in Pitt Football 41 Words

Who Did Pitt Worse?

Now that all of you (most of you) have gotten the violations and probation talk out of your system (and yes people it’s a non-issue), lets get on to more productive things.  Like this:

Discuss.

66 thoughts on “Who Did Pitt Worse?”

  1. Bozik and it should not be close

    Cornhole 2 is second

    Hackett is third followed closely by Stallings.

    Those on the list like Fraud didn’t last long enough to do major structural damage

    Remember Barnes did give Pitt two of its best coaches today.

    Now the best? No AD makes the list. Posvar as chancellor in the 70’s. Not the 90’s version of him. Walt as coach since he saved Pitt football.

    And you see I left my two favorites off the discussion. Their legacy’s will not be kind to them.

    Tex

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Tex – fully agree with your one and two. How anyone could pick Fraud is beyond me. Clearly, those folks are not familiar with Pitt history. ANd rather than blame Hackett, I would blame the guy who hired him.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. Agree 1000% on Bozik. Glad handing jerk who really let the academics dictate athletic policy. Smilin Steve P is #2 followed by Barnes. We have almost as many dirt bags to choose from a we do hall of famers.

      Like

    4. I’m sure Zeise was trying to poll younger Twitter Pitt fans who’s parents were young when Bozik The Terrible reigned at Pitt.

      Like

  3. Just my humble opinion but Todd was a first class piece of … well you know. But he’s not even in the same league with the others.

    Stallings was just a really bad coach.

    Barnes outranks Stallings.

    But the hands down winner/loser in my book is Steve P. He killed the Pitt brand, tore down our on campus stadium and fired the best football coach and best recruiter we’ve had since Sherrill. He did more to bury Pitt athletics than anyone since Chancellor Bowman.

    Liked by 5 people

    1. As an added bonus he also ran Nebraska football completely into the ground and they still haven’t recovered.

      Liked by 3 people

  4. For me, Todd Graham, much as he is disliked, would be 4th on that list.

    I realize SP will be No. 1 for many, but my No. 1 is Scott Barnes. The basketball program needed to be rejuvenated, not burned to the ground by the inexplicable hiring of Kevin Stallings. How does Barnes have a job as an AD with how he handled a major hiring like that?

    I make Stallings No. 2 with SP in the third spot.

    I actually liked the hiring of Graham — this was based on his coaching philosophy and his reputation for being innovative… It didn’t work but I thought it was a bold move that was needed at the time. But I didn’t realize that TG would be such a poor fit… We didn’t get to see much of TG but that first class was pretty suspect when we had maybe two players over 200 pounds. Maybe I exaggerate…

    Go Pitt.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I think there is a different list for pieces of… than the list of those most damaging to the program/brand/University. In the time I’ve followed Pitt athletics, Stallings has done the most damage to the brand, but that happened only because of Barnes. So they would be 1 and 1a in my book of horrors. Pederson would climb to #1 on the list of pompous a…..holes, and Graham might just be 1a on that list.
    Somehow I often tend to complicate things——sorry MM.

    Like

    1. Well that’s why I didn’t make it a survey. Sometimes Pitt fans are just too complicated to be put in a box 🙃

      Liked by 3 people

  6. ( 1 “the steve”
    ) 2 “the steve”
    ) 3 “the steve”
    ) 4 “the steve”
    ) 5 “the steve” and on and on and one and on.

    See, I’m not always positive.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I actually did hold back dad, I could have posted “the steve” # 6 thru 50 with his name. # 51 Maybe Bozik or Nordy? << despite his good work in academics.

        Like

  7. 1) The killer b’s. They started the downfall. All else stems from them.
    2) Steve P. He tore down both a stadium and a brand.
    3) Koolaide drinkers and chicken littles. One group enables, the other is just depressing.

    Like

  8. This is a tough one.

    Choice A: Pederson Cornfritter fired Wanny and then hired a totally unqualified bum named Heywood (who lasted a week or 2), which then led to Fraud. Fired the only Coach to win 10 games at Pitt in 3 decades. since Jackie Sherrill. Now that takes a unique talent.

    Choice B : The huckster should in prison for ruining Pitt’s bball program, by fraudulently using a connected to him Hiring Agency to then hire their client Baldy Stallings(who also had previous connections to said Hiring Agencies owner). Stupid Look on His Face Barnes.

    Like I said a very tough choice indeed. Stallings & Graham were just byproducts of these 2 morons.

    I say they should share the Award, of Chief Pitt as*clown of the 21st century.

