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February 1, 2010

Yet No One Is On Record

Filed under: Internet,Media,Rumors — Chas @ 4:16 pm

I’ve decided to be bemused with the insane rumors from the weekend through today.

The funny thing to me is how this spread from some bad message board material and specious, unsourced internet writings. Kept getting picked up and enough people were hearing something to wonder if there was something to it.

Now it gets doused in a bath of logic and reason. Yet if you want to play the game, no one is actually on record of saying anything one way or another — which allows it to fester and keep going.

The biggest refutation on the Big 11 side came from the Chicago Tribune‘s Teddy Greenstein.

Bottom line, a source at the conference reiterated to the Tribune on Monday that the Big Ten will adhere to the timetable it laid out in December: a 12-to-18 month period of analysis. The league will then determine whether it wants to expand and, if so, how many schools it will invite to the party.

Unnamed source, but still no formal statement. But that refutation spread as truth (and for the record I believe it but not because of an unnamed source at the Big 11).

Another popular source was ZagsBlog actually getting a “Pitt spokesman” on the record — something local beat writers couldn’t do.

Internet reports that Pittsburgh is moving to the Big 10 from the Big East are “100 percent’ false, according to multiple sources within the Pittsburgh athletic department.

“There is no announcement to make because there is nothing happening,” said Pitt spokesman Mike Gladysz.

Well, that’s neat except that Mr. Gladysz is not an employee of Pitt’s athletic department. Oh, he works in the area. He is employed by ISP Sports Network as an editor of the Pitt monthly “Panther Eyes.” At least that is what his profile says.

Oh, and that KC Star blog post  that wrote:

Speculation is heating up all over the Internet that Pitt has accepted an offer to join the Big Ten Conference.

Here is what popped up on Bleacherreport.com, normally a pretty reliable outlet, just a few hours ago…

[Emphasis added]

Well, that bit has been scrubbed and now he, uh, updated it to say he was just posting the speculation on the internet. Nothing else. No. Of course not.

And the fun keeps coming.

[UPDATE, 5:30: Adam Zagoria has changed his post to delete the attribution to Mr. Gladysz, without indicating he ever wrote it that way. Good to see that responsible journalism hard at work.

UPDATE, 2/2/10, 9:00 AM: Interesting. Now it is back. to the original way written.]

Cranky, Cranky, Cranky

Filed under: Big 11,Conference,Rumors — Chas @ 12:58 pm

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pitt football beat writer Paul Zeise must have had a lousy weekend.

I’ve spoken with countless people at Pitt about this situation — and mostly because I am getting  bombarded with e-mails, voicemails, text messages and every other form of communication about it not because I believe any of it — over the last few days and this is the message I’ve gotten loud and clear —

There is no announcement planned (the phrases “total fabrication” and “absolutely 100 percent false” and “there is absolutely nothing to these rumors, nothing at all” have been used on more than one occassion) because there is nothing to this whole ‘Pitt to the Big Ten’ stuff. At least not right now and not in the near future. And to take it one step further, there have been no formal discussions (and I’ve been told there haven’t even been any informal discussions between Pitt and the Big Ten, in other words, there have been no discussions at all) between Pitt and the Big Ten and all of these rumors are just that.

He also points out that Pitt isn’t formally commenting because it is wiser to make sure the door is open if it ever gets to a point where the Big 11 expands.

As has been the case, nothing new. Very quiet and little drama with NLI day a couple days off.

ESPN.com/Scouts, Inc. did a look back on the 2006 top-100  kids in the recruiting class (Insider subs.). Pitt had three players in that list and 0 busts– though LeSean McCoy (#50) ended up in prep school for a year before getting to Pitt. Nate Byham (#68) and Dorin Dickerson (#74) both should be considered successes. Even if Byham’s senior year was disappointing compared to his first few, and it really took until his senior year for Dickerson to become the weapon expected.

Brian Bennett looks at others in the Big East’s 2006 recruiting class, and notes that Pitt really had some good hits in this class with Byham, Dickerson, Pinkston and Romeus were all in this group.

As for recruiting this year, Rivals.com’s Jeremy Crabtree puts Pitt in his list of disappointments.

