Thank goodness Tyler Boyd verballed to Pitt on Saturday. Otherwise I don’t want to think about how angst-ridden we Pitt fans would have been Saturday night. As it was, it wasn’t pretty.

Starting with some football. Because, at least it means the season is officially finished.

Let’s face it, the signs and portents were there from the start. Doakes being suspended to make an already weak link spot on a weak O-line that much worse. With Ray Graham and a couple others unable to go, it was even less promising. I know Graham would never have done it, but if I were Graham and watching the O-line during the week. I might have been grabbing my hamstring and gimping up to avoid any stupid chances in this game.

And on the fifth play, the interception-free streak of Sunseri came to an end to at least try and snuff out hope early.

(more…)

Hopefully there won’t be much overlap between the end of Pitt-Rutgers basketball on ESPN2 and the BBBVA Compass Bowl game of Pitt-Ole Miss on ESPN at 1pm. And if there is overlap, it would be nice if it was the end of a Pitt blowout of the Scarlet Knights.

Good news! Pitt will play with 11 players on offense despite Arthur Doakes suspension. Coach Chryst says so.

Pitt coach Paul Chryst refused Thursday to name a replacement at right guard for redshirt sophomore Arthur Doakes, who has been suspended for violating a team rule and won‘t play in the BBVA Compass Bowl on Saturday against Ole Miss.

“We have a plan,” he said. “We are going to line up with 11 (players). I promise that.”

The plan involves shifting the line a little.

Chryst will deal with the loss of right guard Arthur Doakes by juggling the offensive line. Matt Rotheram, who has played right tackle all season, will move to guard, his natural position when he was recruited in 2010 from North Olmstead (Ohio) High School. Zenel Demhasaj will get the first start of his Pitt career at right tackle. Demhasaj, a redshirt junior who is not returning next season, has been at Pitt for the past two years after transferring from Nassau (N.Y.) Community College.

So, plugging in someone new and shifting one of the linemen from where he played all year. What could go wrong? Not saying there’s much of a choice. Just saying, that I’m not optimistic about what to expect from the line.

(more…)

It’s been a while since I wrote anything about the football team (okay, it’s been a while since I had some time to write much of anything). So, time to hit the links.

Cam Saddler is back with the team and down in Birmingham. Arthur Doakes, however, is not.

Pitt redshirt sophomore Arthur Doakes , who started the final four games of the regular season at right guard, was suspended for at least one game for violating team policy, a university spokesman said Wednesday. Doakes won‘t play in the BBVA Compass Bowl on Saturday against Ole Miss, but coach Paul Chryst hasn‘t named a replacement. Redshirt sophomore Shane Johnson , who never has started a game in three seasons at Pitt, is listed behind Doakes on the team‘s two-man depth chart. Doakes, 6-foot-6, 340 pounds, had replaced regular starting right guard Ryan Schlieper , who suffered a season-ending ankle injury Oct. 27 against Temple. Doakes is the second Pitt offensive lineman suspended this season. Redshirt junior Juantez Hollins was suspended for the season before the start of training camp.

Nothing to worry about there. Why the last time there was a last-minute loss of an offensive lineman before a bowl game with little to no help behind him it was only the Sun Bowl. No reason to panic. None at all.

(more…)

“It will feel good to run out of that tunnel one more time before I take my talents to the next level,” [Ray] Graham said.

“Any bowl, except Birmingham (Compass Bowl),” he added with a laugh. “Three times in a row. I think they may not even allow us in there. Wherever we go, we are going to make the best of that bowl game and have fun. Another win will help solidify the season.”

We all hoped, any place but Birmingham.

So, in the end it comes back to Birmingham. All those hopes for a New York Brawl. Or even a trip to a bowl named for a chain that is a poor-man’s Applebees. Gone. Dashed against the forces of a 6-6 record, and the fervent desire of everyone else to avoid the BBVA Compass Bowl as well.

I get it. All who point out the obvious. That if Pitt didn’t want to go to a third straight trip to Birmingham, then they should have showed up for the first three quarters of the UConn game. Or the first quarter of the Syracuse game. Or finished the job against Notre Dame. There is no question that this team had opportunities. Couple that with the Big East bowl tie-ins, and it is really easy to say Pitt got what they deserved.

Except that it is three bleeping times to the same crappy bowl. And lest anyone forget, Pitt got bumped way down to the BBVA in 2010. They finished 7-5 and 5-2 in conference. Not great, given the expectations, but consider that USF and Louisville finished worse. Cuse had the same record overall, but lost to Pitt. Last year, attempts to evade the BBVA were thwarted by a pissed off Big East because Pitt was heading to the ACC (not an issue as much this year since only Cinci will still be in the Big East by 2014). So, at some point there has to be a balancing out of things. Right?

