First off – our coaching staff has no idea what they are playing with by naming the defense “The NITRO”.  Nitroglycerin is very unstable and tends to blow itself up.  Everything else that gets destroyed is just collateral damage.  Not exactly what you want from a defense whose name should make the opposition think it’s rock solid and impenetrable.   Unless they meant “NITRO” in its other usage, which is a blood vessel dilator for heart angina victims, in that case they should have just called it “The VIAGRA” which does basically the same thing and would be way cooler.

Jerry DiPaola of the Trib-Review has a nice article on the PITT defense… Not a lot of surprises but reaffirms that Aaron Donald is in the starting DL at this point.  He also touched on the culture change from 2010 to now.  These quotes stand out;

Caragein said the players, many of whom were angry when Wannstedt was forced out, have embraced the new coaching staff.  “If we are going to keep harping on the coaching change and be mad,” he said, “we are never going to grow as a team, and we never are going to take the next step to be better.  “Coming together is a great start, and we are going in the right direction.”

This is exactly what we PITT fans need to hear at this point.  But more importantly,  players like Caragein and other multiple year starting seniors have to be pounding that into the heads of every kid on the roster.  It was the worst kept secret in the football program that there was a real lack of leadership in the clubhouse by the senior class last year and that has to change for 2011. (more…)

Before I do the media rundown of Pitt’s 23 point win over UNC-Ashville, I’ll take a moment to explain why I wasn’t too worried about Pitt’s start yesterday.

First, Pitt had been off for over a week. You have to expect some rust — and sure enough it was there. Second, you just cannot keep trying to read too much into every moment of a game. It becomes easy in hindsight after a team loses. Oh, there were the signs. It becomes the cliche — weak spot X finally caught up to team Y. But in a one-and-done format it comes down to the teams, their skill and talent, match-ups and luck.

Look at Louisville. Coming into the Tournament, they were the runner-up in the Big East Tournament. They had won seven of their last nine. Beaten teams like Pitt, UConn and Notre Dame. They looked like the second hottest team in the Big East. They came out and laid an egg against Morehead St. Maybe they would have come back to win if Knowles hadn’t gotten hurt in the second half, but would you, did you in your bracket expect that?

Remember Pitt last year? Absolutely dismantled Oakland in the opening game and then lost to Xavier. Or how about a few years back, when Pitt won the Big East Tournament? They throttled some poor team and then played horribly against Michigan State to bow out early. The year Pitt went a Scottie effin’ Reynolds lay-up short of the Final Four, Pitt putzed around for most of the game against ETSU.

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There appears to be a wall of secrecy being built around the PITT football program by our new staff as practices have been placed off limits to the media, save for the first 40 minutes. So, what leaks out is controlled by the staff itself and by the PITT media department. That’s OK because it leave more room for us fans to make stuff up, right? One nice change is that PITT has put out a website that is specific to Spring Camp – PITT Spring Insider. It isn’t bad actually and has had a video posted each day with some accompanying articles.

The second PITT practice was held on the Southside yesterday and the focus was on creating both big plays, being successful on five and having the defense create turnovers (TO).  An interesting stat so far is that our D has forced 14 TOs which includes 4th down stops – which they accomplished a few yesterday. Surely that 4th down stop would have been avoided if the O had called a time out and punted.

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Is that how you feel? That because Pitt started out rusty and played a less than outstanding first half, that the final score masked issues?

Nah. Sorry. I wasn’t that worried or bothered. UNC-Ashville was playing as hard as they could in the first half and piled up the fouls trying to match Pitt. Pitt dominated on the boards. They were rusty in the first half. Shooting poorly, more than anything else — 11-30. The defense was there, however, and Pitt pulled away steadily in the second half.

Media recap tomorrow.

Next up, Butler. They got by ODU in the final second — literally with a Matt Howard basket as time expired. Now I won’t lie. Butler makes me nervous. A guy like Howard has the potential to be streaky with his shooting from outside. And if he is dragging Nasir Robinson outside on shots, it hurts Pitt for rebounding. Then there’s Shelvin Mack.

And yes, Pitt players know they have to play better in the first half.

Indiana native McGhee, who grew up about 40 miles northeast of Butler, knows Pitt can’t afford any more slow starts.

“We played real sluggish in the first half,” McGhee said. “We didn’t move the ball well. We had some careless turnovers. If you do that against a good team like Butler, you are going to burn yourself down into a hole.”