Um, is it too late to join WVU in their lawsuit to leave the Big East early? I’m starting to come around to the idea of saying, “Screw doing it the right way to leave the conference. Time to burn some bridges and be an asshole about it.”

Why you ask? This:

Memphis and the Big East Conference are in the final stages of negotiations to make the Tigers an all-sports member of the Big East beginning in 2013, college football industry sources told CBSSports.com.

The Tigers would join the Big East with three other Conference USA members – Houston, SMU and UCF – for the 2013-14 school year. The Big East also will add Boise State and San Diego State as football-only members in 2013 and Navy in 2015.

SI.com’s Stewart Mandel noted that Memphis’ BCS rankings for the past 4 years have been: 115, 114, 112 and 96.

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So, less than a month after Pitt hired Eddie Faulkner as the running backs coach, he leaves for Wisconsin to be the Tight Ends Coach. Um, okay.

I think I need someone to explain to me what life is like up in Madison. You know, I get wanting to hire guys you know, trust and have been with you in some form before. These Wisconsin coaches, though, seem to be taking it to a new level. There cannot be more than a degree of separation from either Wisconsin or personal connections. This has led to a lot of hiring guys away from each other Doren, Chryst, Bielema — all hiring the same guys and raiding each other for one coach or another. It’s making me a little nervous.

I’m not exactly distraught by this loss to the staff. As noted when he was hired, Faulkner’s recruiting area was in MAC/Big 10 region. That seems well covered with or without him by the Pitt staff.

Chris Dokish makes the good point that this could/should be a blessing in disguise for Coach Chryst. The chance to hire someone with recruiting ties in New Jersey and/or Maryland.

No matter how many times in a row Pitt keeps beating Villanova, it will not make up for that Elite Eight game. But, it will have to do that Pitt keeps beating the Wildcats.

Well, I wrote it after the WVU game, but it bears repeating. This Pitt squad is Tray Woodall’s to lead on the court. When I watch Woodall bringing the ball up court and either Nasir Robinson or Lamar Patterson is going ahead pushing the opposing team’s defender up court. Keeping the defense at bay and from putting any pressure on the ball until Woodall crosses half court and can set the offense. It almost strikes me as the advance guards clearing and protecting the way for the commander.

A bit over-the-top? A little. But it kind of works. The other Pitt players fall in to line and place with Woodall leading this team. He brings a confidence that the rest of the team feeds. The hesitation. The stagnation at both ends. The confusion. All seem to have dissipated with Woodall out there.

This past week’s performance by Woodall also earned him Big East Player of the Week honors.

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If I’m correct (if?), this is the first Super Bowl Sunday game for Pitt in six years. Let’s hope the end is a little better than that one.

This a 2pm game on ESPN. Villanova is tied with the same conference record as Pitt with a 3-7 mark. The difference is they were also below average in the non-con side. Expect some TV commentary about both coaches having a down year at the same time.

Both teams feature frontcourts that tend to get exploited and is a little undersized at the power forward spot. The key, as always with a Jay Wright team, will be how the Wildcat guards are playing. Lots of high-level talent that came out of high school, but not nearly the success or consistency that would be expected by now.

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No not Fraud Graham. I’m talking basketball recruiting and one Torian Graham.

With Khem Birch gone, Pitt has an extra scholarship available. It hasn’t been clear whether Pitt was going to use it or bank it. Assuming that Steven Adams is one-and-done, Pitt has 3 scholarships for next year. The sense I have gotten from rumors, reports and such; is that Coach Jamie Dixon is seeing if he can get a very talented player or JUCO. He won’t, however, take a flyer on someone just because he has the scholarship available.

Some of the names that have been popping up are kids like Sheldon Jeter, Jakarr Sampson is getting attention, and Andrew Young (JUCO) for 2012. Dixon has obviously been looking at kids for 2013 (Stanford Robinson and Kris Jenkins), as well, but let’s stick to the present class.

According Adam Zagoria, Pitt is among the most persistent suitors for one Torian Graham.

According to his guardian, Craig Wilson, four schools are working hardest on the 6-foot-4 wing: N.C. State, Xavier, Pittsburgh and Oregon.

“Everything is still wide open right now, everybody’s still calling,” Wilson told SNY.tv Thursday by phone.

Graham is a 4-star, top-100, 6-4 shooting guard.

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Apparently the NBDL Canton Charge likes guys with ties to Pitt. Tyrell Biggs is on the squad. As is one-time Pitt player who transferred to UMass, Dante Milligan. (Sidenote, Luke Harangody has also been sent down to Canton.) In addition, this year’s squad features Antonio Graves.

Graves had actually carved out a nice career in Europe, until suffering a wrist injury and a botched rehab following surgery in Turkey. Another surgery later, he is back to trying to earn a living in basketball.

“They were really patient with me. I was in a cast for four or five months. I was in a cast for a month while I was on the roster.”

