I’m not saying Coach Paul Chryst does his level best to minimize any hype and attention to football in the spring, but cancelling the Blue-Gold Scrimmage and having the first practice on the same evening as Selection Sunday. Well, it’s hard not to make some inferences.

Between my absences and basketball season, football talk has gotten a short shrift from me. Not that there has been much beyond speculation for most of the last month. Still, there were some items.

Bryan Murphy and Mark Giubilato have left the team, though the two will remain at Pitt to finish their academics. Both will be seniors. Some attrition was expected simply because the scholarship numbers weren’t adding up correctly.

From a football standpoint, Giubilato isn’t a big loss. He was the back-up fullback to Jaymar Parrish. He was on special teams as well, but realistically he wasn’t going to see much action this year.

Murphy has battled injuries and academics in his career at Pitt. It has sapped what seemed like a very promising time at Pitt when he earned playing time as a freshman. Yes, he was going to face stiff competition Given the overall lack of playmakers on defense  and questions with players returning from injury on that side of the ball, there is a little concern in losing more depth from the defensive end spot.

As for spring practice. Gee, I wonder what the primary story line will be? Let me think about it. I’m drawing a blank. Don’t worry, it will come to me. I just wish it was a simple choice. Well, I’ll come back to that.

Well, there is the receiving corps. Obviously the headliner is Tyler Boyd.

Now it’s Boyd’s turn to shoulder the mantle of leadership. More importantly, he and new starting quarterback Chad Voytik, also a rising sophomore, will carry the fortunes of the passing game.

“It doesn’t matter how young (the team) is,” Boyd said. “It’s how well you are coached and how fast you process what you are being taught.”

Boyd said he tries to lead by example on the field and in the weight room.

“Even when they are doing good, I push them to be even better,” he said of his teammates. “I push them to be great. You want to do great things.”

Practice will look different this season with the loss of Street, Engram and quarterbacks coach Brooks Bollinger and the additions of running backs coach John Settle and receivers coach Greg Lewis.

Lewis, who played eight years in the NFL, likes what he has seen of Boyd on video.

“My thing is I want to add to what Coach Engram has done and don’t mess him up,” he said. “I definitely think he has all the tools. He can catch, he’s quick and he’s fast. It’s just fine-tuning things to make it even better than it is.”

Come the fall, all eyes will be on Adonis Jennings to come in and see if he can grab the second WR spot. In spring practices, there is a lot more competition. Though, it seems Ronald Jones and Manasseh Garner are the primaries at the moment.

Senior Manasseh Garner will split time between wide receiver and tight end, but he is officially listed as a wide receiver on the roster.

“I’ll be able to be physical (like a tight end) and run routes like a receiver,” he said.

He said he has lost 20 pounds and is at 215.

“He has his own skill set,” Chryst said.

Garner playing a bit more at WR makes sense. As Chryst says about the skill set, he is very versatile. Getting him out there is important, and Pitt has plenty of depth at tight end that moving him to a WR-esque type position opens things up more and creates potential mismatches with whoever has to cover Garner.

As for non-position changes, James Connor is still being the team player but all signs and his own desires suggest that he will focus on being a running back, not a defensive end.

Running back James Conner is listed at 230 pounds, but he said he checked in at 248 — the same weight at which he played the 2013 season. He said he wants to play this season at 240. He said he is on target to reach two of his offseason goals.

“Coach said I was doing a great job with ball security and footwork,” Conner said.

On the matter of playing defensive end — something he did in last season’s bowl game — Conner said he’s OK with that.

“If they ask me to do it, I will definitely do it,” he said.

But he has changed his number from 40 to 24 in honor of one of his favorite players, Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch.

“He refused to go down, so that’s what I’m going to try to do this year,” he said.

In a vacuum. Or even just a few years ago, the idea of James Connor being moved to DE would seem ridiculous on its face. A very talented kid who really excelled as a freshman running the ball. Yet, there is more than a little serious talk about the merits of moving him to defensive end.

Some of it stems from how the running back is valued these days. The position is still a vital part of even the most pass-happy offense, but the individual player less so. As in the NFL, college teams (and fans) are a lot less concerned with having a stud, every down running back. They see the spot as being much more of a shared position where the drop-off doesn’t have to be as vast between starter and back-up.

For Pitt specifically, that lack of sure playmakers on the defensive side of the ball is a big concern. No Aaron Donald. Lots of new players to start, and frankly the lackluster recruiting on the defensive side of the ball. It isn’t that there is no talent or that players won’t develop. It is that unlike the offense there are no highly touted players that have come to the defensive side. So, a player like Connor who has such great athleticism and can have a visible impact. Well, suddenly there is room for discussion.