    Like

  10. After looking at JoeKnew’s post i had temporarily forgotten that Pederson had eliminated not only our on-campus historic stadium (which could have either been updated in massive refurb or replaced with Multi-purpose in same spot and both ways could have included a basketball venue) and our Brand.

    So that tilts it towards him. Notice Pederson has been unemployed since his glorious firing from Pitt.

    Cornfritter gets extra points for also ruining another storied football program. Which has also never recovered since his tenure in Lincoln.

    And even though Barnes temporarily (hopefully) ruined the bball program, that has a better chance of being repaired, than Pitt ever having another on-campus stadium and perhaps another football coach that wins 10 games.

    Like

  11. Todd Graham had all he could take of Spederman…I don’t blame him for getting the hell away… Norfinberg needs kicked in the nuts for hiring Stevie twice and giving the prick a golden parachute… time to go take an extra bp pill……

    Liked by 2 people

  12. Nothing broke my heart like the tearing down of Pitt Stadium. Out of protest I have still not attended the Peterson Center which sits on my beloved Section 23. Steve P is number 1 in my book and number 2 is a long way away.

    But in my 56 years of following Pitt Football there is a very long list of Pitt utter A holes who all thought they were smarter than fans and alumni and went ahead with their decisions ….everybody else be damned! Pitt never had a committee of “unintended consequences” like I formed in every management job I ever had. Imagine if one senior BOT said about the tearing down of Pitt Stadium…”hey wait,this is irreversible! We can never again have anOCS!

    Right now, Heather is climbing up that list!

    Like

  13. Without Scott Barnes there would have been no Kevin Stallings. Talk about “Out to Lunch!”

    No. 2 is the other AD, Steve $hiterson. If Pitt was 1st Century Rome, these three together, comprise The Barbarians that overthrew The Roman Empire. (Excuse the exaggeration – Pitt FB in the 90s and 0s – probably shouldn’t be compared to the Roman Empire. But I liked the sound of the analogy of total destruction!)

    Like

    1. Jesus dude western Rome fell in the late 5th century and the Byzantine (Greco-Roman) empire finally fell in the 13th century

      Like

  14. Kudos to Michaelangelo……….. perfect topic for PITT fans.. Good chance a brouhaha may break out. Let me go get some popcorn popped, hell I may even try and sneak a beer later on. Things that make you go hmmm

    Like

  15. Dino, Ed Bozik,Dean Billick, and John Blanton. These were the 3 geniuses who knew it all. Bozik forced out Cas, and he followed a great Pitt tradition of administrators who had no athletic experience at all and wanted to run the show. They, more than Steve and the rest combined led to the demise of Pitt athletics.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. The BOT in the mid to late 80’s, believing Pitt was Ivy League And should be held to the same admissions standards. Moreover, they allowed the facilities to rot, the coaches to become yes-men, and the programs to languish.
    They started the downward trajectory.
    Shame on them,
    And, I don’t believe Bozik had any athletic management experience prior to his buddy offering him the job.
    Way to go, Wes.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. They were West Point buds I believe

      Yes no management experience

      No sports expertise

      Academic turd

      Smudzik wrote a good article about that in the day

      Tex

      Like

  18. Steve Pederson. Took a brand and killed it. Took another brand and killed it. Came back to Pitt and rubbed it in. Disregarded my email to hire Wanny a gameday consultant coach with experience…like alabama and many great programs do ….now!

    Executive Leadership Hubris # 2.

    I think Zeise went for the emotional responses in graham and stallings. Graham was just a bad personal fit. He was a fast talking, get rich quick, slick sales guy in a town of hard working, no short cutting people. Just a bad fit. Not his fault. His BS was called out early and the ones that called it out were correct.

    Same with Stallings. He didnt kill Pitt hoops. Again, he never fit in and doubled down on his stubborness.

    Why did the story get released on a slow thursday night? It was a 2 news cycle story and should have been in and out of the news quickly. You release late friday when bad. Cmon Pitt. You need to know how to manage the media.

    Like

  19. Sorry folks but I have to redeem myself with 33-3 while sticking with the theme of the article. This is what “the steve” and others should be saying!

    Like

  20. Well there sure have been plenty of disasterous decisions made over the years.

    A few good ones too. Hiring Johnny Majors, Jackie, Walt Harris, Buzz Ridl, Ben Howland, Wanny.

    No doubt a rollercoaster. Unfortunately more lows than highs because of poor decisions.

    Ups and downs but more mediocre than anything.

    Like

  23. Some may disagree, but this is the easiest Pitt poll question ever, and it’s not even close.

    The only possible answer to this question is Cornhole.

