A LOOK AT THE NEW COACHING STAFF

With the 2011 Pitt Panther football season in the rear view mirror, I will treat this past season (starting with the Todd Graham hire until the Paul Chryst hire) just like Godfather III, the remake of the Karate Kid with Will Smith’s kid, and the Bad News Bears remake: LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.  Yup.  I’m going to bury that thing way back in my conscience where only intense mental therapy could possibly dig it back up.

As we approach signing day for this year’s class, I wanted to look forward instead of back and take a snapshot of the new coaching staff for the Panthers.  With the Bobby Engram hire and rumors swirling of the defensive line coach about to be in place, I wanted to see what kind of team Pitt fans can look forward to in 2012.

We will start with the offense.  With Chryst in the head honcho spot and picking Bob Bostad as the offensive coordinator/offensive line coach, I think I will FINALLY get what I have begged for from Pitt football in a long, long time.  I thought they would have it with Wanny, but it never happened.  Finally, it looks like Pitt has the coaching staff in place to give them a solid to dominating offensive line!  Bostad is considered one of the great offensive line coaches in college football and Chrsyt  has always succeeded with a good offensive line,  solid running game, and a strategy to work towards his team’s strengths!  Everyone looks at his time at Wisconsin, but don’t forget that Chryst was also a successful offensive coordinator at Oregon State as well with the same philosophy.  Bostad’s ability to coach up big linemen will help Chryst’s strategy take form in a hurry.

Joe Rudolph was hired as the assistant coach/QB coach.  His work will be cut out for him on the QB end, but he has always been a great recruiter.  Rudolph’s roots are in Western, PA which will help with getting an “in” with the WPIAL coaching staffs.  Every year, it seemed one or two Western, PA kids would matriculate to Madison to play for the Badgers.  Hopefully that could stop with Rudolph on board.  In addition to his years at Wisconsin, Rudolph has always been around high level programs.  Before Madison, he was a coach at Nebraska and Ohio State.  During his time in Columbus, Rudolph was active in coaching the offensive line.

The tight end coach comes to Pitt from the Minnesota Vikings, where Jim Hueber coached the offensive line (are you starting to see a pattern here with the offensive coaches???)  He was with the Vikings from 2006-2010.  If memory serves me correctly, Minnesota had some strong offensive lines and a pretty good running back…name was Adrian Peterson I believe.  Before that, Hueber was at Wisconsin during Barry Alvarez’s heyday.  He was the offensive line coach from 1992-2005.  In addition to his football knowledge, Hueber seems to like to stick in one place for a good while.

Now we move on to a few coaches that do NOT have offensive line coaching experience.  We’ll go with my vote for most overlooked coaching hire.  This is a guy whose pedigree is one that I really like a lot.  Eddie Faulkner was named running backs coach and comes to Pitt from Northern Illinois.  In his one season at NIU, the Huskies boasted the number 12 rushing attack in the country.  Before his one season there, Faulkner was under one of the hottest coaching prospects in the country at Ball State University: Brady Hoke, now at Michigan.  While under Hoke, he rose from graduate assistant to running backs coach and continued to the special teams coach, and finally to the offensive coordinator position.  When Hoke left for Ann Arbor, Faulkner was named the interim coach.  One thing has been a constant in his time as a coach – winner!  Both NIU and Ball State were big winners while Faulkner was on the staffs and I’m hoping that continues at Pitt.

Rounding out the offensive side of the ball is Engram.  There is a lot to like about him and it starts with his name.  Bobby Engram is the all time leading receiver for the Penn State record books in receiving yards, TDs, and 100 yard games.  He went on to have a long and successful career with the Chicago Bears and Seattle Seahawks.  The last two seasons he spent as an offensive assistant with the San Francisco 49ers who have had a nice turn around in the NFL.  Engram has the pedigree and is young and energetic in the coaching field. 

