Really Wanny? Really

I am anxiously awaiting Dave Wannstedt's press conference and hope I can make it down there for it. My main reason for going is this. If you read Paul Zeise's Red Shirt Diaries, he has a very good article written up about disappointing losses and how Pitt fans have come to expect this type of thing. While that piece was very interesting and very true, the most intriguing part of it all falls at the bottom of the article. He quotes some of the players and Dave Wannstedt about the game. You can find the full article here, but this is what Dave Wannstedt had to say after the game.


"Dave Wannstedt - 'Our guys gave enough effort to win the game but we made too many mistakes to win the game. What is so disappointing is the penalties [Pitt had eight for 80 yards], we brought officials in on Wednesday to practice and they followed those guys around. For us to have penalties today, like we did last week, is very disappointing. Defensively, we didn't make any plays. I thought if we would have scored 31 points, we wouldn't have lost this game.

"There is no excuse for these penalties. The pass interference penalties are always debatable but where there is smoke, there is usually fire and you don't get called that many times week after week without there being something there. The penalties we had on defense were mind boggling.' "

This is exactly the opposite of what I was hoping to hear. Instead of taking the blame for adjustments, play calling, and personnel we get the old "the refs took the game away from us" excuse. The refs were not the ones to continue with an ineffective ground game in the 2nd half. The refs were not the ones to allow Wilson to gain 500 yards of offense.

Wannstedt, you need to man up and accept blame for this loss.