The Pitt Panthers fall into this category for one big reason – they lost out on the biggest names in Western Pennsylvania. Linebacker Mike Hull, quarterback Paul Jones and offensive linemen Thomas Ricketts and Miles Dieffenbach all bolted the western part of the state. What’s worse is that all four committed to in-state rival Penn State with two of them, Ricketts and Dieffenbach, having family ties to Pitt. Pitt did a nice job on some of the lesser names in their area and helped its cause with some talent in New Jersey, but after some nice success the last few years in their neck of the woods, this year was a disappointment.

Comparatively disappointing, but not devastating. All four are 4-stars, but none are can’t-miss, had-to-have prospects. Losing any top WPa talent is annoying. Especially a couple OLs. Maybe because they all committed early, it does not feel that stinging at this point.

Coach Wannstedt has been using the period after the season ended to check in on kids who have verbaled. Not to mention planning for 2011.

“I was hitting four homes a night,” Wannstedt said. “I like to get in the home of every kid who commits to us.

“All our recruits were excited about Pitt in August, but they are really excited about the opportunity to be a part of the program now. If we had 20 commitments in August, and you win four games, now you’re scrambling to hold on to convince guys why that happened. When you have a good year, it reinforces in the recruit’s mind that it was a great decision.”

The last day of official home visits was Friday. Now, the Pitt coaching staff can only wait for letters of intent to spill through the fax machines.

As he waits, Wannstedt is already looking ahead to next year’s recruiting class.

“This gives us an opportunity to put together our junior list,” he said. “As sick as that sounds, we have a junior recruiting day coming up in February. That’s the nature of the business now. You’re trying to finish strong with this year’s class and make sure you prepared for what’s coming up.”

As NLI day looms, there is no shortage of recruiting stories. And the usual hand-wringing over the state of things. This includes decommits and changing minds. The usual stuff, but this piece is worth noting since Pitt verbal commit T.J. Clemmings is featured.

From the moment Clemmings stepped on campus at Pittsburgh, he was enthralled.

The players seemed like old friends. He found the city exciting. The team was coming off yet another strong season under former NFL coach Dave Wannstedt. Everything he looked for in a school was there.

On his way out of town after the weekend-long visit, the 6-6, 260-pound Clemmings called Wannstedt and told him Pitt was where he wanted to play college football.

“He made a hasty decision without consulting anybody,” Paterson Catholic coach Benjie Wimberly said. “It was almost like love at first sight. You meet your first girl and it’s the best thing in the world — I think that’s what happened with TJ.”

One of the most coveted prospects in the country — he runs a 4.7 second 40-yard dash and was pursued by Notre Dame, Penn State and many others — Clemmings’ parents urged him to carefully weigh his options and visit other schools. This was a life-changing decision, they warned him.

Clemmings took an official visit to Rutgers and unofficial trips to Maryland and Penn State. He wanted to see if those schools could offer him anything that Pitt could not.

In the end, Pittsburgh was still the place for Clemmings.

There was a lot of confusion over Clemmings at first. His verbal was known, then his parents and coaches all said, “not so fast.” This led to the usual overreaction by Pitt fans that the coaches and parents were interfering or trying to steer him to some other school.

Since he still is committed to Pitt, it’s easy to look back with more of an open mind. The truth is, regardless, the adults in Clemmings life actually behaved like adults.

Clemmings had an emotional, impulsive reaction. The sort of thing that high school kids of any type are prone to do. His parents and coach made him look a little more carefully to be sure. The decision was still his (and he chose wisely).

My Life No Longer Makes Sense

Filed under: Athletic Department,Rumors — Chas @ 9:33 am

How do you expect us to function in the world with this kind of message?

EJ Tweets the Big 11 Rumor

EJ Tweets the Big 11 Rumor

But I thought if it was on the internets it must be true?

Hold it, adjusting my paranoia and making it fit to the world view that the rumors are the truth. Ah, there it is.

“It’s not a denial…”

“Just a smokescreen from a Pitt assistant AD/sports information director…”

“He is being kept in the dark to allow deniability…”

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