Okay, I really would love for this to stop at some point. Yet Fraud Graham makes it just too damn easy.
Chris Peak at PantherLair passed this along.
RT @WACJack: OK, I admit to laughing at Todd Graham making his players sign a commitment pledge: http://t.co/KRcPmoPY
— Chris Peak (@PantherLair) August 1, 2012
What is the image? Oh, this:
In case you missed it, Pitt fans got to have a bit of fun on Twitter yesterday.
The Panther faithful hijacked a Twitter thread designed for fans to ask questions of Arizona State coach and former Pitt coach Todd Graham at Pac-12 media day on Tuesday afternoon, Within an hour, the #AskASU hashtag became one of the top trending stories in Pittsburgh on the social website.
Initially set up by the Arizona State social media director to take serious questions for the first-year Sun Devil coach, the #AskASU thread was quickly bombarded with hundreds of “questions” from testy Pitt fans.
Graham, who unceremoniously left Pitt for Arizona State after one year and informed his players by text of his decision, was derided for everything from his high-octane offense to his lack of loyalty.
The hashtag was the No. 2 trend in Pittsburgh on Twitter by mid-afternoon Tuesday, getting upwards of 20 new tweets every minute. There were roughly 300 “questions” in the first hour and the traffic increased rapidly after that, drawing interest from national college football writers.
Deadspin posted on the bit too. A lot of credit should go to the guys at Cardiac Hill, who really led the dog pile of fun then kept it going. Some small factual corrections/background to the story, though, is needed.
I believe there are people in the University of Pittsburgh Athletic Department, and in the school’s administration that read this site regularly. I try not to give too much advice, but…
Next July, when Pitt makes the move into the ACC. No videos. No “cute” gimmicks. Just a simple, understated splash page on the website to say, “Pitt is in the ACC.”
Why? No one is ever as clever as they think they are. Texas A&M drove that point home with this… this… thing.
This surfaced last night, and was immediate subject to such derision, that A&M pulled it around midnight central time. But it was too late. Having learned from the loss of TCU’s “Call Me, Maybe” video, it was quickly copied and survives to the everlasting shame of Texas A&M.
I’m trying to imagine what WVU has done for their move to the Big 12. Presumably it involves burning something.
Slimmed down and showing more leg in the 24th century (via i09).
Sorry everyone. We couldn’t even make it to Memorial Day without more Todd Graham spin-time. The latest is an ESPN piece by Ivan Maisel.
So much that could be (and probably will be) picked apart. But, just as I was about to do some, I realized that FraudGraham’s son just contradicted one of his earliest lies.
Todd Graham made the decision to leave Pittsburgh for Arizona State so suddenly in December that he caught his own son Bo unaware, and Bo is a member of his coaching staff. Bo walked out of a recruiting visit in Philadelphia at 9:30 p.m. and his phone rang.
“Hey,” Todd Graham said, “you need to come back here. Where are you?”
“You sent me to Philly,” Bo said. “Don’t you remember? Why do I need to come back?”
“Because I resigned my job.”
“You did what?”
“I resigned my job.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because I took another one.”
But… But… I thought Todd Graham resigned, without having the ASU job in hand. It was his leap of faith for his dream job.
You know, just before the Memphis news broke I was actually working on a post on Pitt, the ACC, the Backyard Brawl and all the other things. Then Memphis happened and much changed. So I had to junk it and restart.
Heading into this past weekend, there were interesting comments by AD Steve Pederson about moving to the ACC and the future schedules. I didn’t think much of it, other than being water cooler talk. The ACC put out its future plans for the conference layout including the 9-game conference schedule for football.
Pederson went on the media rounds as expected to talk about it. Much like he has said before, they are keeping an eye on things regarding the WVU lawsuit as you would expect.
Todd Graham can’t leave it alone. Well, if I’m going to even pretend to be fair, there is no way to leave it alone. Any appearance or interview he does will bring up the issue of his departure from Pitt.
What FraudGraham can’t seem to stop doing is constantly changing the story. To try and drive up the drama of how bad things were for his family. Basically, to spin any tale he can to try and get sympathy.
When it started at his intro at Arizona State, he called it his latest “dream job” and pushed the idea that he was doing it in no small part because his in-laws are in Arizona. The kind of statement that even Arizona reporters and columnists said, “huh?”
Arizona State University just hired the first football coach in NCAA history who, if you believe him, changed jobs in order to move closer to his mother-in-law.
The spin quickly shifted to his wife really wanted the move to be closer to her family — and Fraud Graham would make the hard choice just for her. Which of course generated more outrage. Prior to the move, Penni Graham was a one-woman PR machine for her husband. Constantly tweeting about how much she and the family were loving Pittsburgh. Tweeting about Pirate and Pens games. Interacting with people on Twitter. Putting out photos of her kids dressed up for Halloween as the Pitt Panther. Building up a lot of goodwill that to some extent would be extended to FraudGraham.
There was a pleasant attack on Fraud Graham (Yes, I would like to make that one stick) from the Steelers.
The Steelers practically threw a party when they heard that Pitt coach Todd Graham quit. That goes from the top to the bottom, from those who work in the offices to the coaches and every-day workers who came into contact with Graham and his staff in the building.
They described Graham as an arrogant man who had no use for anything the Steelers might have offered, and they say he resented having to share the building and the indoor practice field at the UPMC complex with them.
Before Graham, the Panthers and the Steelers ate in the same cafeteria, although at different times. Graham came in and put an end to that. The cooks at the cafeteria still prepare the food for the Panthers, but it is then brought over to the other side of the building, where Pitt created its own cafeteria to serve Graham’s players and his wishes.
