Saturday, April 26, 2008

Podcast #3

We are back and 100% clean. Main focus is on the Spring Game with a little bit of gameday atmosphere talk thrown in.

Cat Basket Podcast Number 3

11 comments:

max greenwald said...

much better intro music - just started listening i hope the rest is as good as the phil collins quality

Cat Basket said...

By far the most underrated Phil Collins song. That chorus is beautiful.

DPJ said...

Ugh, i can't believe you went with Phil again.........

Brian Ising said...

You guys know how much I respect your opinions, but I couldn't disagree with you more on the QB situation.

Billy Stull will be the starting QB because he is the best QB we have, by far. It's really not even close.

You stated that "Bostick's proven he can win, he had us in that Rutgers game we should won, he had us in the Louisville game we should have won, and he won the West Virginia for us." You must not have been watching the same games I was watching.

We were competitive in those games in spite of Bostick, not because of Bostick. At Rutgers, Bostick was so terrible that he was pulled for Smith, who played much better than Bostick and started the comeback. Yes, Bostick led us to what should have been the game-winning TD, but his play earlier almost took us out of the game. In the Louisville and WVU games, it was the defense and Shady that kept us close.

Bostick's first two passes downfield against WVU were completed, but to the wrong team. At that point, Wannstedt told Cavanaugh to not run any plays beyond 10 yards. You even said that "the coaches probably had their best coaching job ever in the WVU game figuring out that we can't do much on offense by throwing the ball, so we kept running the ball and that worked." I completely agree with that. But if the coaching staff has to go to such measures to protect their QB, how can you then give the QB credit for "winning the game" for us? That is the definition of winning in spite of the QB.

Jason later said that "you can just tell Wannstedt wants Stull to be the QB of this team, he's wanted it since last year." Yes, that's true. He's wanted that because he's recognized the obvious - that Stull is the best option at QB.

You can't seriously believe that Wannstedt favors guys that are older or guys from the WPIAL? You can question some of Wanny's decisions (I've done plenty of that myself), but you can't question the guy's love for Pitt. He wants to turn this thing around more than anybody. He's not gonna play somebody just because he's older or from the WPIAL. He will play the best player, regardless of anything else. And the best player at QB is clearly Billy Stull.

I'm not trying to throw Bostick under the bus here because I think he'll be a good QB for us. But right now, Stull gives us the best chance to win and that's why he'll be the starter.

DPJ said...

Brian, 2 things. 1. You know I think Bostick is the greatest thing ever. Bill Stull hasn't shown me anything to lead me to believe that he is better than Bostick. I value in-game experience and how a quarterback manages a team. Bostick managed what I considered to be the best Pitt win since i've been a student here.

Secondly, I disagree 100% about the Wannstedt doesn't prefer older players. The only example I can find in your favor is Joe Thomas, however he was against WaHa recruits whom he didn't trust.

Here is what we have seen:
Stull over Bostick
Hot Rod over Shady
Turner and Pestano over Williams and Porter
Strong over Byham
McKillop over Romeus
Brady over Murray
Cox over Gary/Chappel
Phillips over Dicicco
Tommy Campbell at any point

Brian Ising said...

I agree with you that the WVU win was the best win since I've been following Pitt football. And technically, Pat Bostick was the QB for that win. But I wouldn't say he "managed" us to that win. He stayed out of the way just enough to allow Shady and the defense to win the game for us. If the coaching staff has to abandon any passing plays beyond 10 yards to protect their QB, I find it hard to give much credit to that QB for the win.

The coaching staff was handcuffed last year because Pat Bostick was the QB. As a true freshman who missed half of camp, he didn't have time to learn the entire playbook. And there were certain plays and throws that Pat simply could not make due to his limited mobility, slow release, and weak arm strength. Thus, the strategy was to only pass the ball when absolutely necessary.

As you stated, this offense is designed to be balanced. And last year, it was balanced for 2.5 quarters against EMU and that was it. The rest of the year, we were unbalanced due to poor QB play. I truly believe that if Stull hadn't been injured in the EMU game, we would have won 7 or 8 games and played in a bowl game.

