And hopefully doesn’t come to an abrupt end.

Going primarily links today, because time is precious. Not to mention I’m already kind of jittery for the game this afternoon. Going to be a long 5 hours or more.

Let’s start with a football note of sorts. We are all worried about the lack of depth at QB for Pitt. Well, Colorado had 6 QBs leave in the last year and are bringing in a member of their equipment staff to take snaps in spring practices.

Sheldon Jeter is in community college in Florida, so he is on hand to take in the game.

Injuries changed both teams. More so for Colorado, who had guys have to alter their roles significantly.

Pitt players getting healthy the last couple weeks has helped.

A little more on the expected match-up between Talib Zanna and Josh Scott.

USA Today feature article on Pitt under Jamie Dixon being the rare program that actually keeps its fifth year seniors. Go figure, being honest and up front with the kids when they are coming in tends to help.

According to the NCAA, roughly 40% of men’s basketball players who enter Division I directly out of high school transfer by the end of their sophomore year, with lack of early playing time often a factor in the decision to change schools.

Part of the issue, though, is the false expectation created during the recruiting process, as coaches will frequently oversell a player’s ability to contribute as freshmen.

“Coming in from prep school, I’m thinking like, when I go there I’ll play right away and get time and make a major impact,” [Durand] Johnson said. “But it wasn’t the case.”

Instead of transferring, though, Johnson looked at the track record of players like Levon Kendall, Tray Woodall and [Gilbert] Brown, who used redshirt years to get stronger and develop their skills while doing everything else with the team including regular practice time and travel to road games.

While it isn’t the most fun year, they said, it was a smart long-term investment.

“(I didn’t like it) at first, but you just look at the track record of guys at Pitt and you understand maybe you weren’t as ready as you thought you were,” said reserve wing Chris Jones, who redshirted as a freshman last season. “Coming in like any other recruit, you expect to play but you have to do what coach thinks is best. We had a conversation about it, and there’s a lot of guys before me that have done the same thing and turned out to be great players.”

It isn’t that Pitt hasn’t had its share of players who transfer — we all remember the recent rash of them. But with the exception of John Johnson, most weren’t leaving in search of more playing time. There were other factors or whispers in their ears. Others were essentially forced out simply because they weren’t very good players.

Since I am on the subject of 5th year seniors, here’s a Dejan Kovacevic column on Patterson and Zanna leading the team — with narration by Cam Wright. And Ron Cook demanding Lamar Patterson carry the team.