It looks like the “Gathering of the Blathering” will be a post-game soiree at Bar Louie’s with a stop at the Sheraton bar along the way.
Here is the address for Bar Louie’s in Station Square.
240 W Station Square Dr
Pittsburgh, PA
(412) 394-0500
From the map it looks like it is about two blocks east of the eastern parking lots of Riverhound stadium; in walking you would pass The Gateway Clipper Fleet entrance (owned by which PITT LB’s Father?), then past the Sheraton Hotel where we will refuel, then one more block to Bar Louie’s. It looks to be on the waterfront and hard to miss.
I probably won’t hang out on the field after the game for the interview so I think if we all meet at the corner of West Station Square Dr. and the entrance to the Gateway Clipper place (where the sidewalks looks to be red brick) right after the game ends then we’ll muster and go from there.
Again, here is the Google Map of where we will be after the game.
Looking forward to see you all…
Last Southside Practice Notes:
The P-G has an article on what has been the main topic of spring practice when it comes to future position battles. Yes, Bradley and Caprara again. Here is an interesting quote on two points; first what he says about ‘others’ and second about the simplification of the read/react responsibilities under Narduzzi and Conklin:
He played in just four games last year and had five tackles. With a new staff in place, Caprara is taking advantage of the clean slate.
“I’m just seizing my opportunity,” he said. “I feel like in the past it was kind of unstable, people were bouncing around left and right and I think some people were looking out for themselves more than others. That’s how it was. But now I think I have a better situation than I did last year.” He also added that Narduzzi’s defense is simpler than systems he ran in the past.
“Last year, we had five or six alignments for each linebacker position,” Caprara said. “This year, it’s maybe two.”
Switch over to the Tribune-Reviews article on the last practice and we read about, not surprisingly, Nick Grigsby working at the Strongside Linebacker spot. In following what is a nice storyline this spring, that being forgotten players by the old staff being worked as starting contenders now, DiPaola has this to say:
One of the highlights of the spring has been coaches giving several players, ignored by the previous staff, daily opportunities.
They include three juniors and a senior:
• Mike Caprara at money linebacker, where he is flipping on and off the first team with junior Bam Bradley.
• Nose guard Tyrique Jarrett, who is sharing time with senior K.K. Mosley Smith.
• Strong safety Jevonte Pitts, who makes his mark with physicality. For the moment, he has stepped ahead of sophomore Patrick Amara, who is out with an illness, but both players plan on the competition resuming this summer.
• Ejuan Price, a senior previously plagued by injury who could help ease a depth crisis at defensive end.
One common thread is that Caprara, Mosley-Smith, Pitts and Price went to Woodland Hills, but the other is all of them give the defense hope.
I’ve been waiting for Jarrett and Caprara to get decent chances since they were recruited. I am also pulling for Taleni to get in there somehow because of the sentimental Hawai’i connection I have but he’s been virtually invisible.
Here is an older but good read from the Indiana Gazette on the plans for Conner to be more active with other aspects of the game. The writer forgot to list the possibility of Conner switching to the Nose Tackle position now that we’ve seen the DE position come out of extremis:
Pitt junior running back James Conner is a workhorse. In his sophomore year, he reset the record books with 26 rushing touchdowns, and his 1,765 yards rushing were the fourth-highest total in school history. Yet for all of Conner’s heavy workload — he averaged nearly 23 carries a game — there was something missing. The reigning ACC Offensive Player of the Year had only five catches for 70 receiving yards. It’s a stat Conner and first-year offensive coordinator Jim Chaney would like to improve in 2015.
“It was obvious when I came out of the game what was going to happen,” Conner said. “I will still get my fair share of carries. I need to just try to expand my game.” Conner said he didn’t have extensive knowledge of the passing offense a year ago. Conner figured his main job was to ground and pound his way through any defense that was thrown at him. He is working to fix that during spring drills.
“I had a little trouble learning the playbook,” Conner said. “My role was to be successful running the ball. It is exciting. I haven’t had a receiving touchdown since I have been here, so hopefully I will get one this year.”
Here is what I’ll be closely looking at the on Saturday; who looks good for that WR2 and WR3 position, how does Bertke look in his first ‘starting’ role, Who is separating themselves at the DE spot and how good is our special teams play.
OK… Off to PGH for construction duty for a friend then the ball game on Saturday. Hope to see anyone who can get down to Riverhound stadium for the scrimmage and let’s keep our fingers crossed for no injuries.
We will be lucky if we have 25% of actual people with butts in the seats at a real game this year after we get halfway done. I’ve talked w/ many PSU alumns who have stated they bought a season pass this year to get a jump on the tickets for the future game(s). They won’t be attending any of those games this year.
Also, to Mark – a Blather reader who sat next to me during the game.
DL is going to be an issue this year, no doubt. I am hoping with better coaching they will get more production out of that unit. I’m also hoping this staff comes up with better blitz packages to help pressure the QB.
I sat next to Iron Duke at the game and he pointed out how small Price looks. I don’t think he either the 6-0 or 255 they have him listed at.
To even compare Pitt to Ohio St is just ridiculous. I think we all know Pitt will never be in the same stratosphere as OSU’s and Alabama’s and a comparison to them isn’t fair or realistic.
