Wednesday, December 15, 2010

See ya later Pantherland

Well over the last few years we've had a great time doing this blog. We were there with the hope of 13-9 and the crashing of the last Backyard Brawl. We had always hoped that once Wanny was gone we'd take a step in the right direction. We were wrong.

We thought people who said "Pitt won't be able to get anyone" were out of their mind. We were wrong.

We believed that people who said "Steve Pederson and Mark Nordenberg would screw this up" didn't know what they were talking about. We were wrong.

We thought that the days of Pitt being cheap were over and that a new coach would be given market value. We were wrong.

We laughed at everyone who said that the Pitt administration does not care about football were out of touch. We were wrong.

It is clear that Pitt does not want to make the financial contribution to the program to ensure we will be successful. We will not over look things found in almost every person to find a guy to take us to the next level. We simply are an academic basketball school and nothing else.

We allowed WVU to steal our #1 candidate for the job. We are seeing Penn State start preparing a war chest to hire a top notch coach once JoePa passes. While at Pitt we see a school hiring a guy because he comes on the cheap.

I don't want to bash Mike Haywood just yet. He did turn around Miami (OH), but he was not dominant. He was a few plays away from a 7-5 record. He was known as an offensive guy, but his offense only ranked 83rd.

If Pitt wanted to make a splash we know that the top guys would command top dollar. We even had coaches begging for this job (Bradley/Austin) but did not listen to what they had to say.

This hire is not exciting. The people who threatened to not renew if Wannstedt was removed will most likely not renew now.

Pitt botched this search. It is time to realize that we are a MAC team in a BCS AQ conference. So in the next few years as Syracuse, Louisville, TCU, and our rival WVU are competing for BCS bids as top 20 teams, we will be there along with the Temple's and Rutgers of the world.

If I cared more at this point I would lead the charge to fire Steve Pederson, but I just don't care enough any more. Congrats Pitt. You have taken one of the most die hard passionate fans you've had and now have made me apathetic towards the team.

I will keep posting on the twitter page, but the days of fighting for news, attending press conferences, and having the same level of passion won't be there.

We're grateful for all of the support we've received over the past few years. It's been fun and we're certainly glad that we had some great company along for the ride.

8 comments:

rkohberger said...

You have got to be kidding me.

I understand frustration and any choice you make to Blog or not to Blog is yours of course, but this smacks more than a little of a kid taking his ball and going home because he didn't get his way.

If anything, this should be an interesting time for PITT football, at least more so than suffering through the tedium of watching the same things happen under DW, that we all knew were going to happen, for the last six years.

I urge you to take a break and re-consider. You are a good writer, state your opinions well and have a lot to say.

If your decision is final then Good Luck... if not I'll check back every once in a while to see if you still have the passion you've exhibited in the past.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Reed, food for thought, Haywood turned a sick, lame 1-11 team into a MAC champion in 2 years. Say what you want but he turned Miami around with very marginal talent.

Wanny was a bad hire from the go, he never accomplished anything and he was always mediocre throughout his entire career. When Pitt lost to Ohio U in 2005 that just about said it all, Wanny took a BCS bowl team and took 3 years to get back to a bowl.

Do you think if Wanny took over that Miami 1-11 team he could turn it around, ever?

Pitt made a good hire.

My blog said...

Grow up dude.

I am not saying this guy will be great or not, but when Pitt hired Jamie Dixon everyone thought that was a terrible mistake. It was the same kind of talk that Pitt had to hire a big name guy and look how that turned out.

Unknown said...

I am sick of the Dixon comparison. First off, the vacancy they were filling opened up totally unexpectedly when Howland left. Pitt had no control of its timing. In the Wanny case, Pitt chose to fire Dave when they did and aparently without any kind of plan.

Dixion has been extremely successful but it was more the case of Pitt catching lightning in a bottle. They tried to be cheap and did not want to pay the "big bucks" to some of the big names that would have loved to come into such an established program in a great conference at the right price. Thank God it worked out, but they got it right for the wrong reasons and that will not happen again.

Lastly we have seen this ineptitude before. Flash back to 2004. We fire Harris and than appear to be totally clueless what to do. The only serious candidates we had were Paul "Rhodes Unblocked" Rhodes and Matt Cavanaugh. I find it hard to belief that other established coaches were not interested in a team coming off from a BCS bowl trip and returning many starters including Palko. Well maybe I do find it believable when Pitt wanted to pay minimum wage to the new head coach and his assistants. It was only a last minute appeal to Wanny that saved us from the last 6 seasons of Paul Rhodes or Cav at the helm. Wanny was awful but watching either of those two run this team into the ground would have been even more excruciating.

West Virginia is one of the poorest states in country ranking down there with Mississippi and Alabama yet they somehow have managed to out bid us for a coach. Fuck this administration. If you do not want to make the investment in this program to make it a top 10 kind of program why should I support it with my time, money, and loyalty?!?

rkohberger said...

John... perhaps you feel this way because you are missing the real thrust of what was behind the recent coaching change ant PITT and the PITT Administration primary concern.

It's being reiterated more and more by local and national media writers as things unfold - DW lost control of his players this season and PITT put a stop to the problems that raised.

That said, I'll give Haywood a chance on the field of play also. At the very least I think we'll have a rough first season and he'll bring it around soon after. hell, for me, anything is better than the dread I felt this last year prior to a PITT football game - knowing we had more talent than the opposition but also knowing that there was a better than even chance we'd blow the game somehow.

Unknown said...

You are right. I was silly to be upset after the Brawl this year. Pitt may have lost the game on the field but we won what really matters...we graduate more players and run a clean program (SARCASM). Please get off your high horse. The idea that football players at Div 1A schools are student athletes is a total joke!!! They are there to make money for their schools period. The vast majority of these kids are thugs pure and simple. When we get our ass kicked every year by WVU do you think people are going to say "well thats okay because Pitt's players come to games in shirt and ties" or "the coach makes them practice at 4:30 am everyday"? I dont know about you but I dont really give a shit what they do off the field as long as we are winning and they dont kill anybody or get Pitt sanctioned by the NCAA. I want to come watch a team that is exciting on the field and wins, period. This hire does not do that. Judging by the outrage I have seen and heard it seems like most Pitt fans have miraculously finally located their brains and can see through the blue and gold haze that the administration has clouded around the program to mask its cheapness and lack of committment to winning.

rkohberger said...

John - I'll get off my high horse when you can show me just how well NOT having any apparent standards has worked at PITT... all those issues you mentioned - we had in spades at PITT over the last two years and where did it get us?

Did it get us a major Bowl Game?

Did it get us into a BCS bowl?

Did it get us into a MNC game?

Hell no it didn't... it got us just where we are, and just where you described.

... and unless you are deaf and blind - what exactly do "people say" when we get our asses kicked on a regular basis in just about every big game we have ever played in the last 30 years?

Nothing compared to the national media following we get when our kids throw people through plate glass doors or conducted drunken hit and runes or slap and choke a 19 year old girl of declare publicly that he's been paid to play football at PITT...

People should talk about PITT a lot when that happens.

So, I'll take the same football results without some of those so called "thugs" you mentioned because - according to you - it doesn't matter anyway.

Hey, its your Blog. Do what you like, it isn't like there aren't 1,876 other things I can be doing with my time in the morning... but I'll reiterate one point so that if you calm down, and you probably will any day now, perhaps you will decide to do this again - this was a decent and interesting forum for discussing PITT football and it's a shame it won''t be around.

Dismounting now. Oh, too high... falling....

Anonymous said...

Typical Pitt Pussies, when the going get's tough, Pitt fans get going!