After a frenzied, rumor-filled weekend that the Big 11 was going to speed up its expansion plans, the brakes have been tapped.

Day one of the Bowl Championship Series meetings concluded Tuesday with no formal discussion about expansion.

“Informally,” Beebe said with a chuckle, “there has been plenty.”

Delany has informed colleagues that, contrary to a Tribune report, the timetable for Big Ten expansion has not been accelerated from the period of 12-to-18 months that was announced in December.

“You know, Jim wouldn’t be one of the top commissioners and one of the top sports people in the country if he didn’t take things into very careful consideration,” Beebe said.

Delany said through a spokesman that he would address the media Wednesday. His comments will be scrutinized and analyzed by commissioners such as Beebe and John Marinatto of the Big East.

This could be yet another smokescreen. Take some of the attention that is suddenly all over expansion away for a while so Delany can do more work with a little less glare.

Or it could be that while meeting with the Big 11 presidents over the weekend, Delany found insufficient consensus over the candidates at this point. All sorts of speculation can be found at this point.

Now the speculation for why the Big 11 might want to accelerate discussions centered on — of course — TV money.

The Big Ten wants to give other conferences time to respond. But more to the point, it could take a while to integrate schools such as Rutgers, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Connecticut.

The Big East “loyalty clause,” created after the ACC raid, calls for departing schools to pay $5 million and, more significantly, give a 27-month notice.

So barring a renegotiation, the parties would have to move quickly to get the jumbo Big Ten in place for the 2012-13 academic/athletic season.

For the record, the Big 12 has similar penalties and notice requirements.

The Big 11’s TV deal with ESPN/ABC comes up for renewal around that time, so the theory was that the Big 11 would want the teams in place to negotiate a new contract. The reason this is kind of silly, is that it has little to do with the TV contract. If it is already known that the expansion will happen and who will come, the contract negotiations won’t be effected by whether the teams are already there or coming in 2014 or even 15.

Meanwhile, programs like Louisville just sweat and hope to make themselves look attractive to someone in the near future.

Good piece on whether the SEC should act now with expansion plans rather than wait to see what the Big 11 does.

And here is the really delicate part: Obviously if the SEC wanted to expand, the first phone call would be to Texas. Texas brings that kind of value and more.  But if Texas says no, what are the SEC’s real options?

Do they go to the ACC and take teams from a conference that just expanded? The ACC is currently in negotiations for its new television deals and the proposed numbers from the TV boys are not great. To be perfectly candid, the ACC as a football conference is a little vulnerable right now.

The ACC got hammered in the court of public opinion when it took three teams from the Big East a few years ago. Does the SEC want that kind of PR headache? Of course not. But it may have no choice. Hurting another conference would be bad. Doing nothing could be worse.

Oh, the possible irony.

Or at least it is rumored/expected to be.

High-ranking Big Ten representatives will meet Sunday in Washington to discuss expansion. The timing and location of the session make sense considering the Association of American Universities has its semi-annual meetings there through Tuesday and all 11 Big Ten schools are AAU members.

Among those attending will be Northwestern President Morton Schapiro, according to a university spokesman, and Illinois’ interim chancellor, Robert Easter.

If the conference can emerge from the meetings with a mandate to expand, Commissioner Jim Delany could take a substantial step next week at the annual Bowl Championship Series meetings outside Phoenix.

As laid out in the Big Ten’s Dec. 15 statement, Delany would “notify” the commissioners of the affected conferences before “engaging in formal expansion discussions with other institutions.”

In other words, Big East Commissioner John Marinatto would get a heads-up if the Big Ten wishes to contact schools such as Rutgers, Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

That would allow the Big Ten more than a month to negotiate with schools before conference presidents and chancellors meet in Chicago during the first weekend in June.

That timetable also makes sense from a financial standpoint. The fiscal years of universities end on the last day of June, “so if you go past July 1, you have to wait an extra year,” one source said.

So while the Big 10 Presidents and Chancellor’s meet for the AAU meeting (along with Pitt, Rutgers, Mizzou, Nebraska and Syracuse), Big 10 commish Delany goes to Arizona for BCS meetings with conference commissioners and presumably athletic directors from the BCS schools.

At that point, Delany could let Beebe (Big 12) and/or Marinatto (Big East) know that they will be poached. Because let’s be honest, whoever they ask from the conference will go (except maybe Texas).

