In the euphoria over the season to this point, I’ve probably been as guilty as anyone in dismissing former head coach Paul Chryst as nothing more than a placeholder for Pitt. Maybe even holding Pitt back. It’s not really true. Especially when it comes to laying things out for recruiting.
The sins of Chryst are known and used frequently. I was never a big fan of the way he put together his staff — at least on the defensive side. He hardly distinguished himself, even by his 3d year, as a great tactician. His recruiting was passive. He was dry and boring as 3-day old toast with the media and public. There was little that seemed to inspire the players to play with belief in their ability to win in close games.
That he brought a certain level of stability back to the football program is certainly true. Hardly the highest praise for a coach, but in his tenure at Pitt it is probably the most cited as a positive.
The other thing he did was he got Pitt back on better terms with local coaches in the area. After the firing of Dave Wannstedt, local coaches in the area were extremely butt hurt. They really liked Wannstedt and complained loudly. It put them very down on Pitt.
Things were not helped by the year of the Fraud. Any work at rebuilding relationships were lost by the brevity of his tenure — and departure of assistants with local ties to Arizona and DickRod even before Fraud bailed for Arizona St. To be fair, at the time, it seemed that he at least pulled in some good local talent with 4-starred local kids like Bisnowaty and Rushel Shell (Deysean Rippy was also a 4-star recruit, but he was a signing day surprise that goes to Chryst’s staff — even if it didn’t work out).
Enter Chryst. He got some local good ones with plenty of competition — Tyler Boyd, Dorian Johnson, Scott Orndoff, Alex Bookser, Mike Grimm and Jordan Whitehead. But it seemed that his time was marked more by the ones that got away: Robert Foster, Dravon Henry, Sterling Jenkins, Shai McKenzie and Montae Nicholson. In no small part, because of the public nature of several of their commitments and statements regarding Pitt.
Recruiting isn’t simply about selling players on something — the NFL, playoffs, relevance, a system to showcase — it about building the relationship with the school via the coach. Chryst and the staff did do that. They reconnected with the local coaches and built trust with them. They helped to rebuild if not a positive, a less than negative image of Pitt in the kids who are coming up this year and the next couple.
The, now, fortuitous timing of Chryst returning to Wisconsin set things up well for Narduzzi and the staff as the overall local talent is on an upward cycle. Not everything has to be a pure black-and-white of one coach being shown to be an incompetent to make the other coach look brilliant.
Yes, this staff has had to build their own relationships — and they have. Yes, they have still had to establish their own trust with the coaches and players. And, oh, goodness, yes, this staff is much more aggressive. But they weren’t starting from a negative position, because of the foundation that was rebuilt for them.
That is coming through in the quality of local recruits who are picking Pitt so far. Even more promising are the ones for the 2017, who are already looking more like Pitt leans (and one early get). The relationships, the trust, were much easier to establish.
I like Temple too, but I hope they lose to make UPS look bad.
4th quarter comeback to boot.
ESPN announcer says…Temple should be considered for a Playoff Spot. ha
First time ever 7-0. They could parlay this into a state funded OCS.
Barry wanted him in Wisconsin to show some stability which Barry has lacked lately.
Chrsyt is not a worker. He takes the easy way out in choosing his staff and was out recruited by PSU while they were under a scandal and probation. Heck, looks like he was out recruited by Temple too.
The guy is a sloth.
Give PITT, the University, credit with at least attracting some of the local talent wanting to play at a good school close to home despite Chryst turning them off.
I now see sunshine and rainbows.
Even worse, his 1st DC lasted 1 year which illustrates how incompetent he was at evaluating coaching personnel. Why hire someone that you can’t get along with.
The fact that he was able to get to .500 with this coaching staff illustrates just how good he was at putting a game plan together and executing, however I have to agree I never saw him make important or effective in-game adjustments.
He also provided a stable of offensive linemen that everybody on here enjoys!
He brought Conner and Boyd….56 yard guy!
He cleaned out the program of some bad characters and risked his career by getting rid of Steve Pederson. Had Gallagher not believed him, he would never have gotten hired again once he leaves Wisconsin.
He had a tighter budget than all of the previous head coaches. You get what you pay for, so he went on the cheap and got a very poor defensive coordinator. So what?
Had none of that happened, we wouldn’t be where we are today. A bunch of whiney folks on here tonight. We better get to a game topic or all this complaining might boil over and pollute the progress we have made over the last two weeks.
We need to treat the Syracuse qb just like the vt qb. Pressure and containment all game…with a few hits!
