While discussing PITT’s prospective passing game (hold the applause) on a message board this morning I came across some information that opened my eyes about how Chryst as an OC approached using his personnel to move the ball through the air.

Looking back over Wisconsin’s last five seasons it is apparent that Chryst loves to use his TEs in the passing game. His TEs were super productive and one was always in the team’s top three in receptions each season:

2011 – Pedersen, 30/356 yards; 8 TDs; 3^rd in receptions

2010 – Kendricks, 43/663 yards; 5 TDs; 1^st

2009 – Graham, 51/624 yards; 7 TDs; 2^nd

2008 – Graham, 40/540 yards; 5 TDs; 1^st & Beckum, 23/264 0 TDs; 4^th

2007 – Beckum, 75/982 yards; 6 TDs; 1^st

Hubie Graham, Carswell and Carozzoni have to love these stats and you can see why TE Scott Orndoff chose to play at PITT under our new HC.  Compare those Wisky receiving stats to how PITT has used the TE in the past and we see there is a marked difference

2011 – H. Graham, 28/325 yards; 3 TDs; 3rd

2010 – Cruz, 19/213 yards; 2 TDs; 6^th

2009 – Dickerson, 49/529 yards; 10 TDs; 2^nd

2008 – Byham, 20/260 yards; 1 TD; 6^th

2007 – Byham, 15/210 yards; 1 TD; 5^th

With that I’d put Dickerson down as more of an H-Back/WR than a TE during his good SR year in 2009.  Our other TE that year, Nate Byham, had 10/108 yards and 0 TDs.

An interesting and encouraging note is that all these Wisconsin TEs, up to 2011, have been drafted into the NFL and their current TE, Jacob Pedersen, is going into his JR ranked the #6 TE in the country.  For PITT both Dickerson and Byham were drafted but Dickerson was drafted as a WR rather than a TE.

So looking ahead to 2012 we can optimistically draw on the fact that Sunseri had a pretty good connection going with Hubie Graham last season as Graham caught more passes as a TE (28) than did any other PITT TE in the last five years, again discounting Dickerson.  Add another decent receiving TE into the mix with Drew Carswell, who caught 13 balls for 140 yards last season, and I think Chryst and Rudolph will rely on these two as he had his Wisconsin TEs in the past.