Graves sat out the first 10 games of the Charge’s 50-game season. League rules prohibit teams from carrying more than 10 players on the roster and there is no injury list. The organization thought highly enough of Graves to essentially play a man down for the season’s first month.

“We were confident in the type of player he was and what he could add to our team,” said 35-year-old Charge head coach Alex Jensen, a former Utah standout who served on Rick Majerus’ Saint Louis University coaching staff before joining the Charge in October. “When I first started here, I wanted to look down the road rather than just in the immediate future. We’re glad we kept him.”

Graves was a solid player for Pitt. Complete glue guy who played great defense by the end of his four years at Pitt.

The ACC today, announced the future set up for divisions and  scheduling.

As expected Pitt was placed in one of the present divisions and Syracuse was placed in the other. The idea of a North-South divisional set-up was never going to fly. First because putting Miami and FSU in the same division seems silly, but more importantly it would be bad for teams in the north to not have regular trips to Florida for recruiting.

Here’s how the divisions will look:

Coastal

Pitt

Virginia Tech

Duke

Virginia

Georgia Tech

North Carolina

Miami

Atlantic

Syracuse

Boston College

NC State

Wake Forest

Clemson

Florida St.

Maryland

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I know, it is the topic lately. Whether fans or media. With Travon Woodall healthy, Pitt is surging (Insider subs) with 3 straight wins. They look like a completely different team. The team left for dead as recently as last week now has a pulse.

And so goes all the talk about if Pitt can make the NCAA Tournament.

I do get it. Especially from the media side. It’s a guaranteed read when you talk about the bubble (trust me, the most commented most read stuff I did for NCAA Basketball FanHouse outside of the NCAA Tournament was “bubble” posts). It’s a big reason why you see these discussions happening earlier and earlier.

The importance of the NCAA Tournament and interest in it continues to thrive, and so all talk of who is in or out gets more attention/discussion. And following the Super Bowl on Sunday, you can bet that there will be even more of it.

Now here’s the reality. It’s too soon. It’s all theoretical. Is Pitt on the bubble? Are they outside the bubble? What do they have to do to make the Tournament? There are 8 games left for Pitt plus the Big East Tournament. That goes for all the other teams that you already hear being discussed in terms of “can they get in, get in the conversation, get on the bubble, etc.”

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Take this one with some incredibly huge grains of salt. After all, it comes from a high school recruit being told something by a coach.

Mountain Ridge’s Jarrod Harper, who inked his letter-of-intent to join the Mountaineers on Wednesday afternoon, said that WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen told him during the recruiting process that the Backyard Brawl would continue.

“It’s going to happen every other year, I’m pretty sure. Coach Holgorsen said that we’re going to switch, playing Maryland and Pitt,” said Harper. “I come from Maryland, so a lot of my friends are Terps fans. They always talk about West Virginia playing Maryland, whenever I’d get up there [to join the team]. Now we’re going to be playing them, I guess, every other year, I’m not sure yet.”

“At this time, we don’t have any information on future schedules,” said West Virginia football sports information director Mike Montoro via e-mail.

Not surprisingly neither did the SIDs at Maryland or Pitt. Maryland and WVU have a deal to meet every year through 2017.

Considering the unknown conference status of WVU for 2012 and Pitt for 2013, I have a hard time believing this is anything more than a coach blowing smoke up a recruit. Something that at worst Holgorsen can claim he merely speculated was a possibility, while talking to a recruit who asked about the Backyard Brawl.

One of my favorite things about signing day period is the day or two after. When the stories are told of these kids. I try to round-up all the local stories on each of the recruits. The kids who are getting a chance to have a full scholarship. Get to play football at the 1-A level. The brief chance to actually see the kids in their hometown when they are certainly the BMOC.

We have lauded them for their wisdom in choosing Pitt. For their potential. For many things, but almost as soon as they are signed we expect much of them from the moment they show up on the campus as freshman — and even before. Plus, with recruiting we are already turning to the next kids who should/must/have to be recruited. I’m as guilty of that as anyone else.

But, these posts are the ones to link and highlight the kids themselves and their decision. For every blue-chip recruit who could go anywhere and has a legitimate shot at the NFL, there are many more who are excited to compete at a high college level and get a scholarship for a great education.

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As the article below states, team rankings for recruiting swings like a pendulum depending on the source.  Chas did a good post regarding the differences in the recruit ranking services.  I decided to look back over the last six years of PITT recruiting to see what we actually did and it is kind of interesting.

Year       Coach          Rank          Avg.         # 5* & 4*                  W/L

’12           PC               39th            3.11       1-5*  3-4*

’11           TG               47TH          2.68         2-4*                   6-7

’10          DW              17^TH           3.21        1-5*  5-4*            8-5

’09          DW              31ST           3.11         5-4*                    10-3

’08          DW              25TH           3.37         3-5*  4-4*            9-4

’07          DW              8th              3.38         3-5*  8-4*            5-7

The highest ranking classes are when we had DW coming off a contract extension and the year afterward.  Our two worst classes were in the midst of the recent coaching changes. That isn’t rocket science to figure out why but I was interested in how the years stacked up in comparison.

