The support and loyalty of everyone is always appreciated, even as it embarrasses me a little. It means a lot, since I’ve never actually met any of you except for Steve G. Hmm, there may be a bit of correlation.

Buzz is not getting banned for giving me some crap.

I have banned only a few people in the 4+ years of Pitt blogging. I don’t have hard fast rules that constitute banning, and I do give warnings. Buzz never approached anything that even had me considering banning him. Basically, to get banned you have to repeatedly do any or all of the following:

• Personally attack people in the comments to the level of complete derangement (Buzz’s complaints do not even reach a threshold that would merit a warning).
• Go after Pitt players on a personal level — it’s one thing to criticize their play, but to declare that a player is “garbage” or has some personal defect based on what they do on the field or court is not something I feel is acceptable in college.
• Be a useless troll
• Spam
• I’m sure there are some other things, but they haven’t happened yet.

Now, I’m not sure who Buzz thinks started this blog, but I’ve been here from the beginning. I’ve been lucky to have several quality people who contribute. Dennis being the latest. But, others like Keith W., Shawn, Lee in Altoona State College, John, Harlan and Pat have all been here posting (and are still able to if they feel like it).

I don’t look to this site as a money maker. It has turned into something that has created opportunities for me outside of this, and that has been a great side effect. It was, however, never the goal when it started This is my fun stuff. The place where I can share all the news I would gather anyways, and offer my thoughts on them and Pitt basketball and football games.
That this site has increased in readership is fantastic, but here’s reality. The increase is more connected to what Pitt does, not what I or anyone else writes. When things are well, or there is active news, the numbers go up. Just take a look at the past 12 months and you can see what happened to readership during football season when things weren’t going well, and the spike in December when so much good stuff happened (beating WVU, recruiting news and beating Duke). Honestly, if I was only interested in increasing eyeballs, I’d just talk about recruiting. Nothing seems to help the hit count more than speculation on the future.

Now,  back to the fun.

Sundays are part of the weekend, but it never feels like it. The thought that Monday is around the corner sticks in the back of my mind all day. Ah.

A large number of football recruits visited this weekend for the hoops game against Seton Hall. The list includes verbals like Nix, Burns, and Sunseri plus some hopefuls (most notably AJ Alexander). They were able to pick up their 17th verbal from TE Justin Virbitsky.

Jim Snyder of Pantherlair.com is reporting that TE Justin Virbitsky gave the Panthers a verbal commitment today. Virbitsky is the Panthers 17th verbal commitment. Virbitsky is from Lakeland, Fla. and is being recruited as a “blocking” tight end. Virbitsky was a 3-year starter at Lakeland H.S. and was named to the 1st team Class AA as a defensive end. [PSI]

The “blocking” tight end style is more similar to John Pelusi’s game rather than Nate Byham. Byham is a great blocker but an even better pass-catcher.
Speaking of tight ends (there’s a dirty joke in there somewhere), Darrell Strong played in the Hula Bowl last night. The other Pitt player was Kennard Cox. Two other all-star games will feature former Panthers.

Two-time All-Big East defensive end Joe Clermond will play in the East-West Shrine Game on Jan. 19 in Houston, Texas. The game will be a 7 p.m. (ET) telecast on ESPN. Pitt’s defensive captain, Clermond (Tampa, Fla./Chamberlain) finished the season as the Panthers’ leader in sacks (10.5) and tackles for loss (13). His 53 total tackles tied for fourth. An outstanding pass rusher, Clermond’s .88 sacks per game ranked 11^th nationally (tied) and third in the Big East.

Pitt’s starting offensive tackles, Jeff Otah and Mike McGlynn, will play in the Jan. 26 Senior Bowl, held in Mobile, Ala. The game will kickoff at 3 p.m. (ET) and be televised by the NFL Network.

All-star games have never really excited me; now really planning to watch these unless I find myself really in need of something to do. NFL Draft Countdown has Otah going near the middle of the first round and says this about him:

Otah is still very raw and only has two years of division I experience but he has mind-boggling size (6-6, 340) and great athleticism with almost unlimited potential. In college he played left tackle and did a fantastic job but he might have to the right side at the next level and a good way to think of him would be as a poor man’s Jake Long with more longterm upside.

Teams and Detroit and Philly would be two teams drafting in the middle of the round that could use him on their o-line.