To admit a new member to the Big 10, it takes at least 70% to say yes, or 8 of the 11 schools have to back the proposed school.

The presumption is that the Big 10 will have to take one more run at Notre Dame before moving down the list. I have no idea how this plays out.

I’ve read so many different scenarios based on expanding with or without ND. Expanding by 1, 3 or 5 teams. Pitt — depending on the person doing the ranking and their biases and values on various aspects — places anywhere from the most attractive candidate after ND and Texas (and Texas A&M) to the least. There are kernels of logic and reason in them, but I don’t think anyone truly knows how the Big 10 is going to make this decision.

I’m also not as worried. If they only go one and it isn’t Pitt, the Big East survives. Even if it would be Rutgers or Syracuse. The loss isn’t that drastic.

If the Big 10 goes to 14, and Pitt wasn’t one of the three, I’m nervous but I also think that the Big East could make it or the ACC would look to expand and Pitt would be a top choice. Is the ACC as lucrative as the Big 10? No. But it would be more stable and more lucrative than the Big East.

Even if the Big 10 went all the way to 16 and still Pitt was left out, then definitely the ACC would be expanding and Pitt would be in there.

Really, I think that Pitt will be okay. It is the fate of the Big East as a football conference that is at stake.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pitt football beat writer Paul Zeise must have had a lousy weekend.

I’ve spoken with countless people at Pitt about this situation — and mostly because I am getting  bombarded with e-mails, voicemails, text messages and every other form of communication about it not because I believe any of it — over the last few days and this is the message I’ve gotten loud and clear —

There is no announcement planned (the phrases “total fabrication” and “absolutely 100 percent false” and “there is absolutely nothing to these rumors, nothing at all” have been used on more than one occassion) because there is nothing to this whole ‘Pitt to the Big Ten’ stuff. At least not right now and not in the near future. And to take it one step further, there have been no formal discussions (and I’ve been told there haven’t even been any informal discussions between Pitt and the Big Ten, in other words, there have been no discussions at all) between Pitt and the Big Ten and all of these rumors are just that.

He also points out that Pitt isn’t formally commenting because it is wiser to make sure the door is open if it ever gets to a point where the Big 11 expands.

Well, I guess it beats dissecting Pitt’s loss this afternoon in basketball. Sort of.

This has apparently reached “buzz worthy” status. That Pitt is heading to the Big Numerically Challenged Conference in the Midwest. It sure seems to have jumped beyond mere message board discussion. Lots of rumors. To the point where newspapers, while not directly reporting it in print, are into discussing the possible ramifications, and blogging it.

Speculation is heating up all over the Internet that Pitt has accepted an offer to join the Big Ten Conference.

Here is what popped up on Bleacherreport.com, normally a pretty reliable outlet, just a few hours ago:

——————————–

“According to several reports, including personal statements by student athletes on Twitter, Pittsburgh athletic department officials held closed door meetings with all of the University’s student athletes last week about the potential move.

Pitt message boards lit up with the news and the validity of the rumor, and though not verified by the University or the Big East or Big Ten, the rumor was somewhat reinforced when those Pitt athletes who posted about the meeting on their Twitter accounts were forced to remove the posts.”

Ahhhhhh. At the risk of sounding elitist… Oh, what the hell, Bleacherreport.com? That’s the source available?

I don’t know, that, well. Yeesh.

Eleven Warriors (tOSU blog) has doubts, and The Rivalry neatly encapsulates my thoughts on Big 11’s moves to progress.

Well first, there’s the extreme unlikelihood that the Big Ten Council of Presidents would act so quickly, little more than a month into an evaluation process tabbed to take a year to a year and a half.  Still, it is possible that COP had Pittsburgh — and its complimentary academic pedigree — in mind from the start.  With its top tier national rank (56th) and Association of American Universities affiliation, Pitt is a fair congener on paper.  Additionally, some commentators have suggested that a quick-strike could be designed to meet scheduling deadlines to get a Big Ten Championship Game in place by 2012.

Still, for a conference that has only added three members in the past century, an impulse buy is more than out of character.  Plus, it’s not clear how the addition of Pitt by itself furthers conference exposure.  (Penn State already brings Pittsburgh — the 23rd largest television audience in the United States — to the table).

