Pitt Football Thoughts

First and foremost, everyone needs to relax a bit.

* The Pitt Football Program is bigger than any one football season at the school. Paul Chryst should not be judged on his first 2 games. He should not be judged on his first season.  He was brought in to be a football coach and to re-build a football program. Give him time. Remember the players on this team are dealing with their 3^rd head coach in 3 seasons.  That means 3 different styles and systems that these kids have learned in that time.  And for those of you doubting his ability and his offensive gameplan, ask Wisconsin if they miss him.  The Badgers snuck by D-1AA Northern Iowa in week 1, 26-21 and lost this past weekend against Oregon State.  They didn't score against the Beavers until there was 91 seconds left in the game.  This, one season removed from Chryst leading Wisconsin's offense last year to a 35-0 win against Oregon State and never scoring less than 29 points in a game.

* 6 coaches in under 3 years matters. Since December of 2010 there has been 6 different coaches to hold the title of HEAD COACH of the Pitt football team.  That has absolutely killed recruiting the past 2 years and it shows in the lack of depth on this team. In 2011, Todd Graham scrambled around and signed 21 players, Chryst signed 16 this past February.  That is 37 players in 2 years. And of those 37 players, some of them aren't Big East quality players and brought in just to help with numbers.  When other schools are signing 25-30 players a year, that is going to catch up with you.  This team has a serious issue with both talent and depth.

* Tino Sunseri is the best option for quarterbacking this football team. I know many Pitt fans don't want to hear that, but it is true.  It makes no sense for Chad Voytik to be pummeled for the season to "gain experience" as so many people want. Think about this for a second. In all likelihood Tom Savage is the quarterback at Pitt next year, so why have Voytik blow his redshirt this year to be a back-up next year?  If you redshirt him next year you almost certainly force incoming freshman Tra'von Chapman into back-up duties, thus burning his redshirt.  I would feel much more comfortable for the betterment of the program to have Chad redshirt this year, be the primary back-up next year and play when the opportunity presents itself.  That gives him 5 years in the system and puts him in position to be a 3 year starter.

* Steve Pederson is the AD, deal with it! Has he screwed up? YES! Has he made some terrible hires? CERTAINLY! Does he do a very good job raising money for the athletic department? Yep! He has also greatly improved the facilities for nearly every sport the university has, as well as making sure Pitt moved to the ACC and didn't get stuck in the Big East.  I could think of 100 reasons why Steve Pederson could and/or should be fired, but it ain't gonna happen. The only way he goes is if donors stop giving the university money. If that happens then, yes he might get fired, but that will only lead to a new AD who will want to bring in his own coach and then we have ANOTHER coaching change. Sorry, I'll pass on that!

Don't get me wrong, I have been disappointed with how this season has played out to this point. But as long as the team continues to improve week to week, game to game, season to season under Chryst I am going to be completely content as I wait and see what is to come for this program under the guidance and leadership of Paul Chryst.

HAIL TO PITT!

Reality Check For Bucco Fans

For all the Pittsburgh Pirate fans who are panicking after the Buccos' most recent home stand in which they finished 4-7 and failed to keep the opponents from scoring at least 5 runs in the final 10 games, I have one word for you.

Relax.

The Pirates aren't as good as they were the first two months of summer, and they aren't as bad as they played the past 11 games, so let's find a middle ground for this team.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that Pirate team that you just saw during this home stand is more like the real team than the team we saw take the field for most of June and July.

Let's step back and look at this team from an outsider's perspective and not as an irrational fan that has been dying for a winning team for the past 20 years.  The Pittsburgh Pirates lost 105 games just 2 years ago.  Last year, they improved that mark by 15 games.  Not many teams improve by 15 games in 1 year.  This year, they are on pace to win 88 games, once again improving, this time by 16 games.  I know that everyone in Pittsburgh would love to see this team in the playoffs come October, but why can't people just be happy that this team has continued to improve in drastic measures over the past two seasons?

