Month: August 2016

Catfight!! Pitt vs Villanova

We are on the cusp of another year of Pitt football, the beast we both love and fear.  This season has an aura of excitement around it that I don’t believe I have witnessed since back in 2008 when we were coming off an injury riddled 2007 that saw us rally to beat rival school WVU and crush their championship hopes.

Going into 2008 we were sky high because we had an injury delayed starting QB return in Bill Stull and we had the return of the star RB LeSean McCoy… lots of similarities to this season.

But the big difference is that we aren’t going to start the 2016 season with a loss to a lesser out of conference opponent like we did against Bowling Green back then.  That just isn’t going to happen.

I rarely make concrete predictions like I just did – maybe never actually when writing about Pitt football.  But I am that sure we will not come out of the starting gate looking like wilted lettuce like we did against both YSU in 2008 and then again against Akron in 2012.

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Understudies To The Wings!!

Here we go – the smell of football is really in the air now.  The team has broken regular camp practices and and is working on the game plans for the opener.  The optimists are figuring a nine win season and the not-so-optimistic figures a seven or eight win deal is about right.

No one thinks sub-.500 though so that’s a good thing.

Best line in this?  “Maybe he misses a class and doesn’t play at all.”  I love this stance folks, truly.  BTW – missing a class for a valid reason isn’t what he’s talking about – he means cutting class.

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How We Pitt People Choose to Live

joe-knew

“Joe Knew”.  Two words that are in the center of a lot of controversy and indignation.  I wish I could say it was a tempest in a teapot but I don’t feel that way.  And even as a die-hard Pitt fan I don’t fail to see the ‘other’ side’s reasoning in this matter of the manufacturing and attempted sales of these shirts.

For some background…  Some minor Pitt blog, at least one I have never heard of it, called thePoint412.com had T-shirts made up with the saying “Joe Knew” on them… and planned to sell them before the Pitt-Penn State game on Sept. 10th.

Under any other circumstances and probably anywhere else in the country this wouldn’t be newsworthy.  Fans of one college program have been insulting other schools and their fans since college football started in the early 1900s.

But the subject of those two words is Penn State’s ex-head coach of its football program Joe Paterno and the phrase itself references the Penn State – Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal.  In other words it is a hot, emotional and ultimately a sad issue.

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Sunday POV Podcast; Aug 28th

P-G –  Depth will prove key for Pitt football entering season

 Offensively, the Panthers are poised for a strong year, starting with depth on the offensive line. Pitt is shored up on the left side with Adam Bisnowaty at tackle and Johnson at guard. Alex Officer and Alex Bookser are competing at center and right guard, and Brian O’Neill, who converted from tight end, is expected to have a big year at right tackle.

But what offensive coordinator Matt Canada called “unbelievably magnificent” is the depth beyond those five — Jaryd Jones-Smith, John Guy, and Connor Dintino which makes a solid eight players in the rotation.

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