The nail in the coffin of this rumor for me, is that the Big East appears totally in the dark.  The Big Ten made it more than clear when it announced plans to explore expansion that it would contact a prospective target’s conference before approaching an individual school.  Evan if the Big East is playing it cool, it seems far fetched that the Big Ten would have had the time to work through what OSU President Gordon Gee calls a “quiet kabuki dance” with a number of suitors at the gate.

A friend of mine totally gung-ho over the possibility disagrees and posits this:

I’ve always thought that the 12-18 month timeframe for a study was just a smoke screen to begin with, to give the impression that this was not as desperate of a grab as what the ACC did. My thinking is that the Big Ten likely had preliminary discussions already begun with the target school before they went public with expansion. Anything else would have been risking national humiliation.

I’m skeptical of this since the Big 11 made a show of how they would do things above the board and did not want to be perceived as staging a stealth raid like the ACC. Maybe that’s silly, but the Big 11 loves being seen as a blue-blood-like conference. Dignified and steeped in tradition.

I won’t prentend I haven’t heard some rumors, and gotten e-mails asking what I know.

Frankly, I really don’t know anything. I don’t claim sources, and I doubt the people I do know would know — or tell me.

The alleged announce date is supposed to be Friday — after NLI day for college football. I guess we’ll all learn something or nothing then.

I have no choice but to mention this, despite the fact that anything that will happen is at least a year or two away. They will only be forming a study group to gather the info and make a recommendation in a year to 18 months. I’d rather wait until at least May — when speculative topics are much better at filling dead space.

Still, here are the basics from my viewpoint.

The Big 11 is doing this because it has to. All for money. It wants more money for a championship game. It wants to be able to push more adoption of the Big 11 network. It has seen the SEC blow them out of the water with money and the more fertile recruiting — which means more money in the bowls and BCS.

It has to worry about the ACC ever getting its football house in order and actually becoming another major factor to the East. Especially as the ACC is only checked on the B-ball side by the Big East. Again, eating into money.

Big 11 expansion is realistically and effectively limited to 5 schools: Missouri, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Syracuse and Pitt. Not just for geography, but because the Big 11 prides itself on all members being part of the Association of American Universities — all the aforementioned schools are members. Schools like Cinci, Louisville, WVU and UConn are not part of that group. (Oddly enough the University at Buffalo is a member.)

Notre Dame isn’t joining. Everyone knows that.

Missouri would be very unlikely. After the ACC raid on the Big East, every conference upped the costs and timeframe to disentangle membership. The Big 12 is particularly harsh  (but I can’t find the exact cost and time it would take). So Mizzou would face short term financially crippling costs to make the jump.

That leaves Pitt, Syracuse and Rutgers.

If you follow the idea that you want to keep geography more condensed, then Pitt makes the most sense since it is already within the geographic footprint. If you follow the money and media market then it is clear that Syracuse or Rutgers would be the picks.

Whoever gets offered realistically should and must jump. If they don’t, they know one of the others will. That is, unless they can create some sort of ironclad — and cost prohibitive penalty — that binds the three together.

What Joe Paterno has to say about this, is as meaningless as anything else he has said on it for the last 6 years. He’s the geriatric, iconic coach of one football program. He’s not an AD. He’s not a school president. He’s marketing and a colorful quote for the Big 11 and little else in this matter.

Okay, it was downright ugly.

As I started reading some of the post-game stories I was somewhat surprised. Not that this was the biggest win to date for Indiana post-Sampson. Or that Indiana was desperate for a win. No, it was reading how Pitt was strongly favored, which shocked me. I figured maybe a couple points, but the way Pitt had been playing most certainly would have kept the line down. Yet, there it was. Pitt was around a 9 point favorite. I guess mainly because of Indiana losing 4 games.

It was another poor game for Pitt. An inability to finish around the rim on offense. Guards not penetrating. Sub-32% shooting. And the turnovers. Oh, the turnovers. It was not good.

“We got what we really deserved,” coach Jamie Dixon said. “We didn’t play well. Indiana did.”

The poor shooting made rebounding a most meaningless stat. Pitt won the rebounding battle 45-39, but it mainly came because of the poor shooting and not good defense. Pitt was beaten by 6 on defensive boards but had a 21-9 edge on the offensive boards. Something that will definitely happen when you miss a lot of shots and the other team doesn’t.