(more…)

The good news, is that Pitt has been following that whole 2-wins, 2-losses thing. So from that side of things, Pitt should win in Tampa on Saturday night.

The bad news. Pitt hasn’t won a Big East road game this year. The only road win this year: at Buffalo. Oh, and Pitt is 0-4 in night games this year (1-6 in all games that did not start at noon).

Pitt sits at 5-6. A win squeaks them into a bowl game. Normally this would have Pitt staring down the barrel of a 3d straight trip to Birmingham and the BBVA Bowl. Yet, oddly enough, there is a good chance for Pitt to snag a bid to one of the other bowls.

The Pinstripe and Beef O’Brady Bowl both seem to be expressing a bit more interest in grabbing Pitt.

(more…)

One of the greatest sources of tension for Big East football fans and ND has not been the fact that ND stayed independent. Not that they wouldn’t fully commit, and on top of it they wouldn’t really schedule Big East teams unless it was on their terms (Pitt and Syracuse being exceptions owing to history). No, it was the bowl relationship. That on top of being able to park basketball and their olympic sports in the Big East, they could swoop in and grab a bowl bid just by being within two wins of the team inline for the bowl. A source of immense frustration that only exacerbated the anger most Big East football fans had towards the line-up of bowl options.

The justification from the Big East — and repeated so many times by so many — was that the Big East would not even have the bowl line-up it presently has (had?), but for the affiliation of Notre Dame as a carrot to the bowls. Which of course, begs the question,  what happens to the Big East bowl line-up post-ND? A related and more relevant question for Pitt fans, what about the ACC bowl line-up?

There is a slight possibility of actually finding out what Notre Dame’s impact on a conference bowl line-up beyond the perpetual rhetoric.

(more…)

Not sure why a bunch of stuff chose to break just before Juy 4. It means more stuff piling up in the browser window. The expansiopocolypse stuff, once more, has been a big summer filler. And like so many big summer movies, much more hype than any substance.

The Big 12 expansion stuff ended up a lot like the Green Lantern movie.

Hyped blockbuster, but the story dragged.

Actors that just didn’t have the fit or energy for the movie.  Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively headlining a summer blockbuster=FSU and Clemson in the Big 12.

Bad storyline with motivations muddled and abandoned. The Big 12 wants back to 12. No, wait, they’re happy at 10 teams. They want FSU and are willing to take Clemson. No wait, it is ND they  want. FSU athletic department is broke, not broke, wants to move, internal disagreements, who knows.  Clemson coaches pooh-poohing the move while Clemson fans clamor to go… While in the Green Lantern movie, they tossed in and abandoned little storylines and characters so that you didn’t know the reasons for anything culminating with Sinestro abruptly putting on the yellow “fear” ring at the very end of the movie. This after seeing Parallelax defeated by green willpower and hope.

I’ll stop there because I’m heading off on a major digression before even beginning.

(more…)

Okay, truly this bowl feels like an exhibition. Make no mistake, I want Pitt to win. It’s always more fun to see Pitt play well — and lord knows we are starving for that sight. It is just that this game has interim coaches heading to other jobs after this game. Pitt players that will be getting to know a new coach — again. And us the fans. Looking to the future and hoping — dare I say, believing — that things will be brighter.

The seniors will be prepping for the next stage in their life. Whether it is going to the myriad of exhibition “senior” bowls where they hope to catch the eyes of NFL scouts. Moving on to graduation and future endeavors. Or to go see their brother play and father coach in the BCS Championship game.

Oh, hell, let’s enjoy this last game. Pop open a nice beer or a good Scotch or bourbon. Toast this team and the coaches finishing the job. Try to keep the stress off, and jokes coming as we mock Fraud Graham one more time.

(more…)

A sampling of Pitt football posts that would get a bigger hit count then mentioning the BBVA Bowl:

1. Recruiting
2. 2012 QB speculation
3. Tino-bashing
4. Speculating on new assistant coaching hires
5. Panthers in the pros
6. Mocking Hoopies
7. Mocking Nits
8. Expansiopocolypse updates
9. Paul Hackett retrospective

You get the idea. And it’s not that I won’t watch, and react. It’s not that I won’t be writing about it — both before and after. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s not even that the game is Alabama (this is a made-for-TV-bowl, after all). It is that it is 3 1/2 weeks away and against SMU. Still I have tabs to clear and I’m sick of seeing these.

(more…)

In case anyone thought I was just making stuff up regarding Pitt getting sent to the BBVA Bowl in Birmingham, solely for TV. There is this bit of information.

…the BBVA Compass Bowl pitting 6-6 Pitt against 6-6 SMU. That last one’s particularly interesting because, according to multiple sources, the Birmingham game didn’t want the Panthers back for a second straight year, and Pitt was so opposed to the idea it threatened to boycott. Seriously.

