PITT-PSU and Expansion

PITT-PSU Series

Pitt and PSU decided renew the "rivalry" for at least two games. Some Pitt fans are applauding this. Some are not. Reasons include the series not being long term and whatever hard-on they have for Steve Pederson. Two things stood out to me with this announcement

1. JoePA isn't as "mighty" as everyone has made him out to be.
2. Tim Curley is taking "full control" of PSU's Athletic Department. By "full", he's taking over football too.

Curley has made some nice hires around the board as of late. He also had the balls to boot Rene Portland. I also imagine he told Ed Dechellis to move on with life's work if he couldn't get the basketball team in the Big Dance again.

There's a reason to be optimistic about this two game series...it could lead to more. Unless PSU fans are still pussy enough to complain whatever verbal abuse they received from Pitt fans.

Expansion

This is obviously one of the hot topics of the Big East as of late. Long story short: Villanova is interested, made a presentation, and they were sent packing...which made Pitt/Rutgers look like the bad guys in this. They weren't the bad guys. Villanova for the most part didn't have their shit together. Because if you let 'Nova in with a half-assed plan, then you might as well let Georgetown join as well because they can play their games at RFK.

Ever since then, there's been a mass hysteria of a "split". It's not going to happen. That television deal that's in the works? It's all about basketball. Basketball is the Cash Cow of the Big East. Football can't stand on its own two feet let alone in a BCS bowl game these days. Sure you can trim the "fat" off the basketball-only schools, but that's another battle. Lot of politics and a lot of relationships there.

Big East Preview Part 1: Offseason Assclownery

The Big East was a total comedy once season play ended and it carried on when bowl season was over. Let's do a quick recap of what happened:

1. Pitt forces out Dave Wannstedt.
2. WVU hires Dana Holgerson to replace Bill Stewart after next season.
3. Pitt hires Mike Haywood.
4. Pitt fires Mike Haywood after he pulls an Ike Turner on his babymama.
5. After watching his team get pounded by Oklahoma, Randy Edsall takes a separate plane to College Park to take the Maryland job.
6. UConn drags Paul Pasqualoni out of a bar and names him head coach.
7. Pitt hires Todd Graham to replace Haywood.
8. Dana Holgerson gets booted out of a casino and WVU punishes him by firing Bill Stewart.

There you have it. Somewhere in this, Rutgers, Syracuse, USF, Cincy, and Louisville stayed out of the drama.

Later in the month, we'll be previewing the Big East. Until then, here's a really half-assed analysis of the conference.

The Favorite: WVU. People just love their new head coach. I don't know why, but they do. Maybe it's all those offenses he ran in the Midwest that are a dime a dozen.

The Fucked: UConn. They were due to be a bottom feeder one day.

Can Go Fuck Themselves: Rutgers. They're Rutgers.

Panther Rants 2011 Blue-Gold Game Diary

Another exciting year of Spring Drills were upon us. Out goes the Power Football......In comes High Octane. While I don't have the liberty of 'tweeting' or 'live blogging', I kept a running diary with my thoughts and analysis. Here goes.......

1:00pm - Getting ready for the spring game. Yes it's 1pm. It's 1pm Central time. That's what's great about living here. Everything starts an hour early.

1:05pm - Outside enjoying the nice weather with my son. We're bike riding. It's 85 degrees here....you really think I would be inside watching a glorified practice?

1:30pm- Nicki Minaj is playing in Houston tonight and I can tell. Almost every girl I see....even a grown ass woman....has their hair like Nicki Minaj in some way. Houston's local hip hop station had a Nicki Minaj lookalike contest. The majority of the contestants I swear I've seen at Walmart.

1:40pm - A woman with a hot pink wig on....eating pork skins...and drinking a red soda walks by. We exchange hellos and tells me how cute my son is. She's heading to see Nicki tonight. If this was the Burgh, she'd probably ask me what the fuck am I looking at.

2:10pm - We decided to go in and cool off. I get to watch the same episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for the 1000th time.

2:30pm - I got the characters figured out:

Mickey Mouse - He represents domestic abuse. He beats the shit out of Minnie and they both act as if everything is okay so no one questions it. Eventually one of them is going to be found on a hillside.

Minnie Mouse - Represents 'Pharming' and 'Free Basing'. To deal with Mickey, she needs an outlet. Which is why she probably has a big cabinet full of prescription drugs.

Donald Duck - Represents Alcoholism. He's dressed as a sailor for fuck's sake. He's the old married dude who hangs at the bar and tries to cock-block every guy from getting the hot chick that even he can't bang.

Daisy Duck - Represents Infidelity. While Donald's out getting juiced, she's out getting banged. She's probably a swinger too.

Goofy - Represents Rehab and Relapse. Don't invite him over to hang out, some of your belongings may come up missing.

Pluto - Represnts Dog-fighting. Don't fuck with him. Don't let your kid pet him. He's not friendly.

3:00pm - Son's asleep and I'm checking the boards. They're saying over 1,000 in attendance. Guess that will be blamed on Steve. Tino's having a good day passing so every Pitt poster with WPIAL ties are jerking themselves off.

3:10pm - Everyone is happy with the offense performing well on a rainy day, but the defense is getting ripped.

3:30pm - If Pitt gave me press credentials, I'd either show up drunk or sell them to a homeless guy for his bottle of Gin.

JJ Richardson 2010-2011 John DeGroat Award Winner

Panther Rants is happy to announce the 2010-2011 John Degroat Award. This year, the award goes to seldomly-used JJ Richardson. JJ is transferring out of Pitt. Not to pick on him, but we wish him well. He didn't do bad when he was called to go in. Maybe if Dante Taylor doesn't have the McDonalds AA tag slapped on him, JJ stays and Dante's the one being sent to Towson with his paperwork.

