Really? Someone thought this would be a question that has any relevance?
Wannstedt was asked on Monday’s Big East conference call what qualities were necessary to become an NFL coach and whether he had any interest in returning to the league where he was coach of the Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins and won a Super Bowl as the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive coordinator. “No, I’m done after this,” Wannstedt said. “I’ve had enough.”
I suppose it isn’t about him returning to the NFL as a head coach. That’s never going to happen. Still, to be asking Coach Wannstedt about anything related to coaching in the NFL given the way he’s been coaching at Pitt, seems a bit of a stretch.
Another highlight from his weekly media phone call is that he thinks the team has room to improve. Ya think?
“The exciting thing about this is that we’re probably about 60 to 70 percent of where I believe in my heart we should be as a football team, and that’s exciting,” Wannstedt said. “If we were sitting here and we had played as well as could have and never turned the ball over and we were 1-1, you’d say to yourself, ‘Jeez, is this it?’ But our team has such a long way to be able to grow.”
Oh, grife. He’s sticking with the turnovers are the thing theme. The part that has me most worried is that what I saw on the sidelines of the Bowling Green game did turn out to be true.
The biggest improvement between the first and second week, Wannstedt said, was how his team handled adversity. Pitt led 17-14 against Bowling Green at halftime and never scored again. The Panthers were up just 10-9 over Buffalo but controlled the second half.
“In Week 1 at halftime, everybody’s looking at each other and the look was worth 1,000 words,” Wannstedt said. “Basically it was, ‘How can this game be close?’ And we go out and we press and we turn the ball over.
“This week we were only up one, but there was a lot of energy in the locker room and a lot of excitement to get out there and play the second half and not really look at scoreboard.”
And, um, where were the coaches in all of this? Especially in the first game. Apparently not reaching the players. Not getting them to just play. Instead, I guess Wannstedt feels/felt the players need to figure these things out for themselves. Wannstedt was just there as some sort of Yoda-figure, “Yinzeselves figure it out you must.”
No, seriously, what is the role of the coach in these situations? This seems to be the spot where the coach who trumpets his experience at all levels of football would be at his best. The guy who recruited these kids. Someone who (at least in hindsight/revisionism) is saying he could see their confusion an doubt. What’s his accountability, responsibility? And most importantly, what the hell was he trying to do about it in that game?
I know, I know. It’s done, it’s over. Let it go.
So naturally that lackluster win over Buffalo was an important thing, and the Bowling Green loss will be treated as a blessing in disguise. Right?
“I would say, without a doubt that because we got beat by Bowling Green, we came to the realization that we’ll get beat again if we don’t go out there and play for 60 minutes,” Wannstedt said at his weekly teleconference yesterday. “We haven’t proven that we’re a good football team yet and we’re just trying to win a game. The interesting thing is, if we had come out flat in the opener, you could say, ‘OK, they were reading the press clippings,’ but that was not the case. We came out and we were hitting on all cylinders, and then when we hit some adversity, we didn’t respond the right way.”
It also helped that Buffalo isn’t that good.
Has anyone looked at the size and athleticism of Iowa’s lines? We could really be in for a long day with our “lean” and “small” linemen.
Anyone hear anything on Shane Murrays injury and if he’ll be back in the starting lineup?
Much like unicorns and the lochness monster, few people have ever seen Greg Cross. Wanny claims that this myth of a man plays football for the Pitt Panthers, but once again, there has never been any hard evidence to support these claims.
Just kiddin’.
The hue and cry for his removal is interesting, and pretty emotional on some fans part, but until this season is over it’s still premature. PITT will not remove a sitting coach in mid-season and, I’ll wager, will not fire DW if he puts up more wins than losses.
Think of it this way – if we go from a 5-7 season to a 7-5 season and a bowl game do you think Pederson will fire DW before his contract is up, regardless of how the fans feel?
And, let’s say our kid’s sheer talent compels a 9 win season, regardless of the coaching… do you want DW to go then, could PITT justify that without any off the field problems to point to? That may be a reach, but my point is that lots can happen between now and the end of the season.
I like DW, a lot. However, I also see that he’s not really grasping the fundamentals of the college game, and may never do that. But this is sports, and unlike a job in sales, decisions are not always made according to arbitrary benchmarks. He may very well be gone at the end of this season – but IMO that would mean we had a disastrous won loss record when all was said and done, and personally, I don’t want that.
“The exciting thing about this right now is that we’re probably only about 60 or 70 percent of where we can be as a football team,” Wannstedt said. “That’s exciting. If we were sitting here and played as well as we did and never turned the ball over in two games and we were sitting here 1-1, you’d say to yourself, ‘Geez, is this it?’ But our defense has such a long way to be able to grow, and we have not seen any LeSean McCoy and LaRod Stephens. I believe they’ve got huge days in front of them. And Billy Stull’s going to get better every week.”
Read in context you can understand what he means. No team (or very rarely) comes out at peak performance in it’s first game, especially one with so many younger and first time starters on it. Look at the guys we have starting for the first time – Stull, Malecki, Sheard, DiCicco, Fields, Ransom, G. Williams, etc.
Granted that happens every year, and it’s not an excuse, but it does take time for new players to get comfortable and start playing up to their potential level.