When this season began, everyone that followed this club knew that they were a year or two away from being serious contenders.  That plan was set in place by drafting Jameson Taillon and Garrett Cole, two of the top young pitchers in the country, with back-to-back first round picks.  Add in signing all-star Andrew McCutchen to a long term deal, and the promising younger position players the team has in the organization (Neil Walker, Pedro Alvarez and Starling Marte), and the future looks bright.

Also consider the fact that all of the key players on this years team as well as all of the players acquired at the trade deadline are signed at least through the 2013 season.

Sure, making the playoffs this season would be great, but let's remember where this team was just two years ago, and be happy with the results we have seen this year.  It is about continuing to get better, and the Pirates are doing that.

The 2012 Pirates team has been really fun to watch, but this is just the start of things to come for Pirate fans if all continues to go right in the Pirates organization.  Just be patient, and relax. 

Bowl Season Extreme Makeover Edition

It has been 303 days since the last time I ranted. Since that time, I got engaged. Kim Kardashian also got engaged. Lebron James showed the world that his kryptonite is the 4th quarter of big games. The Pirates were in 1st place after the all-star break. Kim Kardashian got married. The Eagles became the most recent “dream team” to fail to deliver. Tim Tebow saved Denver and all of us. Kim Kardashian got divorced. Jerry Sandusky gave a whole new meaning to "horsed around".

So what it is that could get me out of my slumber and writing again? No, not the Jersey Shore premiere tonight, however that could be a good future topic. Combined with finally having time, after being incredibly understaffed at work for the last 4 months and sitting through meaningless bowl game after bowl game, I figured the terrible bowl system would be a great topic.

I know that I will not be breaking ground here by saying that the college football post-season is the worst in all of sports. And since we are only in year 2 of the 4 year deal between the BCS and ESPN, which spent $500M for the rights, the current BCS system is not going anywhere anytime soon. Rather than complain about the system, I’ve come up with a better, more entertaining system for the college post-season.

A bowl draft.

Hear me out now. I think we all realize that despite being entertaining, the post-season in college football consists of 1 important game, the national championship game, and 34 absolutely meaningless games. In my system, you will still have 34 meaningless games to go along with the national title game, but you will have better match-ups pairing off evenly matched teams with no pre-arranged conference affiliations. (By the way, ideally, I would only have between 20-25 bowl games, but we know that neither the bowls nor ESPN are going to throw away the money that these bowls bring in.)

All of that being said, I actually like the idea of the BCS. I think there are many good ideas in how they come up with their rankings. Where they fall short is the limiting the rankings to affecting just the top 2 teams. So let’s use the BCS standings in the draft format. This is how I would do it if I had a chance to revamp the college bowl system.

THE BASICS:
1) Using the BCS rankings, list all the bowl eligible teams, starting at the top with #1.

2) Using bowl payouts, we create our draft order. The 4 BCS bowl games would always draft in spots 2-5 followed by the highest payout game all the way down to the lowest payout game drafting 35. This year the draft order would have looked like this:

1. National Championship Game
2. Rose Bowl
3. Fiesta Bowl
4. Sugar Bowl
5. Orange Bowl
6. Capital One Bowl ($9.1M)
7. Cotton Bowl ($7.25M)
8. Outback Bowl ($7M)
9. Chick-fil-A Bowl ($6.9M)
10. Insight Bowl ($6.65M)
11. Alamo Bowl ($6.35M)
12. Gator Bowl ($5.45M)
13. Champs Sports Bowl ($4.55M)
14. Holiday Bowl ($4.15M)
15. Sun Bowl ($4M)
16. Music City Bowl ($3.675M)
17. Pinstripe Bowl ($3.6M)
18. Meineke Car Care Bowl ($3.4M)
19. Belk Bowl ($3.4M)
20. Liberty Bowl ($2.875M)
21. Independence Bowl ($2.3M)
22. Las Vegas Bowl ($2.2M)
23. TicketCity Bowl ($2.2M)
24. Military Bowl ($2M)
25. BBVA Compass Bowl ($1.925M)
26. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl ($1.675M)
27. GoDaddy.com Bowl ($1.5M)
28. Little Caesars Bowl ($1.5M)
29. Hawaii Bowl ($1.3M)
30. Armed Forces Bowl ($1.2M)
31. Beef O’Brady’s ($1.075M)
32. Poinsettia Bowl ($1M)
33. New Orleans Bowl ($1M)
34. New Mexico Bowl ($912,500)
35. Idaho Potato Bowl ($650,000)