This 2012 class ended very well and I give Paul Chryst a lot of credit for closing the recruiting season out in such a strong manner.  We probably will never know if our five defections were cases of the kids just not wanting to be at PITT or vice versa, PITT not really wanting them to accept the scholarship for any reason (which I lean toward).

I think Conwell was a player the new staff would have liked to keep but the AZ draw was too much and Conwell wanted to go to the guys who had been recruiting him.

We had some two academic casualties and  one rescinded scholarship offer for bad tweeting.

That said, Paul Chryst stated in some interviews yesterday that PITT still had some scholarship available for 2012 to use if they wanted to.  We know they are keeping one open for Standifer when he visits on Feb 10^th, two days after he visits Vanderbilt.  Not sure we’ll get that one.

This was a good recruiting job by Chryst & Co. and should calms the fears PITT fans had on the rumors that Chryst wasn’t a good recruiter.  It was pretty obvious that he made the important phone calls early on to secure our top recruits; those who publicly stated they didn’t receive calls from him… well, there was a reason for that apparently.

I think we should be getting pretty excited about what the 2013 recruiting class can bring in Chryst’s second year as HC.  IMO we’ll field a decent team in 2012 and one that will be competitive in every game.  Do that and PITT becomes more of an attraction than perhaps it was this year overall.  Chryst will have established his offense and defense so recruits will see what his over-arching football philosophies are and that will help to publicly cement his ‘brand’ of football.

Maybe most importantly recruits will see how well Chryst and Bostad develop players, even in their first year.  I think this will apply to the OL especially.  We all know how they played this last season and we’ll have essentially the same personnel returning in 2012 with the addition of Ricketts.  If they can mold that group into an effective unit and get our offense going from that starting point then we’ll see other prospective OL recruits sit up and take notice.

Good class but not a great one, which is to have been expected.  But hey – when you land players like Shell, Voytik, Bisnowaty and Holtz;  players at positions of need and ones who will see playing time in 2012, or certainly in 2013… it’s a good class.

Congrats to the PITT staff for their hard work.

P/S: Sorry about the graph but I’m not messing with it any longer.

Who’s class recruiting ranking do you want to choose to believe for Pitt?

Rivals.com says Pitt is the 47th best class. Behind other Big East teams like Rutgers (23), Louisville (38) and WVU (45).

247Sports.com has Pitt at 40th (they were very low on Voytik).  Rutgers (21) and WVU (36) in front of Pitt.

Scout.com at 39th. With WVU (26), Cinci (32) and Rutgers (33) ahead of Pitt.

ESPN.com says 30th. Rutgers (25) and Louisville (27) are the only ones ahead.

I don’t pretend to understand it, except that the further you get from the top 15-20 recruiting classes the wider the variance between various rankings. The formulas are a mix of player rankings and volume. Which is how Cinci with 30 commits with an average star ranking of 2.73 on Scout.com is up so high. Scout.com only takes the top-25 players from a signing class in their rankings. What’s funny is Pitt will likely fall a little further in their rankings because Scout.com lists Pitt with 18 kids — still including Pitts and Jarrett in there it seems. So Pitt will lose points based on overall volume.

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Last minute decommits happen. But rarely is the moment captured.

Jawand Blue is a 3-star recruit out of Boca Raton, Florida. He had a lot of offers, though, from everyone from Pitt, to Michigan St., Wisconsin, WVU. He chose Virginia Tech.

At the last minute, he got an offer he really wanted: Miami.

Well on signing day, he decided to go with Miami. He gave VT Coach Frank Beamer a phone call to break the news to him.

The moment was captured via Twitter by a local reporter.

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It’s signing day. The annual event. A culmination of predominantly male adults obsessing about the decisions of athletic young men in the age category of 17-18 years. It never stops being creepy.

As usual, this will be something of an open thread as we clock-in who officially signs with Pitt, and any info on any surprises. This being a serious and solemn event, it will be treated with the utmost reverence on this site.

Usually the process for marking whether a kid has signed or not is done by noting whether Rivals.com and Scout.com are listing them as signed or not. But things are a-changin’.

Pitt’s athletic department will be keeping things up to date — so the claim goes. It’s the first time they are giving it a shot so I guess we’ll see how they do.

There will be a webcam on the fax machine. Analysis of the signees between 9am and noon by Bill Hillgrove, Pat Bostick and Don Rebel (spolier alert: they are all awesome), and tweets of the signees faxed Letter of Intent with some alacrity.

Around 3pm there will be a live webcast of Coach Paul Chryst waxing rhapsodic over all the fine gentlemen who will be Panthers.

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