So how did that matchup still end up happening? One word: ESPN. Its subsidiary, ESPN Regional, owns six of those low-rung bowls, including the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s and BBVA Compass games. And lest anyone tell you otherwise, head honcho Pete Derzis ultimately decides who plays where. He’s the reason Marshall is playing in St. Pete instead of Pittsburgh and why SMU is in Birmingham instead of … somewhere else.

The bowls are purportedly for the “student-athletes,” and arguably they still are in places like Pasadena and Orlando. In Birmingham or St. Petersburg, however, they’re for three hours of television programming, and the teams are ancillary figures.

And as Zeise noted, it is not like the Big East was going to do anything to help Pitt.

The bottom line is Pitt was trying to work something out with the Beef O Brady’s Bowl but the Big East made it pretty clear that they weren’t going to help Pitt’s cause and they basically told Pitt it was headed to the BBVA Compass Bowl because that bowl needed someone who might actually attract a television audience. (Believe it or not, Pitt might not be good at selling tickets, but people will watch the Panthers on TV which makes them attractice to a bowl like this, which exists almost exclusively as cheap programming for ESPN.

That’s part of why Pitt kept ending up on weeknight ESPN showings. We like sitting in our couches — not burning them.

After two liveblogs, a 12 hour binge of college football and basketball, and a minor case of alcohol poisoning. I had to take Sunday away from the computer and TV. Something about family time. That always ends well. Add in the fact that my phone choked on an operating system update — sending it into perpetual reboot — and I am feeling quite deaf and blind for the next couple of days until the replacement arrives.

Well, Pitt is heading back to Birmingham for the BBVA Bowl and will face SMU. Present (soon enough to be past) Big East versus future. I noted yesterday that the one advantage for Pitt of getting sent to Birmingham for a bowl: no one expects any fanbase to travel for a bowl in Birmingham. Factor in that Pitt played in it last year, and it should be quite the local crowd. More good news, Pitt basketball doesn’t have a game the same day this year.

(more…)

I’ve paid zilch attention to this in the last week. Barely skimmed some of the dispatches. Didn’t want it to be like this. Didn’t expect it to. I can only hope that somehow the kids care and put more effort forth than I have.

It’s a nooner (of course it is) on ESPN. Joining me in running the liveblog is longtime commenter and liveblog participant, Maz. I will be with you until 2pm, when I have to switch to the Marquette-Pitt basketball liveblog.

We will try to discuss the game, though, I’m sure there will be some talk of the coaching mess at the moment.

(more…)

I mean, who didn’t see this coming?

Pitt has distributed between 2,000 and 3,000 tickets, athletics department spokesman E.J. Borghetti said. Borghetti declined to say how many have been sold and how many are allocated for free, such as to staff members, band members, cheerleaders and players’ families.

Kentucky media relations director Tony Neely reported the school’s ticket sales at 4,000. He also did not elaborate on the number sold compared to distributed.

Both teams had disappointing seasons. Kentucky has suspended their senior starting QB for the game. Pitt is in a coaching turnover, and fired/reassigned/resigned Coach Wannstedt still has not decided if he is coaching this team. (Wannstedt is starting to piss me off about this. I get that he is still upset over everything, but he is screwing around with his own players by refusing to make a decision yet.)

(more…)

What? You haven’t joined the Pitt Blather Bowl Challenge yet? The bowl games start tomorrow at 2 pm.

Need your incentive other than the joy of competing by predicting the outcome of all the bowl games?

Okay, time to announce the prize for the winner.

You will have a choice. I have one pair of the customized Pitt Nike Zoom Huarache training sneaker, courtesy of Nike. Here are some more pics from the Pro Combat day. I would have kept the pair for myself, because I did get to try a pair and they fit nicely. Unfortunately the pair they sent me is not my size. So if you win and want the sneaker option we will find out if you have the right sized foot for this.

(Odd aside, of the ten programs to get the Pro Combat treatment this fall, four of them — Pitt, Florida, Miami and WVU — have coaching turnover.)

Now the other prize option is a schwag/regifting collection. All of the items are new/unused. I’ve ended up with them, and it’s time to dump them share.

Among the items in this are:

– 8 GB jump drive in the form of Nike branded military dog tags

– Padded black Nike drawstring bag

– Jim Beam branded flask

– Brewzkey bottle opener

– Flying Dog branded pint glass

And I’m adding this t-shirt in size Large

There may be some other items added, but I have to look what is accumulated.

How can you not be fired up to play now? Register, here.

Pretty self explanatory. Bowl challenge by confidence. Rules are on the site if you are unsure as to how it works.

You rank your picks 1-34. If your pick wins, you get those points. Whoever finishes with the most points at the end of the Bowl Season will receive a prize that Chas will announce shortly.

Click here to create your entry. The password is pittblather