The players after the game were focused on the problems at the other end.

“Defensively, we have to strap up,” said sophomore guard Ashton Gibbs, who scored a career-high 25 points. “We have to play tougher, especially down the stretch. Our offense comes from our defense and rebounding.”

Indiana penetrated freely against Pitt’s guards all game. The Hoosiers got to the free-throw line 34 times and converted 25 of those attempts. Verdell Jones, who came into the game averaging 11 points a game, scored 20 and got to the line eight times. Christian Watford got to the line 15 times and scored 12 of his 18 points from the charity stripe.

“It’s been a problem all season,” said junior guard Brad Wanamaker, who scored 18 points. “Guys are getting beat off the dribble. We’re not keeping people in front of us. Our rotation just hasn’t been there. It’s something we have to work on. We talk about it, but we don’t do it.”

…

“I’m not concerned about the offense,” Taylor said. “I’m more concerned about the defense. We’re letting teams score too easily. We’re not taking pride in defense. We need to put our foot down, stand up and play defense.”

While his impact was not particularly helpful in this game, Jermaine Dixon finally made his first start of the season. 13 minutes. 0 points. 2 rebounds. 1 assist. 1 block. 3 turnovers. 3 fouls.

Playing at MSG for Pitt often involves families and friends. So it is always interesting to see which players press a little too much. Travon Woodall had some 40 friends and family show up. Given how much he has been struggling I’m not sure he really pressed from that or just had another disappointing game. His minutes are dropping (23 last night) along with his scoring while fouls committed keep rising.

That whole Indiana-Pitt game tomorrow at Madison Square Garden is going to be a battle between rebuilding teams. The Hoosiers are coached by the still hateable Tom Crean.

Catch a podcast about the game between Galen of CrimsonCast.com and myself. I explain to Galen exactly why and how long Pitt’s hatred for Crean goes back. It was a good hire for the Hoosiers, but I still hate that guy.

Here’s a direct link to the audio file.

I should know better. It’s the offseason. Not much to discuss. So, a useless story will generate more attention than it should.

“I’ve tried to talk to the Big Ten people about, ‘Let’s get a 12th team — Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt — we could have a little bit of a playoff.'”

Paterno spoke to several college football reporters before a booster meeting at the Plaza Hotel. The comments came in response to a question on whether a team from the Northeast could win a national championship. The 1986 Nittany Lions are the last No. 1 team from the region.

“The only [Northeastern] team that’s got a shot would be us, and yet we’ve got a tough job because the Big Ten is not as visible in the key times as the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12.”

Asked what sort of response he had received, Paterno raised his eyebrows in a facial shrug.

“You know, it’s a conference that’s dominated by a couple of people,” Paterno said. “If I start talking, they’re polite, but they snicker.

“They don’t know I know they’re snickering, but they’re polite. …I wish I were younger and going to be around [another] 20 years.”

With the conference commissioners holding so much power, Paterno said, the whole landscape could change if two or three people change.

“We’re not talking about invading Normandy,” Paterno said. “We’re talking about some alignments that could happen very quickly.”

Whether it is talk about expanding for purposes of the Big 10 Network, it’s just that — talk. It’s not happening. Not now. Not in the next several years. It may happen at some point, but not in the near future.

The only exception would be if ND came to them. That would be it.

From a geographic/market standpoint, there is probably little interest in adding Pitt. Rutgers or Syracuse is much more attractive in that respect. Frankly, if you want to play that game, the Big 11 is best to wait and watch anyways.

Rutgers may be the stronger football program at this point, but can it be sustained? They are a mess in basketball — still. They have major budget issues that even predated the recession. If Syracuse can at least get back to mediocrity in football, the overall health of their athletic department makes them actually a more attractive program in the long term.

That said, it is nothing new. Paterno has said on occasion before that he would “support” Pitt getting invited to the Big 11 if they ever expanded. It was an empty promise then.

The desire by Paterno for a Eastern member in the Big 11 is simply about the geographic isolation of Penn State. It is, as usual, self-serving for Paterno and Penn State. It is not about the Big 11 or any desire to reach out to the other 3 programs mentioned. It is not about helping the Big 11 and their big gap between the end of the season and bowl season.

