The advantage and curse of doing this blog for quite some time is that everything is archived and there to be looked at (and used against me). Right now, fan sentiment is split on Wannstedt. Honestly, that’s where I am. Split on the coach. Not sure how I feel about him in the long-term; but sure that he will be here through next year. I thought it might be useful to look back at the month of December, 2004 to review what happened at that point.
Obviously, it began with Walt Harris being pushed out the door with no extension and an offer from Stanford. Arguably this was coming after the disappointing 2003 season and the implosion of the 2004 recruiting class — even if in hindsight Pitt may have dodged a lot of disappointments. I was not sure about the whole thing.
I’ve gone back and forth on this all season. I’ve passionately wanted Harris’ tenure ended, I’ve defended him and felt he earned a new extension, I’ve sadly concluded it to be best he leave, I’ve reluctantly announced he wasn’t taking Pitt in the right direction long term. That was all in this season.
…
I guess the issue of whether Harris should have stayed or been released, for me, came down to, “do I trust the administration to hire someone better?†That’s probably why I decided to hope Pitt retained Harris.
Names were immediately bandied about: Rhoads, Wannstedt, Russ Grimm, Bo Pelini, Sal Sunseri, Bob Davie, Tom Clements, Tom Bradley and Rick Neuheisel. I wanted Pitt to look to the MAC coaches like Hoeppner, Novak or Amstutz.
J.D. Brookhart never was given serious consideration. Wannstedt was always the top choice by Pitt. Matt Cavanaugh’s name surfaced right after Wannstedt first pulled his name, and Rhoads got one of the first interviews. Rhoads became an early favorite after it became obvious that Pitt wasn’t serious about a lot of names — Sunseri was given a token interview and they never even made contact with Tom Clements or Tom Bradley.
There was a lot of polite interviews given to former Pitt players turned coaches like Tim Lewis and Cavanaugh. Along with finally interviewing Pelini. Briefly becoming the rumored front runner. Much of the discussion of who Pitt should look to hire post-Harris focused on recruiting acumen. An interesting little excerpt from that time:
The lifeblood of a football program, of course, is recruiting. Chuck Finder writes a sure-to-infuriate-the-locals piece arguing that Western PA isn’t what it used to be in terms of quantity of top recruits. He points out the demographics have been shrinking in the region. (Something I think Lee has pointed out before). He’s not arguing that the well is dry. He is just saying that the talent level, locally is not what it was in the ’70s and early ’80s. It’s a fair point, but one I’m sure many people in Pittsburgh will not want to hear.
The Trib’s recruiting guy, Kevin Gorman, though argues that the next Pitt coach has to focus very, very hard on the WPIAL kids. He points to the kids that have been flowing to the Big 11. I agree that Pitt really, really needs to improve the local recruiting. Gorman, though, seems a little too close to the subject. He covers the recruiting in the region, he knows all the kids and the coaches. So, it seems he is overstating the overall talent level. In some points, he seems to suggest recruiting a couple kids, just to win points with their high school coaches for the future.
Of course, last month Chris Dokish made a point about the talent level in the WPIAL not being the end-all-be-all.
One other guy, Pitt may have interviewed — Miami DC Randy Shannon.
Cavanaugh started picking up momentum as Pelini lost momentum. I started becoming convinced then and remain to this point of the belief that Pelini will be a very good head coach some day but is an absolutely lousy interview — and that has cost him opportunities to this point. Including the Syracuse gig.
More disturbing Paul Rhoads seemed to be the co-leader (and Smizik had a column that I had to admit was worth reading and that I agreed). In fact, just as it appeared that Rhoads would be the guy to get the gig, Wannstedt’s name re-emerged. It also came out how little Pitt was willing to pay assistants until it came to getting Wannstedt.
One of the other sticking points last week according to a source was that the university was reluctant to meet Wannstedt’s demands for salaries for his assistant coaches. He reportedly had asked for no assistant to be paid less than $100,000, and he wanted between $250,000-$300,000 for his coordinators.
The majority of the current staff makes less than $100,000 — with a low of about $65,000 — with the exception of defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads, who got a significant raise following the 2002 season because he nearly took a similar job at Auburn. He makes approximately $250,000 a year.
Over the years, retaining staff has been an issue because the university has not paid the assistant coaches the equivalent of many other Bowl Championship Series conference schools.
Of course, as we’ve learned 3 years later, you still have to make good hires with the assistants.
When Wanny finally agreed I was relieved because that meant Paul Rhoads didn’t get the job and I didn’t have to give up my season tickets in protest.
As for now, Pitt won’t be firing Wannstedt this year. There is no Athletic Director. Wannstedt is close with Chancellor Nordenberg who pulls the strings on this.
There was a lot of sentiment that Pitt needed to hire a Pitt guy. It’s a strangely (at least to me) common theme when there is a job opening for Pitt. Hire a Pitt guy or someone from the area. Fear the possibility of stepping stone coaches or something else.
In hindsight, I think the sentiment to find someone with ties was overwhelming and perhaps even necessary after everything else that had happened before.
