Blowing a redshirt

With the struggles on the line, how great would it have been to include John Malecki and Joe Thomas on this team. Sure they were seniors last year and their time is passed, but guess what. We had a chance to have them on this team.

In Thomas' case, he played a significant amount of time his freshman year so technically we didn't blow the redshirt. In the case of Malecki, he played about 4 plays on defense his freshman year. What we were left with is a huge hole in the middle of our offensive line.

Now with Greg Romeus potentially out for the season there is talk that we may burn TJ Clemmings redshirt. Now don't get me wrong, I think that Clemmings is going to be a fantastic player by the time his career at Pitt ends. The issue here is that the DLine has been our deepest position for a few years. Now with one star going down, we're talking about blowing a redshirt for what surely will only be a few plays.

Wannstedt almost never plays the freshmen. Look at the team this year, we do not start any true or redshirt freshmen. The youngest players we start are true sophomores Dion Lewis and Dan Mason. The rest of the team is made up of redshirt sophomores and older guys.

To "fake" use Clemmings for a couple of plays this year would be counterproductive for future success. I really hope Wannstedt does not blow it in this case.