I would have preferred a tepid “no comment” or the obvious lie of, “I’m not even thinking about that right now.” Instead, DeJuan Blair had to be too honest, too emotional, and provide too much to parse after accepting his co-Big East POY award.

“I want to stay at Pitt, just so everybody can say, ‘We loved him,'” Blair said. “It’s up in the air. It depends on this year. But I want to stay.”

Blair is a projected first-round draft pick, but he said his heart remains in the Steel City.

The 6-foot-7 sophomore center said the ceremony last week to retire Brandin Knight’s jersey got him thinking about his legacy at Pitt. Knight, a Pitt assistant coach and former All-America point guard, is one of only four Pitt players to have his number retired.

“I want my jersey to be retired like Brandin,” Blair said. “That’s an inspiration to look up and see your jersey every day. Just to stay and be loved in Pittsburgh. … I’m always going to come back. I’m always going to be here.

“We’re going to see how it goes.”

As I said when McCoy made his declarations of coming back, I’m not holding him to it. There’s nothing to hold him to.

I have no doubt he loves it at Pitt. I have no doubt he knows all about the possibilities of legacies and all those things. I also know the money is out there and that the NBA is another league heading for a major economic shake-up.

My hope is that he leaves, because he can stand up at a press conference and declare that he has accomplished everything he wanted at Pitt — including that trip to the White House.

At the very least, he will be going through the draft evaluation this year.

As for the co-Big East POY award and sharing it with Hasheem Thabeet.

Not that Blair believes it should be that way.

When asked if he was OK sharing the award, Blair said: “What do y’all think?”

His smile said the rest.

Few people seem to get how Thabeet got as many votes. All BE Commish Mike Tranghese has said is that it was one of the closest votes ever, and that five players received 1st place votes.

Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own players and had to submit their ballots Friday, the day before Pitt beat Connecticut for the second time this season.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon declined to reveal his ballot but said he factored in which player led the regular-season champion.

“I always try to pick a guy from the team that won it,” he said. “I had (Louisville senior Terrence) Williams up there.”

For Blair, it was probably best, that the voting had to be in early. Sam Young and Terrence Williams both came up with big games for their teams.

In the blog exchange, both sides had similar thoughts about the feelings of the fans of the losing team.

Whoever loses is going to be very pissed off about it, thanks to a low score and frightening aerial displays on both sides. Stull should plan to be either very patient or very unproductive this weekend, and the Iowa passing game appears to be a mess once again.

And:

I predict that this could be a painfully frustrating game for both fanbases. Both coaches will play for field position, so there will be lots of punting and the score will stay very close. The fans of the losing team will fume and complain about missed opportunities and how this game was right there for them.

Okay, so neither of us exactly went out on a limb. But we weren’t wrong. As much as Pitt fans were expecting the worst in this game, given Wannstedt’s history at Pitt to date. Well, that’s nothing compared to the frustratingly low expectations from Iowa fans that even predates Ferentz.

If you underestimate the importance of this game, don’t; that’s a grave error. There are only two possible outcomes:

1. Iowa records their biggest non-conference road win since Penn State in 1983;
2. We must sit here and explain away the fact that Iowa just lost to the Wannstache.

And that’s it. Buck a quarter-century-long trend of reprehensible road play, or force us to drink suicidally and post a Wannstachalanche. No pressure, Hawks.

Iowa just doesn’t win non-cons of any significance on the road. That does put Pitt’s win in a slightly different context. And boy, they are pissed at the coach for this. Especially because of the curious decision with musical QBs.

Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz had a hunch Jake Christensen could rally the Hawkeyes to victory — despite misfiring on four of six first-half passes against Pittsburgh on Saturday afternoon.

He guessed wrong.

Iowa’s final drive of the game fell apart after Christensen fumbled at the Hawkeyes’ 28-yard line in the final minute.

A hunch? Really?

“Probably more of a gut thing than anything else,” Coach Ferentz said. “I just felt like at halftime Jake (Christensen) had a little better feel for what was going on, particularly what they were doing defensively. Thought he gave us the best opportunity to win the football game.”

This is where the “gut thing” gets a little confusing.

