Recruiting never ends. Even for the 2011 class. Pitt has apparently added a new WR from the JUCO ranks ($).

His name is Joshua Brinson from El Camino College in Torrance, California. Brinson is originally from Miami, Florida. The El Camino roster (PDF)lists him at 6-2, 195 pounds.

Based on this, Brinson was originally a signee of UAB back in 2008. A 2-star WR out of high school. UAB was his top option followed by Kent State.

It would appear that Brinson was considered one of the top JUCO WRs available ($). You might be able to watch some highlights of Brinson here.

Coach Todd Graham had complained that there wasn’t sufficient depth at the WR spot at the start of spring practices. This is one way to address it.

Last week when Pat Skerry became the guy for Towson and Khem Birch was having his Twitter moment (and panicking the easily panicked), there was some questioning why Assistant Coach Brandin Knight was planning a meeting later that week with Birch to reassure him, but not Coach Jamie Dixon.

As usual, there is a decent reason. Coach Dixon made advanced plans to be elsewhere — and was. In this case New Zealand.

Instead, University of Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon is in Wellington barking out instructions to young Kiwi hopefuls at a two-day camp at Newtown’s Southwest Stadium.

Judging by the picture at the top of the article, that includes a future Panther that Coach Dixon obviously wanted to pay a visit.

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Uh-huh.

To recap, the Villanova trustees were supposed to vote on moving to 1-A football and becoming the 10th Big East football team. It all looked like a go. This despite Pitt raising some concerns about the size of the stadium where the Wildcats would play.

Well, as the day of the vote is only one day away, more of the Big East football members seem to be getting a little nervous about the stadium issue. So the vote has been delayed.

The chief sticking point, according to the source, is Villanova’s plan to use PPL Park in Chester, the 18,500-seat home of the Philadelphia Union, as its primary venue.

PPL Park would be the smallest stadium in the league. Potential plans to increase the seating capacity to roughly 30,000 have not convinced all the Big East schools to support the move. However, some Big East football members are in favor, and it still could be approved, the source said.

Aside from the financial issues of such a small stadium — all expansion of the stadium to even 30,000 is  — is at the mercy of the soccer team ownership. That means no set timeline that Villanova can lay out for that issue. So the Big East might want Villanova to explore the possibility of other venues (Lincoln Financial is out of play until 2017). So things are back on hold.

Here’s another view of Coach Graham’s post practice video done on Saturday afternoon.  This is the first time that he really seems to be telling it like it is and details the problems that he’s seeing out on the practice field.  Not that they are insurmountable by any means, but it is refreshing to hear him speak plainly on the progress of the team and on what actually transpired during the scrimmage.   For some reason I can’t find it on any normal PITT websites so this one was done on PITT’s Facebook page.

I love this Facebook comment on the video:  “Frank C. Rizzo: Very Bad not only is the body language indicating bad news but the speach indicates Depression. Look for a 2 win 10 loss season.” Wow, not only is the ex-Governor a football critic but he’s a practicing Psychologist to boot!  Must be a Penn State fan.

Bostick has another article on the individual units, this one dealing with the Defensive Secondary.  I think most of us are pretty worried about this part of our game and are taking a real ‘wait and see’ attitude toward how well the DBs do.

We’ve discussed Buddy Jackson and what the staff thinks about him at this point, but apparently Antwuan Reed is catching the staff’s eye also.

The perimeter of the Pitt secondary showcases a crop of talented corners. The most battle-tested member of this group is senior Antwuan Reed. Reed has 12 career starts, and has picked off two passes during his career. Reed’s combination of experience and dependability will serve the Panthers’ secondary well this season. “Looking at last year’s film, Reed, he’s very steady and dependable,” Coach Graham said. “There is no substitute for experience.”

Well, coach, there actually is and that is learning how to do something differently.  Reed seems to have been a penalty flag magnet whenever he was in the games last season.

And in what might be labeled “The Most Optimistic Thought of 2011” Bostick writes this: “The Pitt secondary has enough skill and experience to provide great coverage behind a blitz-happy front seven.” We do have some talent back there with Holley, Hendricks, K’Wuan Williams, Tags, etc… Let’s see if they can really produce to expectations this season.

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