It still holds up, for violent fun.
Spring football practice kicks off in about a month. Coach Todd Graham is starting the media rounds anew. As Mendy Nestor in the Pitt Athletic department was kind enough to let us know this morning.
Coach Graham is meeting with the media today. Every time I listen to him talk I get fired up.
She also attached a camera-phone shot of the meeting.
So, we know a rash of stories on Coach Graham and Pitt football will be in the pipeline.
Whoops. I didn’t even finish this post, and Zeise has posted something about the meeting.
Today several members of the media got our first real sit down interview opportunity with Todd Graham. It lasted more than an hour and he really hit on a lot of different topics.
Here are some quick observations and then I’ll have more later when I can sit down and try and go through the tape (it is literally about 70 minutes or so).
** Graham is passionate and genuine. He believes what he is saying and he cares about his players. He talked a lot about building trust and relationship, he talked about building character and integrity among his players and he made it very clear that expectations are very high.
** Graham is detailed oriented and will expect the same from his players. He talked at length about “doing the little things right every time” like, for instance, players must always have their shirts tucked in when in the weight room.
Tucked in shirts in the weight room? Picturing members of the O- and D-line that way. Not good images.
Back to an article last week about Coach Graham looking to recruit all over the map — but especially Texas.
Under Graham, whose staff includes six assistants with Texas ties, the recruiting target broadened. Perhaps the most interesting hire is quarterbacks coach Todd Dodge, who led Southlake Carroll High to four Texas Class 5A state championships and a 79-1 record in his final five seasons. He also spent three-plus seasons as head coach at North Texas before being dismissed in October.
“With the ‘Todd and Todd Show,’ we can get the quality kids out of there,” said Tony Gibson, Pitt’s recruiting coordinator and cornerbacks coach. “We don’t want to get the seventh- and eighth-best players. We want to try to compete and get the best.”
Said Vital: “If you have those two guys sitting in a living room of a kid, that is going to make a tremendous difference.”
Receivers coach Mike Norvell grew up in Texas and spent the past four years on Graham’s staff at Tulsa. He calls Texas high school football “an incredible thing,” with stadium capacities approaching 30,000.
“I have a bunch of relationships in the state,” Norvell said, noting that the addition of TCU to the Big East in 2012 makes recruiting that area especially vital. Spreading Pitt’s recruiting net is important, but Gibson, who used to live in Uniontown, emphasized that the focus must remain in Pennsylvania.
It will be interesting to see. Especially in time.
When Wannstedt came into the job, there was a lot of talk and some early success in grabbing kids out of Florida. Then the focus completely shifted away from Florida to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland — driving distances. Harris became focused, for a few reasons, in trying to mine Ohio.
Every coach has ideas about the type of player and where to recruit them. With a focus on Texas, I’m guessing this means one of the other stipulations to Graham’s contract was an increased budget for recruiting.
A Bryant, H Blades, G Lee, C Sessions, C Harriott, G Musatakas, G Romeus, J Sheard … to name only a few
I think we will without question see a much more disciplined and focused team as compared to the wanny era, hopefully it translates into some wins.
Also, Kolby Gray is being moved back from safety to QB. Looks like Tino should start filling out his transfer papers or find another position.
Not sure about Eastern PA and NJ, though
Kolby Gray back to QB (interesting to note he’s from Texas) and Pat Bostick has had enough of backing up a guy with less talent than him and has decided to concentrate on grad school. Good luck to him since he was so mishandled by the previous regime.
Which equates to less experienced competition for Tinny. And I’m not to thrilled about that.
Having Tinny as QB is going to take some of the luster of the new high energy, high octane offense we’ve been hearing about. IMHO
Here’s hoping that Myer’s or Gonzalez or Gray are the real deal. (or at least one of them)
Having Tinny as QB is going to take some of the luster off the new high energy, high octane offense we’ve been hearing about. IMHO
There’s your answer if that is correct.
Always follow the $$$$.
Again, as been the custom of this blog … take a shot at the ‘old regime’ even when it is not even warranted.
Just remember .. while it is very likely that a ‘college’ coach will be more productive for this program and things are looking up … we really won’t know for sure until a couple of years from now.
Melvinbennet…I hope you’re not right about ESPN, though you could be. I know that ESPN really does try to separate their TV broadcasting from their journalistic integrity (i.e., not telling their reporters where/when the LeBron announcement was until they figured it out for themselves). I think it’s just that Texas is undefeated in the Big 12, and they have a huge fan base, so they’re getting a little more publicity.
I don’t think I was taking a shot at the old regime.
It’s a fact that Bostick was mishandled by the old regime. If we have to rehash that, he was thrown to the wolves his true freshmen year, after he missed 99% of training camp. The fact they had nobody else to play QB except a true freshman who had missed 99% of training camp shows just how mishandled the whole thing was. But hey who am I to attack defenders of the old regime. It is was it is. (in this case was)
We know he has his undergrad degree and is working towards finishing his graduate degree. He’s obviously very bright to do it in this kind of compressed time-frame. So it seems this is one of those increasingly rare instances to take the news at face value.