Sophomore Ricky Stanzi completed 7 of 10 in the first half, including his first six passes. He also led Iowa on its lone touchdown drive of the half, a Greene 6-yarder that pulled Iowa to 14-10 with 3:24 left before halftime. Well, Stanzi didn’t exactly “lead” on that drive. Six of the nine plays went to Greene, who gained 52 yards, including a 32-yarder on sweep.

Meanwhile, junior Christensen was 2-for-6 for 15 yards in the first half. After McCoy fumbled on Pittsburgh’s first play, giving Iowa first down at Pitt’s 19, Iowa could only go 11 yards and ended up with Trent Mossbrucker’s 26-yard field goal.

Despite the numbers, Ferentz’s gut told him to go with Christensen, who played the entire second half, finishing 12 of 24 for 124 yards with four sacks. Stanzi had his helmet on a few times, but he mostly stood outside sideline huddles with offensive coordinator Ken O’Keefe.

Remember, Ferentz has the final word on this. He said exactly that last week when Stanzi was pulled in favor of Christensen in the third quarter of last week’s victory over Iowa State.

It’s a gut thing.

“It was just the feel I had,” Ferentz said. “That’s just how I was feeling during the course of the game.”

They are taking this sort of executive decisionmaking well.

They won’t believe this in Chicago or Miami, where Dave Wannstedt coached NFL teams. They won’t even believe it here, where Wanny has yet to approach the penthouse of the Big East. But he out-coached fellow son of Pittsburgh, Ferentz. Or more accurately, he didn’t out-coach himself. Unlike his Iowa counterpart.

Yay, our coach didn’t outsmart himself in the game.

You do get the feeling that Wannstedt would go with Jake Christensen as well in the same situation. Or is that just me? He’s a year older than Stanzi. Tough mentally and physically. More experience. Just not as good.

Let’s make one thing clear: This is not Jake Christensen’s fault. He is what he is. He’s short. He’s inconsistent. He’s inaccurate. The next pass he throws with any touch will be his first.

It’s not for lack of effort. Or toughness. Or heart. Christensen is a stand-up kid. He’s faced tough questions from the media. He’s been booed at home by his own fans. He’s taken it like a man.

But, by God, if he’s the quarterback that gives Iowa the best chance to win, I’m Brad Pitt.

And if Christensen starts a game at home, he’ll likely be booed again. Not because the fans hate him. But, because the fans don’t have any other way to let the coaches know how stupid they think the decision is.

Pitt’s special teams were exceptional in the Iowa game. That’s a credit to Coach Wannstedt since he coaches special teams. Iowa. Not so much.

This week, special teams play in every facet lagged for Iowa. Iowa missed a field goal, suffered a blocked punt and gave Pittsburgh’s sports information department a reason to push punter Dave Brytus for the annual Ray Guy Award.

At least 11 different special teams plays were negatives for Iowa.

They have a list of screw-ups that includes the missed field goal. Is it worth noting that Iowa was also playing musical kickers as well?

The mad bastards at Black Hearts Gold Pants and I did the blogger exchange. Adam Jacobi who also goes under the name “Oops Pow Surprise” is also a cohort at FanHouse and the creator of the awesome JoePa Chronicles. My responses to his questions can be found here.

So, what does Iowa have to offer other than corn, ethanol and every few years an infestation of pandering politicians?

Sir, our state is rich in many things. You neglect hogs, soybeans, and wine. Yes, wine. Sure, it’s totally unpotable, but you should pick up a bottle of the local Grigio anyway–I’ve never seen anything take the stain off a deck and kill the weeds underneath like that.

Is there any difference between Stanzi or Christensen at QB other than name length? Is there an Iowa fan preference?

Sure, there’s a difference. Christensen is more experienced, but a full year of getting beaten into submission–46 sacks in 2007–has turned him into a frightened rabbit under center. But all the same, he doesn’t throw picks. He doesn’t throw much of anything, really, not when there’s a defensive lineman in the same, uh, area code.

Chased by a bear

Or a bear.

Stanzi’s fresh, taller, and can put touch on a ball. He also throws severely ill-advised passes about 10-15% of the time and probably played his way right out of the starting lineup with a 5-14, 2-pick performance against ISU. Oh, and he left 11 points off the board on what should have been easy TD passes. You won’t really know who’s starting until Saturday morning; Stanzi started against FIU after Ferentz named Christensen his man earlier that week.