Dave Huxtable will be where we start for the defensive side of the ball.  He comes to Pitt from Wisconsin as well where he spent last season coaching the linebackers.  Before that, Huxtable was a successful defensive coordinator for Central Florida.  His aggressive and attacking style gave UCF top defenses in his last two seasons there and saw it reach its peak with a smothering, defensive led win over Georgia in the Liberty Bowl, 10-6.  During his time at UCF, he employed a 4-3 defense.  I think with Pitt’s recent struggles at linebacker, his coaching background and moving to that type of defense would benefit Pitt very well.  Whether he switches to that defense or not, I think Pitt fans will love his aggressive style.

The first addition to Huxtable’s defensive staff was Mt. Lebanon head coach Chris Hearing.  Hearing was a GA with West Virginia with Chryst.  He will coach the linebackers for Pitt and also teams with Rudolph to give the Panthers a good WPIAL flavor on the coaching staff.  Despite his lack of college experience, I like giving a local high school football coach a place on this staff.

The defensive backs will be coached by Matt House.  House comes to Pitt from the St. Louis Rams.  With the recent years the Rams have had, this obviously sent a warning signal up when this hire was announced.  However, when you take a deeper look, House had a pretty successful season before that with the a 12-4 Carolina Panthers team and before that was on a hot coaching staff at the University of Buffalo with Turner Gill.  Under Gill, House was the defensive backs coach and recruiting coordinator.  Before that he spent some time at North Carolina and Michigan State.  He was also the defensive line coach at Gardner-Webb.  His entire career has been spent on the defensive side of the ball and knows what NFL coaches want in a player. 

Rounding out the defensive side of the ball is the defensive line coach.  Pitt has not officially hired for that position as of yet.  For right now, it appears that Inoke Breckterfield may get a crack at it.  He comes from the same position at UCLA.  Before that, Breckterfield spent time at Oregon State and had some nice success as the defensive line coach at Montana.  We should know within the next few days when it is officially announced, but as of now the smart money is on Inoke.

The strength and conditioning coach on Chryst’s staff is Todd Rice.  If you can tell me if that is good or not, please do so….I have not an ounce of a clue how important or how different strength and conditioning coaches are to Pitt.  All I know is that former Pitt players LOVE Buddy Morris.  Other than that, I don’t know too many S&C coaches names around the country.  I know he has a ton of experience from colleges like NC State, Boston College, and Cal Berkeley.  As long as Pitt does not start getting pushed all over the field or dying in the fourth quarter, I think the S&C coach is doing his job.

Overall I like this staff.  I think Chryst has put together a good one.  The question marks are pretty obvious.  No head coaching experience (save for the interim tag on Faulkner) and there are a lot of question marks about recruiting (save for Rudolph).  The strengths are that Pitt may finally mirror the Steelers.  An aggressive defense and a very good offensive line (well, the Steelers have slightly fallen off in that department the last few years).  If there are two things that Pittsburghers like, it is a hard hitting and aggressive defense and an offense that can impose its will on the opposition.  Will Chryst’s staff be able to deliver?  We’ll have to wait to find out.  Hopefully he can.  Many seem to like the hire.

Signing day is coming up on Wednesday.  I know about as much about whether a high school player will turn into anything at the college level as I do about dominating the boards in a basketball game (I’m about 5’2).  I do love reading about them and imagining the possibilities and there are plenty out there that you can check out that know much more and whose opinion I really respect.  I will post links to those sites on Wednesday evening or Thursday evening, depending on when they are up on other sites.  If you want to look in the meantime and not waste your time coming to my site, please check out these guys on Wednesday:

Pittsburgh’s Rivals site (pay site, but it is worth it), Pitt Script, Panther Blather, Cardiac Hill, Panthers Prey Blog, and of course, Paul Zeise at the Post-Gazette.  I will post the links when those guys have them up, as their knowledge and writing about Pitt football is very well done.

Lastly, after signing day, I will go into a little shell.  I may post here and there, but Pitt football is this sight’s main focus.  In the meantime, you can follow me on twitter @BrunoPittsburgh.   A few thoughts outside of Pitt football before I go:

-           God…please tell me that Sidney Crosby will be healthy once again…I don’t even care if it is this year or not…just let him recover fully from everything.  The neck injury news is just astounding.  With that and him playing the game AFTER the Winter Classic last year…I really will go anywhere else to be looked at right now before going to the Penguins’ doctors.