All of the spring games have yet to be played, but after the top schools you would expect the drop off is pretty sharp. Florida St announced 17,250 and I watched a few min of their game on ESPNU and I seriously doubt they had that many. Most schools still outdraw Pitt, but of the games played Pitt outdrew Vanderbilt, Arizona St, Arizona, Colorado, Syracuse, Georgia Tech, and Miami from Power 5 conferences.
It was a nice atmosphere and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.
Our new AD will then need to sell his vision and begin raising funds for it.
5,000 is a good number for a Spring game. I doubt Pitt ever gets anything close to even 20,000 although I do think 10k is realistic each year.
I like the venue this year. Maybe 10 years from now the festivities will be held on campus. I’ll be the first to write a check to our new AD for a feasibility study on that OCS. 🙂
If that is your argument why did Baylor only draw 5,610 to their spring game. A much better program than Pitt, yet only drew 285 more people.
Never been to Waco, but unless you were going to visit the site where Koresh and the Branch Davidians were holed up, I’m assuming there isn’t much else to do there. Here in Pgh you had the opening of trout season, a Pirate game, a Pens playoff game(on the road) and absolutely gorgeous weather for mid April, which I’m sure some ppl wanted to golf, bike etc.
UT not playing the Aggies anymore has probably also hurt.
UT is still landing stud recruits, but they just don’t have the program together at this point.
They will right the ship.
They have more money than they know what to do with. That’s probably some of the problem as well. They need to know how best to spend it.
The B1G schools less Northwestern has large main campuses with lotsa students. PSU is kind of isolated where almost everything is focused on the campus … heck even Waco has 129,000 which is much larger than State College. The campus s the thing in Happy Valley … except for the penitentiary about 8 miles north
Wouldn’t compare osu to the turnout at highmark. Sure, it will always be used against us in recruiting. OSU has student day where there are 40 yard dashes and the fastest students run against the fastest players. I think that if a student runs faster than the player, he gets to cover a kickoff for an out of conference game. The students also get to mingle with the players on the field for an entire afternoon. It draws the students into the fanbase and gets them amped to support their colleagues during games. Great idea. I think most p5 programs get 10-15k for the game. Good job again for the team.
Baylor went “all in” academically and athleticly, hiring top head coaches (Briles and Drew) and building an awesome new stadium across the Brazes River from campus. I have seen the stadium and it is awesome.
If Baylor can be successful, PITT can certainly be successful! H2P
If you remember, Texas, Oklahoma, Okla. State & Texas Tech (not Baylor) were the schools set to join the PAC 12.
Baylor’s meteoric rise in both football and basketball, as well as their brand new OCS might cause the PAC 12 to think twice about them being the 4th school instead of TT.
If it ever gets to 16 school conferences.
Had to get that in there.
That would seem to foretold an uptick in slogball.
With both Baylor and TCU now being football powers, that alone might be enough to keep the Big 12 breathing in some shape or manner, if the others.. one day bolted.
They would have to add 4 teams, but that could easily be accomplished with adding say, Boise State (who’s basketball program is now pretty good, they were getting Top 25 votes this season), Uconn, Cincy and maybe Memphis.
They raised massive amounts of money. They became united and shared a single focus. They built new campus stadiums or massively renovated existing ones. They hired great coaches. And they don’t believe in excuses or mediocrity. They believe they are better than Texas. And they are. They changed their culture and mindset.
The Nerd and Cornhole held Pitt back. They were cheap. They lacked focus. They lacked vision. They accepted mediocrity.
Pitt can achieve excellence by learning from the success of Baylor and TCU.
Don’t say it can’t be done. It can with the right leadership.
ECU, Temple, Utah State & Tulsa.
Texas has the biggest AD budget of any school in America.
Much like Pedo State does in PA, TX has by far the most number of alumni in TX. TX has had far better recent success on the gridiron than PedoSt. and they have a far far better bball program.
Even with all those advantages TX has, Baylor & TCU took themselves out of the status of also-rans and became ‘players’.
Pitt could certainly do it again, if the will to do it… is there. And of course that will….comes from the leadership in charge.
It still amazes me, that the idiot Cornhole was even allowed to suggest that Pitt stadium be torn down. That was the most valuable commodity on campus. And that others including Nerdy signed off on it.
He should have been run out of town at that point.
And then to top that, he wants to rebrand all of universities sports teams from something OTHER that what the school has been called for 70 years.
I wasn’t that engaged back then.
Was there any attempt to stop Cornhole and his idiotic ideas ???
I still say that complete disaster of a Golf Course could be bought and made into a OCS and make the area around it awesome and build condos there.
Look at this. Make fun of Mississippi all you want they have one of the best stadiums I’ve ever seen in Baseball and the football stadium is set perfectly on campus.
Stadium is already awesome but they are building a new one for 40M. 40M and our ass backwards tools bitch about spending $5000.
30 years ago we were picking rocks off of Trees Field before the game started. lol
Or someone on this board hits the Lotto !
That could lead to a FSU/Clemson league championship, leaving the Coastal winner, high & dry.
