I just want to do a quick recap of what Chas asked me to do during the spring practices.  I’m filling in for him while he takes a bit of a breather from writing so much about the PITT basketball season.  That’s over with now, and while there is still a lot to discuss about that, Chas will be back with some football articles soon – as he already has been.  I’ll follow through until the Spring Game and then periodically afterward.

One gentle reminder.  This is a sports blog.  As such it doesn’t follow the journalistic rules that the more established media sources do such as newspapers and magazines… at least that is how I envision it and how it was explained to me years ago when I accused Chas of “speculating” on an issue.  Of course, he quickly commented back that “this is what this venue is for”.

So, there is some factual stuff on here, mostly from linked sources if I can and I’ll try to cite those, but there is a whole lot of speculation and author’s opinions. I’ll try to point that out when I do so also. As to research – it’s all about scanning the internet and gleaning info from other sources.  Just wanted to make that clear.

That said, today I figured if I’m going to be writing about this new “High Octane” offense I should probably know a little bit of what I’m talking about. So I went to the local library and sat down with a book titled New Offenses in College Football or something to that effect. It wasn’t too old and they had a chapter on the Spread Offense written by our favorite Hoopie; Rich Rodriguez.

I figured what the hell, it was good enough for our OC Calvin Magee when he worked for RichRod and WVU kicked our asses pretty well with it, so it should be good enough for me, right?…  Wrong!

It was written by Idiot Savants who do nothing but gabble and spew esoteric football crap to make themselves sound important.  Drawdown this and zone that.  Throw in Bang, Bounce and Bend and wiggle fly from the 2-back out to the boundary.  Whatever happened to ‘Send your biggest and fastest WR down the sideline and throw the damn football as far as you can‘?

Oh, that’s right… that didn’t work out too well for us last year, did it?.

I did get the ‘Bubble Screen’ stuff though.  That’s because I remembered that our old OC had it tattooed backwards on his forehead so when he shaved on Saturday mornings he was reminded of his gameplan for the day.

I literally was told to quiet down twice because I was barking my displeasure out loud (in my defense I didn’t realize that, I thought it was all my words were still in my brain).  Finally the librarian came over and asked me ‘for the last time’ to please be quiet.  I asked her what the problem was and she said… “You just screamed “WTF? Who does this crap?!?”  So I put the book down and left.

I’m telling you, my opinion of Offensive Coordinators dropped like Charlie Sheen’s pants when seeing his “Goddesses” after trying to read that.  I’m surprised they could get a plain “I do” out at their wedding ceremonies.

The upshot is that if anyone wants detailed descriptions of what actually happens out on the field you aren’t going to get it from me.  I’ll have to limit my stuff to the “PITT really sucked out there today” or “The field goal kicker needs a new leg” level of discourse.  You can go always on the message boards and read what some old broken down ex-high school football coaches argue about with each other if you want more than that.

Odds and Ends

Continuing with the ‘visiting authors’ series, here is James Michener on the history of PITT football:

The tradition of playing the game of football at the University of Pittsburgh is old and rooted in the earth itself.  Along the banks of the Monongahela River, where a majority of the rocks exposed at the surface are sedimentary and were deposited during the Paleozoic Era,  and where the Appalachian event  left the most evidence and has continued to shape the landscape of the southwestern part of the state, the Pennsylvania terrain has also been affected by continental rifting during the Mesozoic era. This is the solid foundation for Blue and Mustard Yellow dominance on the football field.

The first Europeans arrived in western PA in the 1710s as traders. Michael Bezallion, quarterback Tino Sunseri’s great, great, great grandfather, was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a manuscript in 1717 and then sold locally-grown produce to the other travelers in a small strip-like plot of land.  Later that year, European traders established posts and settlements in the Fort Pitt area.  The university’s ancestors first began to settle in the region in 1748, when the Ohio Company, an English land speculation company, won a grant of 200,000 acres to build the iconic PITT Stadium, where mostly white European descendants of the first settlers, along with some key running backs and wide receivers of African descent, won a national title in 1976.

From a post at present-day Cumberland, Maryland, the company began to construct an 80-mile wagon road to the Monongahela River, where the Steelers and the Panthers share facilities, employing a Delaware Indian Chief named Nemacolin who lived there as a guide. Thus began PITT football.