-          Congrats to Pitt basketball on a HUGE win over Georgetown.  The Zoo brought the noise and with Tray Woodall back from injury…maybe, juuuuusstt maybe they can make a run at the tourney.  You never know.

-          I love movies…I really do.  I would make a terrible critic.  I swear someone could sit me down in front of a big piece of shit movie and I’ll go…”hmmmm, not bad.”  That being said, if that piece of garbage, Tree of Life wins the Oscar for movie of the year….I may never attend another movie again…okay, I’m lying about that…but that is over two hours of my life I am not getting back.  I enjoy some symbolism here and there, but in order to have symbolism in a movie (let alone a ton of it), you really should have a story at some point with maybe some dialogue mixed in there as well.  To quote my fiancée about an hour in, “I feel like I’m watching a 1 hour trailer for a movie.  Is there going to be some actual dialogue anywhere in this movie?”

RECAPING THE BBV...AH SCREW IT....HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED!

Thank God this is over.  The Todd Graham era officially ended yesterday with a 28-6 loss to SMU at the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham, AL.  Lost in the final score was this: if Pitt doesn’t come out completely flat in the game, they actually are right there in it.  Now we usher in the Paul Chryst era at Pitt and he has done so quickly with a team meeting this morning and Pitt announced his first 5 hires.  His staff includes two things that I love: 1) a focus on the offensive line….the things you can do with a big and tough offensive line is many and 2) with Joe Rudolph and Chris Haering joining the staff, a nice focus on Western, PA recruiting.

We will have enough to talk about the new era of Pitt football later, so let’s recap this disaster from  yesterday.  Pitt came out flat and a broken coverage and costly turnover led SMU to a 21-0 lead and we were not even out of the first quarter!  JJ McDermott was hot early and finished the game with 16 of 25 passing and 239 yards with a touchdown and zero INTs.  He was complimented by Freshman load Rishad Wimbley who carried 6 times for only 15 yards…but unfortunately, 2 short yard plunges for TDs. 

This game will be remembered for a flat start and the Panthers’ offensive line being just that - offensive, followed by a bunch of bad luck and “what the hell” moments for Panther fans…doesn’t that always seem to be the way?  Tino Sunseri  found his groove after going down by 3 scores and drove the Panthers for a field goal to make it 21-3.  Cue the horror music as Kevin Harper executed a short kick that was fumbled by SMU and recovered by the Panthers for some big momentum.  Unfortunately, an inadvertent whistle made Pitt kick it over again.  Everyone was baffled, but it seemed to fire up Pitt. 

Pitt’s defense stiffened and forced a three and out.  Sunseri continued his accuracy (he finished the game with 19 of 128 for 183 yards and a pick) and the Panthers had a 3^rd and goal at the SMU five yard line.  Unfortunately, the next pass went in and out of Isaac Bennett’s handsoff a helmet, off someone’s facemask, off the top of the stadium, froze inmid-air…you get the idea…and was a costly turnover as Stephon Sanders does deserve credit for staying with the bouncing ball and making the diving pick. 

Bad play/luck part tre came about at the end of the half, with Pitt well within field goal range, Tino took a costly sack that forced a long field goal.  Staying with the theme, Kevin Harper’s attempt bounced off of the upright and the score remained 21-3. 

Pitt came out of the half to go 3 and out, but Pitt put the ball in the hands of KK Mosley-Smith.  Yes…he is a defensive lineman, but WOW…can he run with the ball.  A great call and play by Pitt seemed to give them a first down.  Unfortunately, part 4 happened of the strange getting stranger, with an illegal motion call against Pitt.  The replays showed….nothing.  Needless to say, I needed a drink at that point and things just go fuzzy after that…I thought I saw Mark Myers at one point throwing the ball (turned out that was true) and Pitt went quietly after that.

One side note: Andrew Taglianetti made a routine tackle in the second half and immediately took off his helmet in horror as it was very apparent that Jared Williams, of SMU, was the victim of a broken leg.  Taglianetti felt awful.  SMU players and coaches were telling him it was okay.  Hopefully Williams makes a quick recovery and Taglianetti can put that play behind him, as it is just something that happens in football.  I won’t post the play here as Williams leg does turn in a way that a human’s leg should not.