The media wants you to believe differently – yes, there is corruption in every phase of life, but in the corporate world, there is way more good than bad.
HTP education & football!
Thank you Wisconsin for hiring PC. We liked
him but he was never going to be one of us.
Time will tell if he can sustain recruiting
at UW. Meanwhile back in the burgh we
are very happy with PN plus a new AD.
Beat the Cuse go 6-1!!!!!!!!!
Webb is now doubtful; Whitehead is probable, and no update of Mitchell. We may be seeing a lot of Pat Amara and Javonte Pitts — both can play but they are back-ups.
If Pitt wins, it becomes bowl eligible. For 3 of the last 4 years, this didn’t occur until the final game.
No response.
It would’ve taken his secretary a minute to do it.
Best two way QB we have been up against. Great test for the D and prep for Thursday against a guy that has owned us.
My guess is a pretty high scoring game.
Seems Syracuse uses a different Stats system than everyone else. Can’t find individual stats on defense. Looks like offense really spreads the ball around, lot’s of guys making plays. QB the key, need to sack him and stop his run, he is the second leading rusher on the team.
No more top twenty five
PSU hammers us on twitter
Blather has 700 negative entries.
UPitt goes back to the dark side
30,000 show up for North Carolina
Media gets even more negative
Need to make his life miserable tomorrow.
The ship didn’t sink on his watch but it certainly didn’t make it’s way back to shore either. His tenure at Pitt was essentially a floating raft in the ocean, after a shipwreck, waiting to be rescued.
H2P
Also,
Last years O was successful but VERY unimaginative and boring. Everybody on the field and in the stadium knew where the play was going. It was very “Dixonish” in execution and imagination.
Chaney is much more creative and I think the guys who say he will be gone next year are smoking something early on a Friday morning. First off you’re comparing the third year of the Chryst O with one half of the first season of Chaney’s O. How about waiting 2 1/2 more years and compare apples to apples? And yes, Chaney will be here in 3 years.
CRUSH THE ORANGE!!!!
From the get go, I said we need a clean sweep of all those assistants and no to Rudolph as HC.
Now, let’s make juice out of the orange!!!
For me, all I’d like to see for next year are the uni’s that Dorsett
and Marino wore. To me that’s our identity.
You want to hang with the Nard Dawg, you best get familiar with your A game right quick.
Where is our Pregame Prediction thread at noon?
H2P
p.s. Mine is we win 38 – 17
Me personally, I wouldn’t have minded Joe Rudolph staying on as our OC. He was a proven OL recruiter and we seemed to have a lot of yards at the end of most games. I am okay with Chaney too. I think we will continue to see our offense grow as they all become familiar with the playbook and each other.
Just because HCPN turned out so well doesn’t mean Rudolph wouldn’t. It remains to be seen what kind of HC he would be.
Penn State continues to dominate the in-state recruits with four of the top five commits pledged to the Nittany Lions, but will that change if coach Pat Narduzzi keeps winning at Pitt and Penn State continues to look average?
First take: “Narduzzi was already going to make Pitt stronger in recruiting — particularly in Pennsylvania — just based on his approach and the approach of his staff,” said Chris Peak of Panther-Lair.com. “The coaches are energetic and dynamic recruiters, and the effects of that approach were already being felt. But with the added element of on-field success, which is always necessary for a school like Pitt, the chances of recruiting success are even higher. With a winning product on the field, Narduzzi was primed to compete with Penn State for Pennsylvania’s top talent, and PSU’s on-field struggles will only help that cause.”
Second take: “Narduzzi is not likely to pull a ‘Todd Graham’ and just leave,” Farrell said. “They hung with Penn State in recruiting very much so under (Dave) Wannstedt. They were getting a lot of Western Pennsylvania kids. The difference is he was a hometown guy. I just don’t see for the foreseeable future Pitt out-recruiting Penn State simply because James Franklin is such a great recruiter and the recruiting has improved so much since Joe Paterno.” –
See more at: link to pittsburgh.rivals.com
piitman4ever – I just meant that Barnes came on too late and they had to get the order into Nike for next year’s season. He didn’t have time to do research on the color scheme and has said no changes in the immediate future.
I think we’ll see some changes the next go around but it will probably be about 3-5 years.
But I gotta disagree with your interpretation of what happened to PITT football the last few years.
In my mind, the SI article was just another of many over the years on the excesses of college football. It would have gone away fairly quickly if left alone. But someone high up (I’m guessing Nordenberg) way not happy with Wannstedt and that was that.