Yes, the WVU win was awesome. But we should be able to consistently throw the ball downfield. We need a QB that can make all the correct reads and can make all the throws that are required in this offense. Last year, Bostick proved that he could not do that. The coaches figured out that he couldn't do that and managed to pull off one of the greatest upsets in school history without throwing the ball downfield. But that is not a recipe for future success just because it helped us beat WVU.

Anonymous said...

hey morons, mcglynn to the eagles early in the 4th round. how can that be? just shows what everyone knows, you yahoos have zero credibility and know absolutely nothing about the game of football and how its played !

DPJ said...

Dear Mr. McGlynn,

You're right, we have 0 credibility because early in the year you said that Mike would be a day 1 pick. I have stated that if he was going to be drafted that it would be on Day 2 of the draft.

Now lets see, if we were going by last years rules, day 1 consisted of rounds 1-3. This year it consisted of rounds 1-2. Day 2 last year consisted of rounds 4-7 and this year was rounds 3-7. Now it doesn't matter if it was this year or last year, Mike was drafted on day 2 which is a far cry from what you were saying earlier in the year. The two things that made Mike stand out in the draft was his ability to switch positions and his work ethic. Now I respect that as many players are selfish and only want to play one position. Also you have guys who tank plays and try to fall back on natural ability (worked out for Strong didn't it).

But before you continue to bash us (which I hope you do, keep coming back we love our readers) think about this, at Pick 10 Round 4, Mike was the 109th player taken. He was the 17th offensive lineman taken in the draft out of the 40 linemen who were selected.

Now if you want to bash me, then bash me for saying that he would be a late pick. I thought he would go from the 5th to 7th round. I also thought that Kennard Cox would never get drafted. However, what you can expect from a 4th round guard is that you will get a serviceable back up. Mike is lucky that he can play all of the offensive line positions because now he can have a nice 8-10 year career. He probably won't start for a while, if at all, but he will have his chances. I'm rooting for him to do well because it never hurts to have a Panther do well in the Pro's but I just see Mike as a guy who can help a team out when depth becomes a problem somewhere along the way on the O-Line.

So, keep reading the site. May next year Mr. Thomas can come on the site and scream at us that Joe will be a day 1 pick, then come and laugh at us when he is taken in the 5th.

We love Pitt, we love all of our sports teams, we just try to be realistic about things.

Danny said...

I think you guys are right. McGlynn wasn't the best offensive lineman we had, but he wasn't terrible. His problem was that he is not a very good tackle and is best situated at guard. If he could have played guard the entire time then we wouldn't have seen it, but when he replaced Jason Pinkston we saw more flaws at that position than we would have seen if he stayed at guard.

I also appreciate your honest opinions. I don't want to hear a glossed over view on things, I'd much rather hear what people think and then debate them much like some of the other posters (brian ising and reed) instead of people hiding behind a curtain.

Brian Ising said...

I think McGlynn is one of the more underappreciated Panthers of the last several years. He started essentially every game of his entire career and was always a class act.

He seemed like a hard worker with a great team attitude. He never complained when Pinkston took his RT spot last year and he had to move to RG. And he never complained when he had to move back to RT after Pinkston's injury.

And DPJ, you can give him a hard time for only getting picked in the 4th round, but how many OL have we had that have been picked that high in recent years? Since Ruben Brown was picked in the 1st round in 1995, the only Pitt OL that I can think of to be picked higher than McGlynn are Otah and Charles Spencer. In fact if my memory is correct, McGlynn is the highest picked OL that was recruited by WaHa by play OL.

In summary, McGlynn was a good, but not great, player for us for 4 years. He was a hard worker who gave it everything he had. And for that, I wish him nothing but the best in the NFL.

DPJ said...

I'm not trying to give McGlynn a hard time about being drafted in the 4th. Being drafted at all is a huge accomplishment. My comments were directed towards the guy who was calling me an idiot because earlier in the year I said that Mike would be a 2nd day pick in response to him saying that Mike would be a day 1 pick. We saw where Mike's strengths were and unfortunately he had to play in some positions that were not best suited for him. I think you know just as much as anyone that I want everyone in the blue and gold to do as well as they possibly can. I just won't put up with people on the site calling me an idiot because Mike McGlynn was a 4th round pick whenever I said he would be a day 2 pick.