Instead of embracing the advantages that an association with the Steelers might bring, Graham rejected them, even if there was little he could do about the shared facilities. That really came down to just sharing the indoor practice field and the parking lots because everything else is separate, including weight rooms, outdoor practice fields, locker rooms, etc. It’s one building, but it’s really two, like a big duplex.
I admit, I don’t understand the resentment. Other than the fact that just about every college football headcoach has at least a touch of “little dictator” in him and hates the idea of not controlling everything.
Oh, what a day.
It has been hard to keep up. Exactly a week too late for this crap to start going down. Too much stuff coming to a head, and now this again? Okay, let me apologize in advance for the expected lack of coherence. It has just been too chaotic and too insane today.
I am a natural cynic. Just the way I have always been. Not sure how or why. I just am. Being lucky enough to have had a few years writing at the now defunct AOL FanHouse gave me the opportunity to observe many turns on the college coaching carousel. Everything from Dana Altman taking the Arkansas job and then running back to Creighton. Lane Kiffin napalming Tennessee. Yet, this one even blew me away.
Yet the Tennessee-Kiffin-USC situation is probably the closest parallel. You had a brash coach. One who critics would say was much more style over substance. Makes radical change to the program. Lots of people affected. And for the most part the fans went with it because it may be a time to shake things up a bit more. A guy who struggled in the first year as the players transition to a new style. But at the same time, there’s hope because of the recruiting class that is coming.
Then the abrupt bailing — taking almost all of the new staff he brought in with him to leave a crater. Yet, somehow, as much as the “Fall of Saigon” chaos that ensued when Kiffikins bailed. He had the balls to speak to the players directly to tell them he was leaving, and to at least pay false lipservice to the media.
I’m stunned. Truly.
It’s not that I buy into worship of a coach. I also don’t expect blind loyalty or to expect Pitt to be everyone’s dream job. I just never expected that Graham would bolt after only 1 season. Let alone having him take off after a 6-6 season.
Pitt’s players were informed in a statement from Graham that was sent via text by assistant athletic director/football operations Blair Philbrick.
“I have resigned my position at Pitt in the best interest of my family to pursue the head coaching position at Arizona State,” Graham said. “Coaching there has always been a dream of ours and we have family there. The timing of the circumstances have prohibited from telling you this directly. I now am on my way to Tempe to continue those discussions. God Bless. Coach Graham.”
According to Paul Zeise’s tweet, when the DickRod assistants bolted, Graham called them “mercenaries.”
Right now, they are looking a lot better than Todd Graham.
I’m just hoping he gets June Jones’d at the last minute.
Feel free to vent. I’ll be drinking in a corner.
You know what’s sad? Well, many things regarding expansiopocolypse, but what is sad for purposes of this post is that the Big Sprawl Logo that FearTheStache did for me last year is now outdated.
We need the entire Continental US on the logo (don’t worry, I’m sure the University of Alaska Seawolves will be invited soon to add that all-important Anchorage market).
It is comical that the Big East is keeping its name. Apparently “Big Least” jokes are funny to the offices in Providence as well. Hell, I realize they think it has cache in basketball, but the name is not like the Pac-[insert number here], the SEC, Big 10, ACC or even the Big 12. This is the time to change it up — and get the offices the hell out of Providence. I recommend the CCC, or Coast-to-Coast Conference.
Well, I guess it is a sign of influence and attention. Not the best kind. Apparently some asshole has opened a twitter account with the name of this site. It’s presumably some Hoopie prick because the jist of it is to pretend I want Todd Graham fired.
If you don’t know, I tweet under @chasrich27, not the blog name.
I’m not bothering to even link to the guy, but I figure I should make it clear that this is a fake account. Please, don’t give the troll the attention he wants. Don’t get baited into responding. Just ignore him.
Thanks.
I’m never going to actually talk about the football game tonight until the liveblog, am I?
In case you hadn’t heard, the move of WVU to the Big 12 — is no longer necessarily a question of when, but maybe not.
Not long after West Virginia University began to slowly spread word of its agreement to join the Big 12 Conference on Tuesday, people began to make calls to say the deal was on hold.
And now, as one WVU official said Wednesday morning, “Who knows?”
WVU learned Tuesday evening the expected announcement to join the Big 12 was being delayed and that Louisville, which would be one of five football schools the Mountaineers would leave behind in the depleted Big East Conference, began to exert pressure on the Big 12 to consider the Cardinals instead of WVU.
The Mountaineers may now have to wait until the Big 12 board meets again Monday to perhaps decide whether the conference will accept WVU or Louisville.
This is absolutely, bat shit crazy. And we also have our first sighting of possible political interference.
There was a report — quickly debunked — over the weekend of a possible tri-merger of the Big East, Mountain West and Conference USA. Turned out the report was based on a possible plan that Mountain West and C-USA that never really had any juice.
Well, it looks like they are still trying to pitch it.
Commissioners from the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA are scheduled to meet with the head of the Big East Conference on Wednesday to discuss the formation of one 28- to 32-football team super conference to try to gain automatic Bowl Championship Series status.
The Mountain West and Conference USA already have agreed to merge by either next year or in 2013. The Big East has automatic BCS status, but is in danger of losing it after 2013 and has been exploring adding teams from the Mountain West and Conference USA in an attempt to salvage it. But the two Mountain West members face hefty exit fees should they leave — Boise State up to $21 million and Air Force up to $9.6 million — that could dissuade them from jumping to the Big East.
Seeing an opportunity, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson and Conference USA’s Britton Banowsky will make the proposal to the Big East’s John Marinatto in New York to create a mega conference.
And this was scheduled before the West Virginia news broke.
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