You know Dante has shown some flashes he's Mickie D's AA that Pitt recruited. Other times, he looks like he's eaten at Mickie D's. If he doesn't get his act together, he'll receive the 'Gilbert Brown' Award. The award will go the player who takes 4 years to get his shit together.

Who will winThe John Degroat Award?

The John Degroat Award was originally awarded to the seldom-used JUCO player on the basketball team. Every other year, Jamie would recruit a JUCO player....and well..he would never play them. Here's a look at our previous winners:

2006-2007 - Doyle Hudson

Doyle was recruited by Jamie because he saw him play against Levon Kendall in some league in the offseason and Jamie liked how Doyle played against him. You know Levon was that guy who scored 50 points in some Canadian national game. Doyle didn't see much playing time in his two years.

2007-2008 - Cassin Diggs

Cassin was cut when the season ended to make room for Jermaine Dixon. That's really about it.

2008-2009 - Austin Wallace

Here's where the Degroat Award changes. We didn't have any Juco's that flamed out that year...so we had to give it to someone.

2009-2010 - Dwight Miller

Dwight just never panned out. People liked him when he would play at Greentree, but Greentree is nothing but a glorified AND-1 tournament.

Candidates for 2010-2011 are: JJ Richardson, Isaiah Epps, Lamar Patterson, Dante Taylor, Cameron Wright, and Talib Zanna.

So who will win?

The Mike Gansey Award

Every year at Pantherrants, we have the prestigious "Mike Gansey Award". Okay, we don't give it out every year. For some reason every time Pitt has gone against a team with white players, the white players have the games of their lives. Maybe it's because Pitt players took them too lightly. It's like watching a boxing match and being the only person to bet on the white guy...and win. Let's look at the previous winners:

2007-2008 - Drew Neitzel: I think Ronald Ramon is still chasing him around the court.

2008-2009 - Alex Ruoff: Killed Pitt in the Big East Tournament

2009-2010 - The white players on the Notre Dame team.

And the 2010-2011 winner......is........

It's a tie between The white players on the Notre Dame team and Matt Howard. I honestly thought it would be Jimmy Fredette as I had nightmares of Gary McGhee guarding him.

Notre Dame wins for obvious reasons. They exposed our weaknesses which is taking advantage of our center who tends to have the hand-eye coordination of a drunk driver at times and our passive aggressive defense on the perimeter. In football terms, it's like having Brian Bennett cover Larry Fitzgerald.

Matt Howard wins for obvious reasons. I don't hate Matt Howard. I don't fault him for flopping. If he can't get away with it by drawing fouls, more power to him. It was fun to witness the refs put their whistles away in Houston.

Pitt Administrators Get Intoxicated, Hire Rube from OK

Pittsburgh -

University of Pittsburgh Administrators have had a tough 2 months. In early December 2010, they decided to fire beloved Head Football Coach, Dave Wannstedt. A tumultuous press conference led to fan outrage. Nonetheless, the bold Athletic Director, Steve Pederson, faced the crowd and declared that Pitt was going in a new direction.

Fast forward two weeks later when Pederson, unilaterally, hired a guy who forgot that the term "wife beater" was not literal. Mike Haywood was summarily fired on January 1, 2011, leaving Pederson and the rest of Pitt's administration on the job hunt again.

This incident led to the formation of a "Search Committee" for the next Head Football Coach. Administrators Pederson, Sanft, Cochran, and Chancellor Nordenberg were all in-charge of finding the man to lead Pitt football in 2011 and beyond.

All was well until the committee hit a snag. That is, there are 4 members and no one to cast a deciding vote.

Sanft commented, "Listen, we were really stressed out. All of us were putting in 4 hour days and were totall spent. Do you know how many people in Academia work 4 hours in January??!?! No one! No one even comes close to half that."

Cochran agreed. "The room was filled with stress and smoke. The smoke was really just from a leaky gasket in the Cathedral sewage but let me tell you, we were stressed from that smell. And then to pick a coach...again? It was too much. We needed help."

Help arrived after a savvy "brownie" arrived as a gift from former Pitt great, Mark Stepnoski. Afterwards, Nordenberg tells us things went smoother. "I don't know, man. I just don't know. Graham? Graham cracker! Hahahahaha. That fucking guy is fucking hilarious, man. And he sings really great."

Sanft, following her New Year's resolution diet, was the only to not partake in the brownie. "I don't know Mark put in those things but the guys couldn't get enough. They insisted we interview Todd Graham. Not because we wanted him but the guys wanted to ask the guy, "what it's like to live in a town called A SLUT backwards."

Pederson commented. "Tulsa?!?! That's hilarious dude. Tulsa is like, like, it's like a totally awesome place with horses and unicorns. And stuff like that."

Sanft continued to add sanity to the interview. "That Graham guy came in here. He was totally talking about praying to God and being spiritual. The guys really liked that. They made him listen to "Dark Side of the Moon" the whole way through. Then he said he never even had heard of Pittsburgh or Pennsylvania. The guys thought that was the funniest thing in the world and hired him on the spot. And the $2M they promised? No, we don't have that; not even close. Todd will just have to deal with the same salary we gave Coach Wannstedt; we intend to tell him about it after he's here for awhile."

Coach Graham commented on his hiring by saying, "yee-haw. I can't wait to get to somewhere in East Oklahoma. Heck, that may even be in Arkansas or something. Whatever. Those suckers are paying me $2 million! I could buy all of Tulsa for that. Yee-haww!!!"