Any arrests or academic casualties in the last few days? Follow-up, has the strong start by Iowa alleviated some of the negativity towards Ferentz and the football team that seemed to be there prior to the start of the season?

(more…)

The question — such as it is — regarding Iowa is whether Ricky Stanzi or Jake Christensen will be the starter remains. On the Iowa depth chart there is the ever-popular “OR” between the two. Both have played and alternated in effectiveness and putridness. Does it really matter?

For a somewhat non-coach speak assessment of Iowa quarterback, we go to Pittsburgh.

It’s not much, but here’s what Pitt Coach Dave Wannstedt sees in Jake Christensen and Ricky Stanzi.

“Stanzi might have a bit of a stronger arm and he might be a little bit more accurate but he’s probably not as athletic,” Wannstedt said. “But they aren’t going to change their offense regardless of who is at quarterback. We’ll prepare for both. Obviously, one’s right-handed (Stanzi) and the other is left-handed (Christensen) but that won’t change our preparation much.”

For coach-speak, here’s Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz’s Tuesday afternoon glimpse into the situation.

“I don’t know. we’ll just see how things go. If the guy’s throwing a shutout …” Ferentz said. “Guy walks the first six batters, we might be going somewhere else, too. Yeah, I’ll go with that one.

“In obvious situations, we’ll do the obvious.”

I expect Christensen will start. He started every game last season and lost the starting job against FIU. Then came back strong against Iowa State after Stanzi flailed about. Figure it was the cliched “wake-up call” for Christensen, and along with his experience he’ll be given the start on the road.

The bigger concern for Pitt is stopping Iowa running back Shonn Greene.

“The running back, because of the way things have unfolded, is a guy that gets your attention,” Wannstedt said. “He’s as physical a running back as we’ve seen in a while. This guy does not come down with an arm tackle. You need to find a way to get him to the ground.”

Iowa was just happy to find a way to get him back in school. Greene rushed for 116 yards against Ball State as a freshman, becoming the school’s first rookie to break the century mark since Tony Stewart in 1987.

But he played mostly special teams after that, and academic difficulties forced him to spend last year at Kirkwood Community College. He returned to the Hawkeyes in mid-June.

Greene rushed for 109 yards on 22 carries against Maine, had 101 yards on nine carries in the first quarter alone against Florida International – the first time an Iowa back had done so since 2002 – and is coming off a 120-yard performance against Iowa State.

“You always talk about backs running with their pads down. He delivers blows. If you don’t bring the wood, you’re going to get the wood,” Bennett said. “In each game, he’s had what I call decisive runs that set the game and put other teams at the break point.”

So, is this game a “key” game for Pitt and Wannstedt? They think so in Iowa.

Look at the facts: Saturday’s game between the Panthers (1-1) and the Hawkeyes is at Heinz Field, where the Panthers have already lost once this season — a 27-17 stunner against Bowling Green. Another non-conference home loss and Pitt’s bowl hopes — it hasn’t been to one in three years — start to look iffy.

Coupled with expectations for the season, at home and a bye week and they see it as a no-brainer. Over at Cat Basket, there is a different view.

This game is the type of game Wannstedt always loses; home against a manageable opponent when we are the favorite and after a bye week. A narrow win would only mean that we are around the same level that we were coming off of the Buffalo win and a loss means we are back to square one. Iowa having some profile in college football is the built in excuse for the coaching staff if we lose this game.

I sort of agree. A loss, and nothing has changed. It is the kind of game Pitt loses, and Iowa would be 4-0 and almost a lock for a bowl game. Ergo, Pitt lost a game to a quality opponent and the usual litany of excuses.

A win, though, would make this different. 0-5 off of byes. 1-5 versus BCS opponents. 0 wins in the non-con against 1-A teams that finished with winning records. That’s Wannstedt’s tenure to date. In that respect, a win would be big. It actually gives hope that the team is getting it together.

It may be false hope from facing a team that is almost the equal to Pitt with a lack of offensive innovation, but it would offer hope.

It’s the in-story in the offseason. ESPN’s Outside the Lines story on Penn State‘s off-the-field issues. I was only able to get around to watching it this evening (I really love having a DVR). There have been enough people e-mailing me about it that I will write something.