THE DRAFT:
The way the draft would work is simple. There would be absolutely no conference affiliations with any bowls. There would be no automatic bids for any conference. Obviously, the top 2 teams would automatically be placed in the national championship game. After that, it is a free for all, minus a few simple rules.

* Bowls will select in order, with a pool of 10 teams to pick. For instance, this year with the 2nd pick, the Rose Bowl would be able to pick any 2 teams that finished 3-12 in the final BCS standings. (Remember the #1 and #2 teams would be off the board already in the national title game.) Next pick would be the Fiesta Bowl and 2 more teams would open up for their selection, teams #13-14. And so on and so forth, until all the bowls are filled.

* No team can drop more than 5 bowl games. Meaning every team must be selected within five games of becoming available. This rewards teams for successful seasons despite how unattractive they might be as a bowl team. For instance, this season Boise State would had to have been invited to one of the top 8 bowls, instead of going to the Las Vegas Bowl, which ranked #22. It would also prevent teams with great history and huge fan bases being selected to bowls they don’t deserve (This year it would be Ohio State and Florida, both 6-6 and unranked, playing in the Gator Bowl.)

Think about what this would do for the college football post-season. First, the TV networks could/would sell the hell out of the live draft. Imagine having every AD or head coach at the draft along with the bowl committee members. They make the pick, the coach or AD’s from both schools go up onto stage and shake hands. Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit talk about that bowl for the next 5 minutes or so, maybe interview the coach or AD from the schools. Everybody wins. The schools gets some press, the bowls gets their individual time in the national spotlight and the coaches get a little face time.

Another benefit to this system is you don’t have repetition. Bowl attendances have been way down the past few years and a big reason is fans don’t want to go back to the same bowl a few years ago. Sure lots of fans will go and support their team wherever they go, but they want to go to new places and see new things. In the last 3 years, 9 different teams played in the same bowl game at least 2 of those 3 years.

This format also helps other conferences get a chance to play each other. For instance, the Big East has the best record of any automatic qualifying conference in bowl play over the past 6 seasons. Does that mean that the Big East is the best conference in football? Of course not, but they don’t get a chance to prove themselves against the bigger conferences either. The Big East currently has 6 bowl affiliations. Of those six, they play the ACC in 2, the Big 12 in one, the SEC in one, C-USA in one and their BCS bowl game, which is usually against an ACC team in the Orange Bowl. The Big 12 game is against the 7th place team from the Big 12 and the SEC game is against their 9th place team. So even when they play the elite conferences they are playing the worst bowl eligible teams that the conference has to offer. While in turn the SEC and the Big Ten both set up their top teams to play each other in 2 different bowls.

THE MONEY:
Now, many people might complain that this is taking money away from teams/conferences since the bowl contracts with conferences all but guarantee a certain amount of money that every conference knows that they will receive come bowl season. I disagree. If anything, conferences have a chance to make even more money. This year the SEC had 3 teams in the top 6 and 4 in the top 9, yet both Arkansas (#6) and South Carolina (#9) were both blocked from partaking in any BCS bowl because current rules state only 2 BCS bids per conference.

The bowl payouts would probably also go up, creating more money in the total pot for teams. The reason the bowl payouts would go up is because that directly affects your draft order. If you want to get better teams to your bold game you up your payout. Payouts would have to be submitted before the season starts in a blind bid, the draft order would then be announced closer to the end of the season. If the Las Vegas Bowl wanted to make a splash next year to celebrate the 20th year of the bowl, they could make a larger bid than they might normally, and get a better match-up between top 15-20 teams.

