As a very untalented football player at Baldwin High, I came to loathe August as it was the beginning of football camp…which I hated.
Now, as a fan, I can think of nothing more exciting as the Steelers open today and Pitt soon. Anything but watching and listening to our AAA baseball team! Great recruiting news just keeps coming. Chestnut is a stud. If we can find a QB, this year will be special. Yes, I am suffering from the “dreaded Pitt optimism’!

Hail to Pitt.

Chat Transcrip of Coach Wannstedt :

link to sportsfanlive.com

He answered my question about Greg Cross 😀

I hear ya Dan. I always try to be cautiously optimistic with Pitt. It really is time for pitt to step up and take control of the big East, if not now, when??? We are clearly the team on the upswing and probably have the most all around talent and depth. Now its time to step up and win. Looking forward to the season. I think Tino will be a pleasant surprise.

If you can’t be optimistic with this team you never will be. The key to Pitt’s entire season hangs in the balance of it’s first game. The non conference opener against Utah will be the kickoff for the entire nation’s college football fan base. A win by Pitt in an away game against a very good football team, that is on the upswing in their own right with the Utes going to the PAC 10 next year, will be a launching pad for Pitt player’s confidence going forward into a tough early schedule. The press coverage to be given to that game will be significant nationally. An impressive victory by Pitt under those circumstances will thrust Lewis into the Heisman limelight right from the start as well as priming Pitt for a top 10 team nationally. I’ve said it before, forget about playing for the Big East title, if Pitt wins huge against the Utes, there will be rumblings about National Championship implications attached to the Pitt vs. Miami game just down the road. This team, with just a couple things falling into place for them, could go undefeated! It will ALL be about believing in themselves, and if everbody gets on THAT bus early, the sky will be the limit. This team’s chemistry is excellent, this is one reason we’re seeing early commitments to Pitt from 4 star recruits. They see it too! This team is angry and hungry. Those back to back losses to WVA and Cincy last year put a fire into the belly of this team. That is a bitter pill to swallow when you know that you let it get away from you. The leaders of this year’s team aren’t going to let it happen again. Lets just hope that Sheard gets his legal nightmare settled quickly with a slap on the wrist which allows Wanny the opportunity to get him back and ready in camp for the opener. He will be missed if he remains suspended from the team for the first game. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m optimistic.

Yeah, I think if we go undefeated our scheudule is strong enough for us to get to the National Championship.

Obviously it’s a long shot. Lots of things have to go our way. But it’s not impossible.

Dr Tom – you are not just optimistic, but if you were on the PITT staff you’d be dangerously optimistic. This because you’d be leading the PITT team into doing what they have always seemed to do when faced with opportunity over the last 34 years… shoot themselves in the foot.

Do you remember the last time we heard PITT fans talk like this – back in August of 2008? Then BOOM – the Bowling Green game reared its head, the fans turned against the team and we ended up falling short of what should be our only true goal – the Big East Championship. So, what was a good 9-4 season was considered a disappointment to fans who expected too much.

What we, and in turn the PITT staff, have to do at this point is turn those players heads firmly toward the BE schedule so we can WIN SOMETHING THAT WE HAVEN’T UNDER DAVE WANNSTEDT!!. I say “we” because almost every kid on that roster reads these blogs and message boards.

Screw the MNC, forget the undefeated season. There is no better way for a season to go disastrously wrong than to build the player’s expectations up so unrealistically high that they think a minor setback – in which a loss at Utah would actually be – is the end of the world. Just ask Walt Harris.

No, DW must keep reminding these kids that no matter what happens in those first three weeks the main goal is to get to a BCS game via the BE championship because a second place finish doesn’t cut it. In stark reality those OOC games are a far distant second in importance to even the lowliest conference game.

PITT fans talk about the program letting them down continually. Well, don’t put yourself in that position then. It is patently unrealistic to look at this team, with a new QB, new 3/5 of the OL and new MLB and CBs and think that we are MNC caliber. That is rather ridiculous – but now if we go 10-2 or 9-3 and win the BE championship you’ll think we underachieved.

I hear you Reed, but this is not the 2008 team that was living off the hype of one inspired performance the previous year to win over their arch rival WVA. Come on, that team was coming off a losing season with a lot of question marks still present on both sides of the ball preseason 08. This is a totally different team and situation. This team knows what it takes to win and yet also has experienced crushing defeats that demonstrated very well how easily your goal can be snatched away from you when it is just within reach. Those lessons can’t be taught by a coach on the practice field they have to be experienced. I was at our bowl game last year after most of our fan base had given up on the team just because they hadn’t won the BE title. After that bowl win, talking with the players and watching their reaction to their come from behind win, you would have thought Pitt had won the BE and the BCS bowl game that went along with it. With the reserves recruited during Wannstedt’s tenure, this team has the talent and the ability now to reload, not just try to rebuild each year like in years past, . They can compete with any team on their schedule this year and expect to win IF they perform up to their potential. The intangible factor however is the emotional one. That factor swings momentum in tight games and produces the will to win in a kid that otherwise might hang his head and pack it in when adversity smacks him upside the head. Experiencing 1st hand this team’s feeling of accomplishment when they brought home that bowl victory in a second class “means nothing” bowl game after losing the previous two games that meant everything, demonstrated to me that this team possesses that all important intangible factor, the will to win. College football IS a game of emotion and this team is primed to take advantage of it this season. That is what I was eluding to in my previous post. This is a young team although very talented. My feeling on this season is predicated on the idea that winning begets more winning. If Pitt wins this first game look out, it could be a wild ride. If not, I’m not packing it in and I will gaurantee you that this team won’t be packing it in either because they have the experience of last year to feed off of and they want to win, badly. One game at a time, but mark my words, a win against Utah and Pitt is going to be hard to play against from there on out.

Reed, let’s start with not laying a terd on national TV and starting the season 0-1. We can go from there.

It is great for the program and team we are getting this national attention (again). But it is time to finally back it up.

Hail to Pitt.

Hey, new Panthers Fooball channel on youtube, will be posting another video as the season goes along.

link to youtube.com