After all the spring practices are in the books. As the long 3 month stretch of nothing but conference and NCAA rules debates, police blotters, recruiting and mindless predictions as the only news in college football stare us in the face, the ACC tosses us one last nugget. A conference call with the coaches to talk about spring practices.
You can listen to the nearly 2 1/2 hours of coaches talking vaguely about spring practices here. Coach Paul Chryst is on at roughly 2 hours into it.
Coach Chryst was asked about Tom Savage’s rise in the draft boards.
“You never know what to expect so if you said you’re surprised or not surprised you’d be wrong,” Chryst said. “He certainly has a lot of the talents and physical attributes. The biggest thing Tom hasn’t done is just play a lot of football.”
Savage transferred twice before ending up at Pitt, which Chryst said limited his visibility to NFL teams. Once they got a chance to look at the tape, they apparently liked what they saw.
“I think a lot of the buzz that comes before he wasn’t as much a part of because he hadn’t played for two years,” Chryst said. “I think what he did in the season, the combine, individual workouts, it’s been great to see. Hopefully everyone is right and his stock is rising.”
In Chryst’s seven-year tenure as Wisconsin’s offensive coordinator, the Badgers had 27 players drafted into the NFL. In two years as Pitt’s coach, he has yet to have a player taken. That will change this year, with Savage, defensive tackle Aaron Donald and wide receiver Devin Street each likely to hear their names called.
“I think for the program, it’s good,” Chryst said. “But most important you’re happy for those individuals. That’s what really makes it special.”
Or, dare we say, “neat.”
There were questions for all the coaches about general topics. The issue of unions for college football players was mentioned. Right now that whole issue is limited to just private colleges. And the vote by Northwestern players really doesn’t matter. It is not going to be known while Northwestern appeals the ruling to the full NLRB. All it does, along with the O’Bannon court case is put pressure on the NCAA and the member institutions to decide when they are done playing chicken with all of this and actually come up with a real plan.
The ACC-specific topic of discussion is whether the conference should stay at 8 games or go to 9.
David Cutliffe of Duke claims that the coaches want to stay at 8 games. Though he was later contradicted by Miami’s Al Golden and VT’s Frank Beamer. The ACC had previously planned to go to 9 games, but backed off because of the ND deal and pressure from Clemson, FSU and GT. Those three schools have annual rivalry games with their in-state SEC foe and did not want to be down to only 2 non-con games they could control.
With the move to a college football playoff and emphasis on strength of schedule, the issue is being revisited. Couple that with the fact that the Big 10 is going to 9 games. And the SEC is likely to as well after this year, that would leave only the ACC with an 8-game schedule.
The reality is that it will happen at some point. The ACC is planning its own network, and 9 games becomes more important from an inventory standpoint. Even with the rotating ND games for all the schools.
Even if Pitt gets to put the PSU game back on as an annual thing. Or sets it up to rotate with WVU down the road, I still favor the ACC going to 9 games. It makes the schedule more appealing and provides more games against all the teams in the conference slightly more frequently.
Basketball ought to consider home and away with everyone and forget the non-com. What a great season that would be.
They’d never do it, but for hoops, could you imagine. Everyone home and home.
What do we play, 30 games? Play 28 conference games and have a cupcake or two if you want. Or go to one pre-season tourney.
I mean, what are ya gonna lose, those thrillers with Savannah State and Gannon??
As for football. All for the 9 games. Play more of the conference more often.
Only thing is, as it stands and in the future schedules, kind of 8 league games, 2 cream puffs, two BCS conference team games.
I would not want 9 games, 2 cream puffs and 1 BCS team.
i.e. In a year or two, we’re gonna have Penn State and Oklahoma State on the schedule, with two cream puffs.
If you could tell me they’ll drop one of the cream puffs, I’d be all for it.
If they insisted on the two cream puffs, then I might want to stay at 8, so we could play 2 BCS teams.
I know this year it’s only 3 and 1, with Iowa being the BCS team.
Next year it’s Iowa and Notre Dame, then the following two years, it’s Penn St. and Ok. St.
Would not want to sacrifice games like that.
Season tickets every year from this guy from then on out.
And I would think that might mean just going to 13 regular season games. As you have that 2-4 week ‘down’ time from the last regular season game until the first meaningless bowl game sponsored by some company you never heard of.
Isn’t this the same guy that, just last year, felt entitled to be a lock for 1st string linebacker?
So coach Chris says, “show me”. Thomas then takes offense and feels dissed, quit the team and then realizes he’s in some deep doodoo from there on out.
Now, a single year later, Mr Thomas is becoming A solid leader of this Pitt Panthers team. This gives a lot of credence to coach Chryst’s concept of personal responsibility.
I’m liking this team more everyday
While I like the notion, team spirit and all that.
My concern is on a defense which is losing quite a few really good players, like Donald, Hendricks, Ezell and another starter in Murphy and is kind of thin at LB.
Why on Earth are you playing Todd Thomas on Special Teams…..in the Spring ?
Here’s the predicted Fall Depth Chart:
Of course, it would be nice to have a solid recruiting class that could step right into that role without having any let downs. Unfortunately, Pitt’s roster is not nearly deep enough with that kind of talent to get the job done without playing at least some of your first stringers.
It’s a dangerous move because of the potential for injuries but it can have dramatic consequences. Putting Boyd back to handle kicks worked out pretty fine for the Panthers in our pizza bowl game now didn’t it?
Our horrendous special teams play last year cost us at least two ballgames. Now we have a coach to deal with special-teams and it appears we have the commitment to put the guys in there that can make a difference. I hope we see the improvement on the field this season, we certainly need to see it if we expect to keep improving our record.
And, I hope Winslow can pin teams back with punts and place it out of bounds, when we want him to. We cannot afford to again this year surrender field position constantly due to poorly executed punts. The kid has the leg. Does he have the “skill” to go with it?
H2P
Skeletons in his closet? maybe.
We’ll have a good team this year, but I wouldn’t get hung up on 8-4. We are still pretty thin in some areas.
That being said I am pulling for every one of these young guys to seize their opportunity and make the most of it. Looking very forward to watching this team grow.
They would never hired you know who.
Comment by wbb 04.24.14 @ 5:45 pm
Birch is projected to be picked in the 2nd round.
He’s showing up on several boards.
ESPN is promoting A&M and the SEC network with billboards in Houston and Galveston. Assume they will do the same with an ACC network in those markets.
link to houstonchronicle.com
link to espn.go.com
This is why I hate listening to sports coaches talk about their business. Aside from Marv Levy and maybe Chuck Noll every other coach I can think of is as ambiguous as the worst politician or Pentagon Officer.
Much better had he just said ‘I have no damn idea if he’ll get drafted high or not.’
Musapha Heron was in Pgh this weekend for JamFest, and confirms he is firm with Pitt (f course, still a ways to go)
Thanks for the update on Heron.
H2P