One last detail I would tinker with would be the bowl payouts. Instead of each team splitting the pot and putting on an exhibition for the fans, I would have the result of the game determine the payout. Winning team takes two-thirds and the losing team gets one-third.

I know that this does not fix all the problems in the college football post-season, but I think it does make bowl season better. I know as a Pitt fan, that I would love to be able to see Pitt play Penn State in a bowl game or maybe Arizona State, now that Todd Graham left Pitt for that job. Before, that was impossible. The chances of playing in the Cotton Bowl or Rose Bowl are currently non-existent if you are an ACC or Big East team, which should not be the case. Change is good. Change is needed.

BET Day 1 Look Back

Day 1 is in the books at the Garden and we had some surprises and some results that went pretty much as predicted. Here is a quick look back at Day 1 at the Garden.

DePaul Saves Money Booking Business Man Special On Airfare
The Blue Demons flew into town for their 12 NOON meeting, the meeting lasted just over 2 over and they went straight back to the airport to return home. UCONN looked good, they got scoring from all over, including the 26 that Kemba Walker led the way with. They rebounded, they got to the rim and they advanced to today against Georgetown.

Rutgers claims NJ State Championship in OT
Rutgers wins the rubber match with state rival Seton Hall in the first OT game of the week in NYC. Rutgers jumped out to a big lead, then coughed it up by halftime. The second half and OT were both very competitive but the Scarlet Knights did just enough to advance.

Villanova now on Bubble Watch
Nova blew a 16 point halftime lead and lost to lowly South Florida. Nova was outscored 37-20 in the 2nd half and have now lost 5 in a row and 10 of their last 15. This is a team that was ranked as high as 6th in the nation and started the season 16-1. This is the second straight year they have had a end of year collapse. Last year it ended in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament. This year Jay Wright and Co. may be luckily to get that far.

STAT OF THE DAY:
Since expanding the tournament in 1985 NO TEAM has every made the tournament losing 5 in a row entering Selection Sunday. Jay Wright and Villanova will be sitting on pins and needles Sunday.

Marquette Gets Tourney Clinching Win
Most people felt that the Golden Eagles were in the NCAA Tournament as long as they didn't have a bad loss in the Big East Tournament. Well, it is kind of tough to have a "bad loss" to ranked teams so the only chance of that happening was last night to Providence. They passed that test and should now be comfortably in the Big Dance.

Big East Tournament LIVE

Feel free to share your thoughts on the game, email The Rant at TheReitmeyerRant@hotmail.com or you can follow my twitter for thoughts and updates, http://twitter.com/#!/kevinreitmeyer


We are underway!

12:17pm- DePaul is now 1-12 from the field! Amazingly they are only down 5.

12:21pm- DePaul on a little run and actually making shots. Down by only 1 now with 11 minutes to go in 1st half.

Love the video that ESPN just showed of DePaul beating Providence earlier this year. The players looked like they wanted to storm the court after their first win in something like 25 straight Big East losses.

By the way, I selected UCONN to win by 15+ in this game in ESPN's Streak for the Cash Contest. My thought was if UCONN can't beat DePaul by that much that they should automatically be eliminated from eligibility for the NCAA Tournament and put into the NIT.

DePaul is 2-54 in the last 3 season against Big East teams. So I ask this question. What conference could DePaul win? Not win a game, win the conference. Are there any?

12:42pm- Announcer just said that DePaul won't change their style. That may be a reason that they have 1 win this year!

12:48pm- UCONN 26 points in the paint, DePaul 22 TOTAL points.

HALFTIME: UCONN - 45, DePaul - 28

Wow, DePaul is bad!

COMMENT FROM FACEBOOK:
if we started a FB Group to have Doris Burke removed from ever calling another NCAA Mens game again, how many ppl would join the group by the end of today? I'm thinking atleast 10,000
I think that is a pretty safe bet! I'd join!

It only took about 10 minutes, the group has been created! JOIN HERE!