This is when we all get to see how really incompetent Pederson was with the Hayward and Graham fiasco.
I never felt good about Graham from the start. He was a “good old boy” and came to Pittsburgh for money. I am guessing his family wanted out and he is where he belongs in the Southwest. That’s home for him. I don’t feel the Admin had anything to do with his leaving.
Chryst was another poor choice by the admin and the decision to hire him probably came from above Pederson. Three 6-6 and 6-7 seasons are nothing to brag about. He didn’t even stay for the bowl game. Granted it could have been worse. We could have had 1-11 seasons.
For me the lesson to be learned is don’t keep the Chancellor if you see a problem developing.
Just like in business it should be “What have you done for me lately.”
Both Posvar and Nordenberg stayed too long.
But I got to diagree with your interuptation of what happened to PITT football the last few years.
In my mind, the SI article was just another of many over the years on the excesses of college football. It would have gone away fairly quickly if left alone. But someone high up (I’m guessing Nordenberg) way not happy with Wannstadt and that was that.
This is when we all get to see how really incompetant Pederson was with the Haywood and Graham fiasco.
I never felt good about Graham from the start. He was a “good old boy” and came to Pittsburgh for money. I am guessing his family wanted out and he is where he belongs in the Southwest. That’s home for him. I don’t feel the Admin had anything to do with his leaving.
Chryst was another poor choice by the admin and the decision to hire him probably came from above Pederson. Three 6-6 and 6-7 seasons are nothing to brag about. He didn’t even stay for the bowl game. Granted it could have been worse. We could have had 1-11 seasons.
For me the lesson to be learned is don’t keep the Chancellor if you see a problem developing.
Just like in business it should be “What have you done for me lately.”
Both Posvar and Nordenberg stayed too long.
I predict that HCPC will turn a dominant Wisconsin program into an also ran within 3 seasons.To make matters even more amazing Penn State has likely spent a small fortune hanging their future hopes on an imposter. Franklin is an awesome recruiter but he is a terrible coach. Narduzzi will eat his lunch.
Otherwise, I don’t necessarily disagree with what you said. I think Nordenberg was so fascinated with what SP did in his first Pitt gig, he believed SP could do no wrong. And probably believed SP that he (SP) had no blame on everything that happened from 2010 on.
Academicians, by and large, are pretty clueless when it comes to athletics except maybe the bottom line. I can remember the then Duke president back in 03 proclaiming complete shock that the ACC would be proclaimed as villains when the secretly hustled 3 teams from the Big East.
My point was both Posvar and Nordenberg did some good things. But the longer they stayed the worst PITT athletics became. Maybe the reason was economics, but both missed the pulic relations benefits of having national excellant teams after yrs. of tenure
Reminds me of Al Franken when he first got to the Senate, he said to some Republican Senator, “Clinton’s military did pretty good against Saddam, huh?”
The Republican was not amused.
I was thinking more on the lines of publicly owned companies.
Like MCi, Enron, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Worldcom, IndyMac, WAMU, GM, Conseco, etc.
And then Golden Parachuted out.
As I said, no accountability. The corporate world is indeed as bad as the rest.
With giant accounting firm Arthur Anderson leading the way.
So I don’t know where you’ve been. But the Corporate World is largely responsible for also corrupting the political world.
Allen Stanford, ring a bell.
By the way Emel, did you get to see the trick play last week vs GT?
But that is only out of necessity, since they too are part of Corporate America.
And yes, I almost fell off the bar stool I was on and onto the lap of the buxom blond next to me, when we ran the trick play.
Will we see another one tomorrow ? 🙂
(we’re NOT hearing about all of what’s truly going on.)
But all of America, needs to clean up it’s act.
Before the whole thing comes crashing down.
We could draw up some pretty good trick plays for Chaney – not sure he would us them.
I did like seeing T.Boyd in the tailback position. You had been calling for Paulie to use that formation last year.
We might need T.Boyd in the safety position tomorrow. Rumor is Webb and Mitchell are both hurt.
Yea I’d love to see Boyd initially lined up in the backfield, cause you could really screw around the opponent defense.
You could motion him to either side of the field, you could throw him screen passes, or run deep routes out of the backfield, hoping to get a LB or slower Safety on him. He can throw himself out of the backfield, as we’ve seen.
With a kid with that type of athletic talent, it’s almost limitless what you could do with him.
And if he’s used this way, he would much more attention as a Heisman candidate in helping Pitt win by larger scores.
Shame they haven’t used his full potential.
