It’s a minor thing compared to the on-the-field performance, but there were some noticeable changes at Heinz Field so far this year. I know some of the guys at CatBasket have been helping with suggestions and ideas for Heinz Field to be more of a Pitt home field. Sorry, ripping off “Sweet Caroline” from the Red Sox doesn’t work for me because 1) cheesy Neil Diamond doesn’t do it; 2) it’s just ripping off someone else’s gimmick; 3) as a Yankees fan, it set my teeth to grinding.

There are some hits like the great banner running behind the visitor sideline of Pitt greats through the history. Love it.

Then there’s the clear Pederson influence. The exiting the locker room and coming out of the tunnel camera for the Pitt team led by Coach Wannstedt before the game. That was a Pederson thing from the Harris regime. Then there’s the return of a certain logo.

That’s right the gold and blue blob-cat is back and Jeff Long’s version appears to be out. The old panther head was the only one seen around the field. On the tunnels at the end of a couple banners.

It’s a little thing, but I must have missed the memo on the switch. Was there an official change? Looks that way. This brings up an issue that bothered me when I took a quick look at some Pitt gear in the stadium. The confusion and complete muddling of the logo.

Pitt really needs to just make a decision about old gear. There was gear for sale with all different Pitt logos (and I’m not even including the throwback stuff) — the “Iron bar Pitt“, the new/old panther head, the newer panther head, the old font with “Pittsburgh,” I even saw a couple of the panther tooth items. This extends to the Pitt official store (obviously, since I used their site to show the examples). Where the gear is just all over the place.

The first thing is that it reflects on the obvious cheapness of the merchandising arm not to just say, “screw it,” and ship the old clothing that didn’t sell to South America or some charity overseas. It also shows the general disarray of figuring out the logo.

They seemed to have gotten it right with the arched “Pitt.” I like it well enough. It’s simple and clean. It’s the dominate logo. Now, lose all the old fonts and junk from the past 10 years of misses.

Trying to figure out the right panther, though, has remained a mystery. I disliked both recent incarnations. Pederson panther head is a dense blot of blue and gold that makes my eyes hurt if I look at it too long. The Long panther-dog head was hardly an improvement.

I’ve thought the students have come out strong this year. I disagree with Kevin Gorman who asked, “What? You want a cookie?” It isn’t easy to build the student support when the team has performed the way it has in the Wannstedt era. The Buffalo game was more of a struggle than it should have been and that first game sapped a lot of energy and hope. In the 3+ years of Wannstedt, the biggest wins at Heinz Field were the opening night 20056 thrashing of what turned out to be a bad Virginia team (but at least it was beating a BCS team) and last year’s win over ranked Cinci.

Well, if you really want to get back to happy hype, the first college basketball preview mag hit the newsstand on Tuesday.

Too soon?

Let’s stick with football for another post.

The bye week is a scary thing for Pitt. Oh, hell, let’s call it what it has been. A frickin’ disaster under Coach Wannstedt. In the past 3 years, Pitt has had 5 bye weeks. All before facing a team that finished with a winning record. Is this a shock to learn that Pitt is winless in those games? 0-5. If there’s anything to argue that this is misleading, it’s that four of the losses off a bye came in the conference slate. Only Navy last year was from the non-con. Oh, and Pitt has lost game 3 on the schedule all three years under Wannstedt. Not to read anything into that, of course.

Not that Coach Wannstedt is treating this as a negative.

“Normally, I’m not excited about bye weeks this early in the year, but I’m excited about this bye week,” Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said following a 27-16 victory over Buffalo Saturday at Heinz Field. “We have got to go out, practice and get better.”

Next for Pitt is undefeated Iowa, coached by Upper St. Clair native Kirk Ferentz. The Hawkeyes have outscored their first two opponents, 88-3.

And this is supposed to be a down year for Iowa.

That’s why this week could be one of the more critical of Pitt’s season.

“We’ve got to work on the fundamentals: tackling, blocking, getting our linebackers into the right fits, catching and throwing the ball,” Wannstedt said. “Our offensive line was better than last week, but we need this week.”

Other than that, things are fine.

Nate Byham seems to have become the spokesman for the offense. He spoke a bit after Pitt’s first game and then again after Buffalo. He sticks with the party line that the offense looked better, and it had nothing to do with a weaker opponent.

Coaches often say a college team shows its greatest improvement from the first game of the season to the second, and Byham is convinced that happened — if only because he believes the offensive line was that much better. The Panthers outgained Bowling Green 393-254, yet committed three turnovers and were shut out in the second half.

“It all starts with what the offensive line’s going to do — if they play good, our offense is going to play great,” Byham said. “That’s what happened (against Bowling Green), their defensive line got pressure and it kind of messed up the whole rhythm of the offense.”

And he’s not being shaken from the story.

“I think what we showed is we can be a very versatile offense and we have a lot of weapons,” tight end Nate Byham said after a win against Buffalo. “I think that is the thing we can do over the next two weeks — just continue to work on getting everyone involved. You saw [Saturday], we had tight ends catching passes, we ran some reverses, we had Shady [McCoy] going — we got everyone involved.

“But the best thing is … we have a new quarterback, a newer offensive line and some other new guys so we’re only going to get better and better. We just have to work hard.”

No doubt.

QB Bill Stull was more effective in the second game.

Stull was more poised – perhaps because the offensive line did a better job than the opener – and completed 22-of-33 passes for 241 yards. One of his few blemishes, an interception, came on a harmless, desperation heave on the final play of the first half.

“I think Billy will tell you, mentally, he was into the game the whole time,” Wannstedt said. “I think a few of the throws that he missed were physical. I don’t think there was confusion on anything.”

The passing game remains short only, and mostly to along the sidelines. There are theories about that.

Scott McKillop picked up Big East Defensive Player of the Week honors. So there’s that.