1:20pm- 12 point game, UCONN looks like they spent halftime prepping for Georgetown tomorrow already.

1:23pm- Doris Burke is hitting on Kemba Walker I think. This right after the other announcer just commented about the "rich basketball tradition at DePaul." Any chance these are the 3rd tier teams from ESPN only being used today? I sure hope so!

1:32pm- DePaul making a run... Allowing Kemba Walker to make UCONN a 1-man team and knocking down shots on their offensive end. Lead down to 10.

1:37pm- DePaul pressure creating problems, down to single digits now.... Well, it was. Kemba strikes again!

1:41pm- Lead down to 7 now. DePaul hasn't giving up yet. As these fantastic announcers have mentioned a few hundred times, this team believes in Oliver Purnell.

1:52pm- Oliver Purnell trying to use the Mock Turtleneck ala fellow midwest coach Mike Brey to lead his team to victories. It looks just as ridiculous on Purnell as it does Brey.

1:58pm- UCONN looking to end a 6 game losing streak in the BET. Lots due to Alex Oriakhi deciding to show up. He has 15 rebounds, DePaul as a team has 20. That is bad news for the Huskies tomorrow though. Oriakhi hasn't put 2 games together all season.

GAME 1 FINAL
UCONN - 97
DePaul - 71

Yes, DePaul is that bad!

That may be all for today, heading to work now. I may be back in time for some games in the night session!

Big East Tournament Live Stream

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the Big East Tournament this year, like I have each of the past 12 years. Instead I will be live blogging my thoughts throughout the games as I watch them. I will not be able to be doing this the entire tournament, due to my work schedule (the same reason I couldn't make it to NYC this year), but if I am watching games I will be on my computer talking about them. Check out my Twitter account to for up to the minute thoughts of what is going on in New York.

Big East Tournament Preview

We are on to tournament play. The Big East Tournament kicks off Tuesday in New York City. Let‘s take a look at the final regular season standings as well as the match-ups for New York.

FINAL STANDINGS:
Pitt Panthers 15-3
Notre Dame Fighting Irish 14-4
Louisville Cardinals 12-6
Syracuse Orange 12-6
St. John’s Red Storm 12-6
West Virginia Mountaineers 11-7
Cincinnati Bearcats 11-7
Georgetown Hoyas 10-8
UCONN Huskies 9-9
Villanova Wildcats 9-9
Marquette Golden Eagles 9-9
Seton Hall Pirates 7-11
Rutgers Scarlet Knights 5-13
Providence Friars 4-14
South Florida Bulls 3-15
DePaul Blue Demons 1-17

BET SCHEDULE:
TUESDAY
March 8th:
NOON
9 – Connecticut
Vs
16 - DePaul
2:00
12 – Seton Hall
Vs
13 – Rutgers
7:00
10 – Villanova
Vs
15 – South Florida
9:00
11 – Marquette
Vs
14 – Providence

WEDNESDAY
March 9th:
NOON
8 – Georgetown
Vs
Tuesday NOON winner
2:00
5 - St. John’s
Vs
Tuesday 2:00 winner
7:00
7 – Cincinnati
Vs
Tuesday 7:00 winner
9:00
6 – West Virginia
Vs
Tuesday 9:00 winner

THURSDAY
March 10th:
NOON
1 - Pitt
Vs
Wednesday NOON winner
2:00
4 – Syracuse
Vs
Wednesday 2:00 winner
7:00
2 – Notre Dame
Vs
Wednesday 7:00 winner
9:00
3 – Louisville
Vs
Wednesday 9:00 winner

BET MATCH-UPS:
Here are some match-ups or possible match-ups that could be very interesting games this week in New York.
TUESDAY:
Marquette vs Providence, 9:00 PM
This is an interesting match-up because Providence has the talent to play with every team in the conference and Marquette has struggled to close out this season. I think Marquette is comfortably in the NCAA Tournament, primarily because the field/bubble is so weak this year, but if I were the Golden Eagles, I would not want to leave it in question with the selection committee. A win and Marquette is 100% in, no questions asked. A loss and they should still be in, but you never know.

