick said Tuesday. “The most difficult thing – which isn’t very difficult – is it’s a challenge to balance everything. I have my priorities straight. I’m here a lot. I’m doing what I have to do to try to help this football team win.

“As far as transitioning, I’m getting there. It’s the middle of this football season. Football-wise, I’m comfortable practicing every day and playing on Saturdays. Football-wise, I feel good. But it’s the middle of football season and everything is going 100 mph. But it will be a little while until I can settle in and put everything toward school. I think that’s the same way for everyone on this team.”

That seems to be the thing. Pat Bostick is most comfortable talking and being around football.

Yesterday, Bostick sat with media members and effortlessly discussed the X’s and O’s of Cincinnati’s defenses, the matchups Pitt hopes to take advantage of Saturday and the reasons the Bearcats have one of the best defenses in the country. He talked at length about the Bearcats’ alignment and how cleverly designed it is to allow them to keep eight-men close to the line of scrimmage without leaving the secondary vulnerable.

But football has always been Bostick’s comfort zone, the one thing in his life that makes sense. Furthermore, it always has been his shoulder to lean on when things off the field get tough. Yet, while football always has made sense — Bostick is known for his film study — the rest of his life has not been so easy to figure out.

That’s part of what college and growing up is supposed to be about. Not all of it. Not immediately. But it helps with the pieces in figuring things out. Hopefully.

Actually a pretty good Smizik column on Wannstedt and the extension issue. I say pretty good because it seems to have been — much like my earlier post — a response to the discussion of a possible extension and the arguments/claims. That he echoes some of my thoughts makes it easier for me give it a positive review.

Wannstedt should not be fired, although not for the illogical reason that he deserves four years to get his program in place and to be playing with his own players.

Wannstedt should not be given a contract extension because he doesn’t deserve one. Extensions should be rewards for a job well done. Wannstedt has not done his job well.

A perfectly good case could be made for firing Wannstedt. He is 13-16 in the middle of his third season. He has lost nine of his past 10 games against Division I-A opponents. By the most important barometer, wins, his teams are getting worse instead of better.

There’s not a lot to say in his behalf, but there is something to say about the importance of continuity. Pitt has a long and unsuccessful history of changing coaches. A change is not always for the better. There’s no guarantee the next man will improve the situation.

The simplest reason Wannstedt won’t be fired this year is that there is no AD right now. By all accounts, there likely won’t be until well after the season and probably signing day are complete. Not exactly the time to go searching for a replacement.

They put Pitt at #23. For good and bad, Pitt is now a presumed team in preseason rankings. Even when not everyone is exactly sure why.

For all the uncertainty that exists in the middle of the Big East pack, the one thing coaches in the league agree on is the inevitability of the Pittsburgh Panthers.

They may not know precisely how or entirely why, but they’re all sure Pitt is going to wind up somewhere in the upper portion of this league. The team’s traditional toughness, its wealth of experience, the extreme homecourt advantage provided by the Petersen Center and Coach Jamie Dixon’s resiliency have allowed the Panthers to finish with double-digit Big East victories in six consecutive seasons. They haven’t finished lower than fifth since 1999-2000.

That never gets old for me. I go through this every year on the blog with the basketball team. The dark decade of the ’90s still seems like yesterday to me when I think about Pitt basketball. That Pitt is now thought of as one of the top programs in the country and a consistent threat is just… wow.

Mike DeCourcy also has a highly encouraging article regarding Sam Young.

This was one of those offseason skill sessions the NCAA now allows each team, and joining Young on the floor were veteran guard Ronald Ramon, redshirt freshman Gilbert Brown and freshman guard Bradley Wanamaker. It started with shooting drills, which even the greenest college player can figure out, but things got a little rough for the rookie when the players were paired up for defensive drills.

It was Young who had to remind Wanamaker where he was supposed to be, when he was supposed to be there and what techniques he would need to employ to prevent the opposition from scoring.

I repeat: It was Young.

Those familiar with Pitt are aware that awareness, for lack of a better term, frequently was a problem for Young in his first two seasons. He brought to the program a set of physical gifts unmatched by any player during the Panthers’ renaissance, but his minutes were limited by his tendency to wind up misplaced and the presence of veteran Levon Kendall, who specialized in defensive efficiency and played the same power forward position.

With Kendall gone, Young becomes the veteran, and it seems he is embracing that responsibility. “Now I get to say I’m more experienced, I’m more of the leader of this team. It’s going to be a privilege to lead the team and see what I’m capable of,” Young said. “They’re looking at me to take them to the promised land. I’ve got to be that guy.”

If Young is comfortable, healthy and really embracing the team game, well this will be his break out year.