    Bozik barely qualifies. He retired in 1991. Just inside the 30 year window.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Cornhole wins hands down. The decision to tear downPitt Stadium affected Pitt sports for a generation. Building a multi-purpose facility in its place was the obvious choice, yet a wrong, irreversible decision was made. Sharing Heinz was the easy alternative but no one who appreciated Pitt’s history would have made the decision to move off campus. The Chancellor should have stopped this debacle before it got too far.

    Like

  25. Posvar built it up then killed it in 1982 by firing Cas and hiring Bozo Bozik.

    Cas was a football guy and should have made his own hire instead of having to hand it over to Foge.

    Then Posvar allowed Bozik to fire Gottfried and offered the job to Hackett before the A&M game after his “Nationwide” search. Interviewed Barry Alvarez for six hours and decided on Hackett. Wow.

    The list of bozos to come thru Pitt since 1982 is really amazing. Two horrible guys who get no mention is O’Connor/Oval Jaynes. Those guys made athletics in the early/mid 90s deplorable.

    Like

  28. Steve once sold me a 73 Mustang with sawdust in the transmission…he gets my vote.
    The hubris that has hung over the university for decades is suffocating.

    Like

  29. Ole Miss was put on probation in 2017 for Level I violations which included 6 staff members … One of them, the assistant athletic director, arranged for boosters to provide between $10,000 and $15,600 in cash payments to prospective student athletes, as well as accommodations, meals and transportation.. They received a 2 year bowl ban and numerous scholarship restrictions.

    Other staff members were involved in ACT test score fixing and interfering with the investigation. This is the 3rd case in the last 3 decades that involved their boosters and the FB program.

    https://wreg.com/news/reports-ole-miss-receives-bowl-ban-four-years-probation-for-ncaa-violations/

    So how does Ole Miss respond to this a few years later …. they hire Lane Kiffin! (remember when Pitt refused to consider Calipari?) Kiffin ended up with Henry Parrish … he also flipped a 4-star WR from Florida

    speaking of ”things that make you go hmmm!”

    Liked by 1 person

  30. Ed Bozik and it’s not even close. He took a great football program and destroyed it. We’ve not been the same since.

    Like

    1. There were a lot of things that conspired to cause our football program to decline in the mid to late 80s. Bozik was a big part of it, but there were a lot of other moving parts.

      Pitt had lots of locations to move the basketball arena. But there was only one place to put a football stadium. Exactly where it sat.

      Cornhole in a landslide.

      Like

  31. I really don’t get the amount of vitriol towards Graham. I do get some of it but because of my own vitriol towards “the steve” I can see why he fled like his house was on fire. BTW, when he left he said he would tell the tale of why he left but later felt like it was water over the dam. In other words, he knew he was knee deep in crap with “the steve” so he fled the scene ASAP!

    Like

    1. a reminder that after his first full year in his 2nd stint as Pitt AD, Steve rewarded Wanny’s 9-win season with a recruiting budget cut. That was the beginning of the end.

      Then, having to settle with Heywood with his stellar $1.4M offer and that not working out, Steve had to coax his buddy Nordy to raise the ante to $2M plus higher salaries for the assistants ….. and Fraud rewarded Steve by walking a year later. Turnabout is fair play I suppose.

      Fraud told Reed and other reporters that in that day’s practice, we worked on extra point scenarios after scoring a TD in the 2nd OT period … and then in the 3rd OT period. Pssst … that’s called ‘going for two.’ Fraud was a Fraud as a few of us detected right away, in fact after hearing his hiring presser.

      My vote is still for Steve …. but I may have been one of the very few Pitt who rejoiced at what transpired in the first week of December, 2011.

      Like

  32. Here’s the thing Bill, steve did not hire Wanny or Graham after the Heywood debacle when he was relieved of his hiring duties. “the steve” hated that and meddled like no bodies business, making doing their jobs unbearable. Although Wanny was still willing to stay loyal to PITT through it all.

    Like

    1. disagree. He hired Graham .. as I wrote above, after getting Nordy to open his pocketbook. It was the Chryst hiring that was done by committee

      Like

      1. on 2nd thought. Graham was interviewed by a committee that included Nordy, but again, it was Steve who convinced Nordy to open the pocketbook

        Like

      2. I could be remembering wrong here but I thought steve was told to stay on the sidelines for the next hire after Heywood??? or maybe it was after Graham?? I think you’re right.

        Like

  33. BTW, Graham has a 95-61 record as a head coach. PITT was not a good fit for him and he did walk away from his players which is unacceptable. I’m not entirely defending him.