In closing, I am sick of this era of Pitt football and can NOT wait for the new one to begin.  Therefore, instead of doing a team recap, I will do a preview of the coaching staff.  Hopefully I can get something small together within the next week or so, so that I can be ready for signing day!

WHAT'S THAT....IT'S...IT'S....

MY GOD, THAT'S LUCAS NIX'S MUSIC!  As you can see from Paul Zeise's article, Lucas Nix (and his brother Nate, may or may not have had a run in with a West Virginia player over the Chistmas break (maybe more than one).  We'll keep up with this.

PASSING NOTES ON SMU

When I was a kid, SMU football was among the elite programs in the country.  I still remember going to my friend’s house and seeing Eric Dickerson pictures taped up to the wall.  Ithink we all know how that ended.  If you have not seen the 30 for 30 documentary on ESPN, Pony Excess, please check it out (one of the better episodes…not as good as Unguarded, but very good).  After the death penalty, SMU struggled to get their program back up to relevancy in college football, but this is their third straight bowl game.  The Pitt Panthers will give SMU a welcome to the Big East as they pass each other in the conference shuffle on their way to the ACC (still no word on when Pitt will be going, but it looks like at least like one more year in the Big East…at least).

Pitt and SMU will kickoff at 1PM on Saturday in the BBVA Bowl Game in Birmingham…hurry up…tickets are going FAST…ok, maybe not that fast.  Even if no one watches, I’ll be watching because I love to punish myself and it will be a good primer for the Steelers game on Sunday. 

SMU comes into the game at 7-5 and had a very good win against in-state rival TCU earlier in the year.  I’m not sure if the stats mean a whole lot in this game.  It probably will probably come down to who can come back from a long lay-off better and adjust to the changes that have occurred from the last game of the season (bothschools would like to take this time to thank Arizona State).  For SMU, it is the distraction of whether coach, June Jones really wants to stay there after the ASU debacle, and of course, Pitt’s players have to find the same unity they did last year against Kentucky in the same game.  It should be interesting to see what kind of offense and defense Pitt plays with Keith Patterson calling the shots.

We can only speculate how the teams will play this bowl game and whether they play up to their capabilities, so let’s stick with what we know.  SMU is led by Junior quarterback, J.J. McDermott, who has thrown for 3,128 yards and an even 16/16 on TDs and INTs.  The Mustangs are much like Pitt in the running back department.  Junior Zach Line had toe surgery late in the year and SMU will be without his 1,224 yards and 17 TDs (much like Ray Graham’s absence due to injury for Pitt).  Replacing Line, will most likely be Freshman, Rishad Wimbley.  Not a lot of action this season for Wimbley, but he did account for 115 yards in his last game against Rice.

SMU likes to spread the ball out and that is noticeable when looking at their top two receiving targets.  Junior Darius Johnson has 72 catches for almost 1,000 yards and 7 TDs, while Senior wideout, Cole Beasley will come in with 29 catches and 954 yards…adding in 2 TDs.  This offense is 22^nd in passing, 97^th in rushing, and 71^st in points for. 

The defense seems to lack a big play element.  They are solid in rushing the QB, but not great.  Tied at 47^th in the country with 26 sacks, so hopefully it will give Pitt’s Tino Sunseri a little more time than he has been used too.  The Mustangs have only picked off 5 passes this year and are near the bottom of the FSB rankings in that area, tied for 111^th.  The defensive unit comes in at 52^nd in points against, so despite missing a big play here and there, they are solid.

If you are looking at special teams, despite a poor year by the Panthers in punting, SMU seems to be struggling more than Pitt.  Junior Matt Stone only averages 36.9 yards per kick.  If Pitt can find a punt returner for this game, they could exploit this weakness.

Not many people are excited about this game, but when the whistle blows, the Mustangs and Panthers will have no choice but to come out ready.  Pitt came together in a cloud of controversy last season and from all the quotes you can find, they could do it again.  I say Pitt comes together, as many of them feel betrayed by Todd Graham, and on top of that, seem very excited about the hiring of Paul Chryst.  Final Score – Pitt 24 SMU 13.