Kentucky QB Brian Hartline apparently is a much-maligned figure. This column from a couple days ago advocates on his behalf.
21. A final verse of Hartline bashing. No sooner had the final seconds ticked off on Kentucky’s loss to Tennessee, than some UK football fans were agitating for the Cats to use their bowl trip as a training opportunity for Morgan Newton and Ryan Mossakowski rather than play fifth-year senior starter Mike Hartline.
20. Poor Hartline. Did Kentucky sit senior starter Andre Woodson for the 2007 Music City Bowl to train heir apparent Curtis Pulley? Of course not. No difference here. All Hartline did this year was have one of the best senior seasons of any UK QB (3,178 passing yards; 23 touchdowns with nine interceptions).
19. Joker Phillips’ response. “We gotta go try to win the game,” the Kentucky Coach said of UK’s appearance against Pittsburgh. “… Mike gives us the best chance.”
Hartline was also named 4th team All-SEC (A 4th team All-SEC? Really?) QB. So, given Pitt’s porous secondary and linebackers, this figured to be a major concern.
His status, though, may be in question after a little Thursday night carousing.
According to the police report, the incident started when Hartline and several others got into an argument in a cab on the way home from the Tin Roof bar sometime before 3 a.m. Police were called to Crescent Avenue on a disturbance call, and officers first observed Hartline arguing with several women. Police say Hartline was yelling, screaming and cursing at Samantha Sheeran. When he saw a police car, Hartline reportedly began walking quickly along Crescent Avenue toward University. According to the police report, Hartline was unsteady on his feet, had slurred speech and smelled like alcohol.
Sheeran told police that Hartline hit her in the lower jaw area. Police say there was no visible injury, but officers on the scene did take an assault report.
Hartline was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and alcohol intoxication. He has not been charged with assault at this time.
Because of no appearance of physical injury the police apparently informed the woman that she would have to swear out a complaint for assault charges to be filed. She has not done so at this time.
Without any assault charges, I don’t see why Hartline still would not play in the Compass Bowl. Dumb, yes. But relatively minor and the stuff that gets pled down to a small fine. And at least he and his crew did take a taxi after being out drinking.
If assault charges are filed, then it becomes a different issue. Kentucky head coach Joker Phillips might have no choice but to suspend Hartline.
Added plus to this story. Police also arrested one girl from the group was charged with “disorderly conduct, alcohol intoxication, possession of alcohol by a minor and having a fraudulent ID.” The 20-year old also happens to be a Kentucky Cheerleader. Odds are almost certain she just found a way not to go to Birmingham.
Further, B12 champ Oklahoma who is expected to whip UConn (and probably will) only beat Cincy by 2 pts earlier this year
I will take those 20 for a couple thousand bucks. You in?? Hartline is the starter but is not the best QB on Kentucky.
So, just wondering why you’d think they would be ‘jacked up’ for a meaningless bowl – and it is regardless of who got fired – rather than the two games we HAD to win to get to a BCS bowl.
They sleepwalked through those games and flat out quit in the second half.
Hell, we thought they would be ‘fired up’ against Miami and ND for that matter. Might as well go back to the Sun Bowl and… wait!…we didn’t give a crap in that game either.
This team has real and fundamental problems that precluded them from ever getting fully engaged after the Utah loss… and IMO even before the season. I highly doubt ‘playing one for the Gipper’ is going to happen with this squad.
I see it as pretty cut and dry, but I realize a lot of the Pitt fans who sound like Pitt haters on here see it otherwise, that the Pitt players have a lot to play for and Kentucky has less to play for and is tanking bad at the end of the season. If you think these players (both teams) don’t think this game is important to them, then you understand very little about people who play competitive sports. That’s very typical of the kind of people who post to these sites.
We are in a bowl game (something Pitt only achieved once in my five years at Pitt – Liberty Bowl in ’97), and most of you whining fans got your wish when Wanny got fired, so it’s time to support the program and your school instead of acting like a bunch commuter-school Penn State branch campus fans who have no real attachment to your school pride.
Hail to Pitt!
Go back and read Zeise’s articles starting as early as mid-October and Paulk’s article this morning… they constantly allude to real problems with the football team – both how they played and in the locker room… it is painfully obvious to anyone who can do any amount of deductive thinking that DW did indeed ‘lose’ the team rather early on – and the results showed that glaringly.
But when he started making decisions that were so obviously based on his saving his own job then I decided enough was enough.
Ask yourself why did those things you mentioned in your post happen… and all roads lead back to Dave Wannstedt. He is the HC, he was the person responsible for the player’s actions on and off the field and he was the person who would be replaced if the job didn’t get done.
So spare me the histrionics in defending Dave Wannstedt and I suggest to turn your finger pointing on his firing from either the players or the “whining fans” (who after all were in lockstep with the PITT administration in wanting a change) and point directly to the root cause and main reason… DW himself.
And we do have a lot of whining fans on these pages. It’s the nature of message boards, but it still gets tiresome. I’m amazed there aren’t more Pitt fans on here calling some of these people out. I’m not going to apologize for that. It’s amazing how many people get on these message boards and bitch and moan about someone else and the second you call them on it their tampons fall out and they have a hissy fit.
If playing ranked teams on national TV didn’t do it…
If playing an arch rival at home didn’t do it…
If playing for a BCS bowl didn’t do it…
Perhaps if PITT promotes Cignetti (not advocating it) they might get some emotion going… but the Head Coach and the players have failed miserably at this all season long.
I’d love to see a win for both the program and to send DW on his way. I’m just not about to hold my breath waiting to see if the players respond emotionally when they showed apathy at other key points during the season.
I’m as baffled as anyone as to why Dave’s teams failed so bad on a national stage. I’ve said it before that I think he wanted to be their friend more than their football coach. I just wonder what it is we are hoping for in our football program. It needs to be said over and over again, this is not a professional sports franchise, it’s our Alma Mater. I’m not just trying to take a jab at WVU but I genuinely care about our academic integrity and our image as an institution of higher learning. The sports programs are supposed to be something we rally around, in good times and in bad. That’s what brings students and alumni together. The people that just want to see their team win at all costs aren’t good fans, good students, or good alumni. I like a little accountability and you know what, I like griping about Dave as much as the next guy, it’s kind of fun.
Everyone knows there’s a lot of business involved here. It comes down to tickets on this one. If Pedersen couldn’t sell them with Dave as the coach, then I guess Dave had to go. Dave’s fault on that one for not following through on his own expectations for the program, I’m just not sure Pitt made the best decision for the University. I hope they did, I just don’t have a great feeling about where this is headed.