    Like

  34. Graham only spent a year at Pitt. He wasn’t a good fit. He hated his boss. He did leave in a bad way. But he did help stabilize Pitt. He didn’t cheat. He valued players going to class. He’s an opportunist. I don’t consider him a bad guy or a bad coach

    Wanny was a great guy but bad coach. I had no problem with wanny given the axe. But both Steve and him handled the ‘resignation’ poorly.

    Steve 1 was a good AD. Steve 2 was one of the worst AD’s in all of P5 history.

    nordenberg is very much like Bozik in my book. He had no understanding of sports and how to run it as a business. He would be number 3 on my list after bozik and Steve.

    Hackett and stallings have to be on the Mount Rushmore of bad pitt coaches.

    And someone mentioned J Dennis O’Conner and oval jaynes. I remember those bozos well

    At the end of the day, the BoT is ultimately responsible for this mess. How can a 36 member BOT of which a third are appointed bureaucratic individuals be competent and not dysfunctional. You also had a high percentage of a Nitter grads comprising membership. How can a Nitter vote in Pitts best interest.

    That’s why I advocate splitting the BoT into two smaller boards with exclusive and separate missions. One for academics and the other for athletics. No Nitter grads allowed. And each generation must have at least one representative. In the past there were too many old white men who played golf. I’ve probably just offended half the posters on here. 🤠

    Tex

    Tex

    Like

  35. We have benefited from a great number of poor hires. Probably far many more than other schools. What causes this? Where does the buck stop?

    Like

    1. It starts with not having your chancellor involved in running a sports business or influencing sports hires

      Pitt needs a CEO type individual from the pro ranks to run sports.

      Instead Pitt has a former government bureaucrat whose expertise is atomic measurements as the chancellor and an inexperienced compliance and legal person managing the sports department.

      I don’t see that front porch getting any better

      Tex

      Like

  36. Have to agree with Gasman. When you are backtracking a trail of scat in the woods, you will eventually come to the source.

    In this case, the source is (are) those (a-h’s) responsible for these mis-hires………our all-knowing, all-loving BOT. The names, over the years, should be enshrined in “The Ring of Horror”, around Heinz’ 2nd deck.

    And every home game, at the playing of “Sweet Caroline”, the kids should pick a name to chant, instead of “Let’s Go Pitt”! May those illustrious names live on in infamy. They are our Jerry Sandusky.

    Like

    1. They should yell out those names like ‘peter smith’ sucks or ‘Mary jones’ Sucks as opposed to penn state. Many of Pitts former bot members were Nitters anyway working against Pitt.

      To Pitts credit, far fewer nitswits are on the board today. There appears to have been a purge over the last 2 years. I also have seen more women of color added. Don’t know if that’s good or bad. I’m a big fan of youth having a say and not some 70 year old white guy on his last legs thinking gone with the wind was the best movie ever.

      Tex

      Like

  37. Actually Tex, Posvar and Cas were West Pointers . Boziks pull was Cochran and some others. You are correct, he had no athletic management experience. Not that you could tell from his brilliant moves. Then around the Hackett hire a female academic whose name escapes me was the prime mover to de emphasize football. She was a MAJOR factor in screwing it all up!

    Like

    1. Dean brisco. One of the killer B’s

      Always the academic side feeling threatened by athletics. Goes back to jock Sutherland. Academic eggheads have no understanding of sports. They need to stay high up in their ivory towers and let business people who know sports run the show.

      No single academic department at Pitt has a budget larger than sports. It’s an important part of Pitts mission yet doesn’t even get mentioned in their mission statement.

      Tex

      Like

  38. Fish rots from the head first. Bozik and then Cornhole are 1 and 2 in my book.

    Although its unpopular with many on here, I think the Petersen Events Center was one of Cornhole’s few good decisions, thus he drops below the man who started the demise of the sports program.

    Oakland can’t handle a football stadium, no matter the size.

    Like

    1. If Steve was a visionary, pitt would have built a MPC instead of a single purpose stadium.

      Would have provided new homes to multiple programs.

      Key would be configurable seating and hydraulic playing surface. The technology existed back then.

      It would have been a genius move.

      The venue would probably be named in his honor by now and fans would be taking selfies where his bronze statue is on the plaza.

      What could and should have been. And Pitt could have found the money. Heck they have no problem debt financing $200 million for Victory Heights today.

      I might just hop in my tardis and change history.

      Tex

      Like

  39. Ya, Bristol. She had an amazing amount of power and no clue. She was really responsible for a major decline. Resulted in unrealistic academic requirements.

    Like

Comments are closed.