Seton Hall vs Rutgers, 2:00 PM
This game really doesn’t mean much as far as the NCAA Tournament, but it is 2 rivals playing for a 3rd time this season. The 2 teams split the season series. What is maybe more interesting is the possible 2nd and 3rd round games if Seton Hall wins. The winner would go on to play St. John’s, a team that the Hall just beat Thursday by 14. The winner of that game would get Syracuse, a team that Seton Hall beat by 22 earlier this year. With Jeremy Hazell healthy for the Pirates and some favorable match-ups they are a team that might be able to make a splash in NYC.

WEDNESDAY: (possible match-ups)
Connecticut vs Georgetown, NOON
How strong is the Big East? Both of these two teams were ranked in the top 10 at some point this season, and when they played 3 weeks ago Georgetown was ranked 9th and UCONN 12th. Now they are playing as the 8th and 9th seeds in the Big East Tournament. No word yet on if Chris Wright will be back from his broken hand yet, if not they could be in a lot of trouble. The Hoyas finished the season losing their last 3 games with Wright running the point. UCONN won that meeting between these 2 teams, it was the only time they met this season.

Seton Hall vs St. John’s, 2:00 PM
As mentioned above I think this game could be a very intense game between two teams that just had a very hard fought game the last week of the regular season. St. John’s had their head coach get 2 technical fouls and ejected, then one of their players committed a flagrant foul and was also ejected. There is certainly no love lost between these two teams and it would be fun to see them matched up in New York. St. John’s has not lost in Madison Square Garden since losing to Syracuse on January 12th.

Villanova vs Cincinnati, 7:00 PM
Who would have guessed that of these two teams, Cincy would be the one with the bye in the Opening Round? Both of these teams are in the NCAA Tournament, Nova has been falling fast in seeding and a win for Cincy certainly wouldn’t hurt, but neither of these two teams will have anything to worry about come Selection Sunday. This is going to be a game for the winner to get some momentum going leading into the Big Dance.

Providence or Marquette vs West Virginia, 9:00 PM
This is the game to miss on Wednesday, and luckily it is the last game of the day and session so you can hit the sack early and rest up before another big day Thursday. To be honest none of these 3 teams have impressed me one bit this season. It is kind of crazy that one of these 3 are guaranteed a spot in the quarterfinals.

THURSDAY: (possible match-ups)
UCONN/Georgetown winner vs Pitt, NOON
This match-up has been the Championship game in the Big East Tournament 5 times in the last 9 years. Pitt has played UCONN 3 times and Georgetown twice in that span. This is what you get in the Big East, Pitt wins the conference, being in 1st place everyday of conference play and in the 1st round of the Big East Tournament they will be playing a team that has been ranked pretty much all season.

Seton Hall/St. John’s vs Syracuse, 2:00 PM
This game could be the best attended game in an afternoon session in Big East Tournament history. Syracuse claims to be New York’s college team and St. John’s in NYC and this years team has taken the city by storm. St. John’s was in position to have a bye to this round and hold the #4 spot until Seton Hall upset them on Thursday. Syracuse took advantage of that slip up and now gets the double bye.

Villanova/Cincinnati vs Notre Dame, 7:00 PM
This will be a fun match-up no matter if it is Cincinnati or Villanova. Those teams both play a more athletic style of game that really fits their teams. Both are longer teams and have some really good athletes all over the court. Notre Dame is the opposite. They don’t have the athletes of most teams in the conference, but they have the toughness and discipline that not many teams in the conference have. And they can shoot, just ask Villanova about the game last week when ND made 20 of 32 from long range.

West Virginia vs Louisville, 9:00 PM
Louisville is by far the better team, but then again they just lost to the Mountaineers in Morgantown on Saturday. I think that once again the nap cap is the worst game on the schedule Thursday as it is Wednesday.

PREDICTION:
I like Pitt beating Louisville in the Championship Saturday night, giving Pitt their 8th championship game appearance in the past 11 years and 3rd title.