What was said was that Texas is playing the best basketball right now. You can’t really argue with that. It’s a weekly poll, so they’re simply saying that right now Texas should be #1. Katz said that even though he’d vote them #1 in the next poll, it doesn’t mean he’d pick them to win it all.
Pitt is playing without Gibbs, so there are clearly some offensive questions until we see how he comes back. That’s why they’re not getting the love right now. However, I think Katz all but said he felt Pitt would get the overall #1 seed – far more important than the polls ranking – if they continued to win in conference play.
I know it sounds really stupid, but if you donate a dime to Pitt football you cannot discuss it with this kid, or his family, in any way. NCAA rules. I have known Brandon Nosovitch’s (PA football athlete of the year) parents for five years, but if his mom asks me how my kid likes Pitt, as she usually does, I’m not even sure what I can and can’t say anymore. Gotta love the NCAA.
Expect to see him around the program in some capacity.
But this has been in the works for some time with him and wasn’t predicated in any way on the new staff or new offensive systems. As a matter of fact Coach Graham tried very hard to convince both Pat Jr and Pat Sr to change his mind and stay on roster.
I hear what you’re saying about the NCAA its all do as I say not as I do bullshit. And it doesn’t appear as if that will change anytime soon. Like with the Terrelle Pryor situation they don’t suspend him for the game where they stand to lose money but it’s alright to take half of his senior year. And possibly tarnish his future NFL prospects. Thats all fine and dandy because it doesn’t affect their bottom line. Anyway I DO NOT donate any money to the University of Pittsburgh mainly because I’m a poor college kid myself, haha, and don’t maintain contact with Jesse. I just remember watching him play and know he would be an excellent fit in Coach Graham’s scheme, and since Coach Graham is familiar with the Oklahoma football scene it just seems like a good match. The main reason I made that post was to see if anyone knew what Coach Graham’s e-mail address is so I could forward him that highlight tape.
Nice one, Chas!
Something else you might be interested in: Coach Haywood introduced himself to the players by yelling at them. Coach Graham was cordial and respectful and fielded their questions.
Sorry, couldn’t resist the sarcasm. Go Coach Graham. He says all the right things in my book.
As I had previouly mentioned, he is a much more likely candidate for a grad asistantship … or I guess another admin post as Reed indicates.
“Graham said he will expect players to look him in the eye during meetings, come prepared to take notes, sit without slouching, wear hats properly, tuck in their shirts and take off their earrings and bandanas inside the practice facility.
Graham said he wore an earring in college, but his ban represents “a physical symbol that this isn’t about you, it’s about team.”
He has met no resistance to the ban, but if a top recruit questioned him, “I guess he is going to go somewhere else. If your earring is that important to you, then you probably won’t fit.”
Throw in a 5:00 am “Boot Camp” for the players and read this article by Zeise in the P-G and you’ll understand.
If all this sounds familiar, and it should given that we read just about the same things back in late December when Haywood was hired, it is because this approach was a strong condition of employment by the University Administration.
PITT fans don’t want to believe it but a hugely contributing factor in DW’s firing was the breakdown of discipline, and his effective leadership, on the team last season, including his wildly inconsistent application of holding players accountable.
BTW – the PITT administration offered Pat Bostick a full ride student scholarship for next year, which he accepted.
I believe in this case it was more of Coach Graham wanting Pat Bostick to be there for some very solid reasons – a knowledgeable and capable backup QB if needed and a great role model in both his actions on and off the field and in that Bostick is very well liked by his teammates.
As for the other three: Gonzales needs so much work. His descion making/technique/forcing the ball/discipline in HS works against him. He in my mind has the biggest hill to climb to be the starter.
Myers, just as Gonzo, needs to work on technique. But unlike Gonzo, Myers displays good decsion making, accuracy and is consitant. He will have to work hard. If he learns graham’s o, he definately has a chance to be the man.
Gray was never given a chance by wanny. Kind of understand that since he played in a spread o in hs. He only started two years but had around 5,000 yds pasing and 1,500 yds rushing. During those 2 years he had 40 tds/8 ints. He has just as good of chance as anyone, and playing in a spread in hs is a plus.
My money is on either myers or gray.
tgraham@athletics.pitt.edu
BTW my vote is for Myers for QB. His high school videos shows me that he has a cannon for an arm!
It is an interesting psychology note to see the different reactions to Haywood & Graham. Both carry the same message as to discipline and work and routine, etc. But both deliver it a different way. You can never overstate the value of demeanor, ethusiaism and personality.
Could this mean a preference for a Texas QB? I do think the QB competition will be wide open.
FWIW, I have a friend who knows a starter for Pitt very well. The starter says that the team, to a man, are in Coach Graham’s corner and really like him.
He said that he didn’t have much exposure to Haywood but he didn’t think Haywood would ever nearly as liked as Graham