There was nothing too earth-shattering in it. That Penn State has had a lot of criminal charges filed against the players in the past several years is not a revelation. This sort of report has been building as it has carried on each year. Suggesting something in the team culture, rather than just the “bad apple” argument.

Joe Paterno’s insistence on denying everything shouldn’t have been a surprise. Even his overall cantankerousness. It’s Joe Paterno. Big shock that he’s old and cranky when the media isn’t asking the questions he wants. I had a sense that if Steve Delsohn — the reporter — held up a blue paint sample and asked him what he thought of this shade of blue, Paterno would have denied that it was actually blue by the end

Remember what I wrote last week about Iowa’s problems? Well, here’s the key bit.

More than that, though, it also becomes an issue of how the fans face such things. Do they look at it solely in what it means in wins and losses? Do they circle the wagons and descend into lunatic-fringe paranoia – seeing conspiracies and attempts to bring down their beloved program at every turn? Do they demand accountability from the program and their school?

That’s what Penn State fans have to address. Is it all just an ESPN hit piece? Numbers without context? Really? The PSU Football team has been a top-510 resident of the Fulmer Cup the past two years. What does that say?

Programs like Penn State, Notre Dame and Michigan love to talk about a special way of doing things and all that tripe in the past. Their fans eat it up and parrot it. Really, what they want is to win. Period. When convenient they will rationalize it with “everybody does it” themes to minimize things. They will accuse all others of being jealous and just trying to bring them down.

It doesn’t go both ways no matter how hard they try. Either accept that the old ways are long gone and the program is just like every other program out there. With periods of bad behavior and problems. Or mean it when you claim the program is different. Demand and act accordingly when the bad crap happens.

Pardon me, I’m climbing up on a high horse for a minute. Hmm. Uncomfortable.

I try not to kid myself. Pitt, like any school involved in 1-A athletics will have players commit crimes, make mistakes, get in academic trouble and just generally screw-up. It has happened. It will happen. Every school and program has to address this at some point or another. Whether it comes once or in waves.

The issue isn’t having it happen. It’s how the school, the program and the coaches address it. That’s where the character of the school and program really come to the forefront.

More than that, though, it also becomes an issue of how the fans face such things. Do they look at it solely in what it means in wins and losses? Do they circle the wagons and descend into lunatic-fringe paranoia –  seeing conspiracies and attempts to bring down their beloved program at every turn? Do they demand accountability from the program and their school?

My college football FanHouse colleague Adam Jacobi goes down the final path in a post that is absolutely devastating in the issues and questions raised about the University of Iowa. He’s an Iowa alum, and he loves his school. There is no hyperbole. No calls for cleaning house. That’s what makes it such a brutal post for Iowa.

It lays out the issue. It asks questions that have been avoided. The facts simply put Iowa in a bad light and there is no pretending otherwise. This is a “read it all” post.

I hope Pitt never faces this level of crisis. I also hope that if it does happen Pitt fans and I can be that honest about it.

Dismounting.

Back at the end of June, I made a couple passing mentions of how Ohio State had pulled in some of the top WPIAL talent in this recruiting cycle. Not surprisingly, there was a story on that issue.

Since Trinity graduate Andrew Sweat verbally committed to Ohio State in May 2007, four other WPIAL recruits — former Jeannette quarterback Terrelle Pryor, Jeannette running back Jordan Hall, Gateway linebacker Dorian Bell and Gateway receiver Corey Brown — followed his lead.

Again, it isn’t the volume, but the quality. The Terrelle Pryor commit in April had a significant impact. Even though he goes in as a 2008 recruit, his drawn out decision-making went on 2 months past NLI Day. But, this has as much to do with it as anything.

“When you look at elite programs in the country, there are four right now: Ohio State, USC, Florida and LSU,” Gateway coach Terry Smith said. “Ohio State is the closest to Western Pennsylvania, and Pa. kids tend to stay close to home.”

That actually applies to most recruits, not just the ones in Pennsylvania.

This isn’t to say that Ohio State will now be a regular force in Western PA to contend with recruiting. Outside teams tend to go in cycles.

Just a few years back, it was Michigan that was the major national interloper. Then they faded. With DickRod now there, they might be a factor once more.

Short-term it can be frustrating and bothersome. Long-term, I’m not as worried.