Football Notes

Dave Wannstedt teamed up with the enemy, Joe Pa, today to discuss high school spring football practice. Wannstedt was mum on expansion issues:

"There are a lot of rumors out there as far as I'm concerned," he said. "I don't have any comment on that. That is for the chancellor [Mark Nordenberg] and the higher ups to discuss."

And, well, so was Paterno:

"This is not about Penn State or Pitt, it's about Pennsylvania high school football," Paterno said.

Anyway, both were all for allowing high schools to hold Spring football practices:

"Anything we can do to help the high school coaches, we'll do," Paterno said.

Wannstedt previously has coached in Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, three states that had spring practice. He said players from those states were farther ahead skill-wise than players from Pennsylvania.

"We all know how many repetitions it takes for a young man to develop a skill," Wannstedt said. "The more he can get an opportunity to do that, the better opportunity he has to improve his skills, the better his opportunity to go onto college somewhere."

Personally, I'm not so sure that between part-time jobs, schoolwork, other activities, and just being a kid that high school students need yet another commitment. But I understand both sides of it.

Brian Bennett of ESPN.com has a Pitt Spring wrap-up and looks ahead to some of the league's stars in 2010.

Meanwhile, on the NFL front, D-Line coach, Greg Gattuso, thinks Mick Williams can play in the NFL but could be moved from the line:

"You could see his talent the last two years," he said. "He was a great football player the last two years. He fit our system well because we emphasize speed and athleticism. We don't want big tackes."

Gattuso feels Williams' size of 6-0, 275 pounds may create a position change in the pros.

"They want tackles in the 330-pound range so he could be switched to defensive end or linebacker," he said. "He's a great pass rusher. I thought someone like Chicago, Indianapolis or Tampa Bay would give him a shot."

I was a little surprised the Big East Co-Defensive Player of the Year couldn't slip into even a late round pick, but we'll see what happens.

And the ridiculously uncredible Bleacher Report thinks Dave Wannstedt could be fired if he doesn't win the Big East this year. I can't see any scenario where Wannstedt isn't back next year. He's had two successful seasons in a row now and the university really seems pleased with him. I don't think an 8-4 season gets him canned. No chance.

Football Notes

Even out of season, lots of tidbits and news out there about Pitt football recently. Guess football really IS king in American sports.

Todd McShay over at ESPN.com is already at it for 2011, mocking the first-round of the NFL draft. Because this is an Insider article, I'll only provide you with this information - McShay has Jonathan Baldwin and Greg Romeus in his first round, but no Dion Lewis.

ESPN blogger Brian Bennett says Pitt has little to worry about if the Big Ten expands by more than one team, while Cincinnati should be worried the most. I'd probably tend to agree with that.

And here's an article about Joe Pa's role in the expansion process. I think Paterno is doing this as kind of a last hurrah. Pitt fans are encouraged by the fact that he's mentioned Pitt as a potential expansion candidate. But I think it's more of him doing this for his legacy to not come off as the bitter old man when it comes to his relationship with Pitt. He very well might not be around when the new Big Ten opens for business, likely in a few years. So there's a good chance he won't even have to play Pitt, which of course, he doesn't want to do. By posturing for Pitt as a candidate, he knows that his decision alone won't make it - Pitt will be in or out, fairly independent of what he wants. Since that's the case, why not at least push for Pitt publicly, leaving the ace up his sleeve needed to 'prove' to critics that he doesn't really hate Pitt?

Bennett also has a solid piece on Jonathan Baldwin getting his thoughts on his basketball skills, game planning against him, and what he's working on for this year:

"My goal this year is to get better at my yards after catch," he said. "I want to run my routes crisper. And destroy defenders when I block them."

I hope deep balls are in the game plan for this year. With his size and athleticism, unless Tino Sunseri is woefully inaccurate or the retooled line has major blocking issues, there's no reason for Pitt not to go deep to him at least a handful of times each game.

And all is well back in the land of Pitt food courts and fried fish sandwiches once again.

Ancillary Stuff

Not a lot going on. Sure there was a football scrimmage Saturday, but I can only take so much Spring stuff until it feels as if sticking sharpened pencils directly into my retinas might be more entertaining.

That said, though, there are quite a few minor things out there or things indirectly related to Pitt:

- Well, well, well - looks like Rich Rod may have found yet another way to harm his former employer. As if he wasn't hated enough, now WVU is dealing with potential violations. I'm wondering if it's similar to the type of stuff he's been going through at Michigan with too much practicing. Hmm....

- Joe Pa thinks Big Ten expansion will happen:

"I think the trend is there are going to be bigger conferences. I think there are going to be 12-, 14-team conferences and maybe even 16-team conferences. Do I know what I'm talking about, who knows?

"It would appear to me that with the television situation what it is and the great impact that it has on exposure and what that exposure does to recruiting, we're naive to think ... we can sit back and see everybody else move ahead because they're going to move ahead. We better start thinking about where we're going."

I've not been commenting on the expansion stuff and that's been by design. Just too many variables and unknowns at this point and no real advantage to commenting on it every week until we get closer to something actually happening.

- Brian Bennett over at ESPN.com hints that he may be picking Pitt to win the Big East this year.

- In the wayyyyy to early Bracketology for the 2010-11 season, Joe Lunardi lists Pitt as a 3 seed. He has Georgetown as a 2-seed, highest in the Big East. I'm guessing that's dependent upon Greg Monroe coming back, though they should have a good team even without him. Along those same lines, Andy Katz loves, loves, LOVES Pitt next year. And so does Gary Parrish. I wouldn't put Pitt this high, but to each his own.

- I never got around to mentioning the whole Fred Hill/Pitt baseball thing mostly because I didn't really care all that much. But it was an interesting story nonetheless. Anyway, it appears Rutgers and Hill are at a standstill as far as him coming back to coach. Jon over at Rutgers blog Bleed Scarlet has plenty of good posts analyzing the situation as well as a possible replacement for Hill.

- Former Pitt coach and current Pitt villain Ben Howland gets some votes as one of the decade's top coaches.

- Finally, this happened several days ago, but thought it was worth a mention. Mike Rice agreed to stay at Robert Morris, despite interest from Seton Hall and Tulane. Rice handled the situation exactly how fans want. He ackonwledged interest in listening to both offers, acknowledged interviewing with both schools, and ended up staying. I believe he would have taken the Seton Hall job had he been offered it, but that's not the point. He was as honest and straight forward as could reasonably be expected throughout the process and Robert Morris should be proud of the way he handled the entire process. Jamie Dixon is in a much higher profile situation and the two situations were not the same. But maybe Jamie Dixon should take a note or two about how to handle these types of things rather than essentially playing grab ass with fans and media, and going into hiding every time his name comes up for a job.

Just sayin'.

JoePa Backs Off

And seemingly as quick as it started, it ended just as quick...the request of Joe Paterno for the Big Ten to add another member, that is.

"Twice in recent weeks Paterno expressed his desire for the Big Ten to add a 12th team and a league championship game, which would end the regular season on the same weekend as the other five BCS conferences. He said Big Ten teams are at a competitive disadvantage by ending the regular season early, and the league loses relevancy during the long break before the bowl games.

Paterno took a less assertive position Tuesday at Big Ten meetings and expressed surprise that his initial remarks had created such a stir.

"I'm the newest guy in the league," Paterno said. "I've never been in a conference before. A guy like Delany that's been around the conference as long as he is, he's run this conference as long as he has, for me to come in here and tell him, 'Hey, Delany, this is what you've got to do,' I don't know.""

I don't know of anyone who took this seriously...especially Pitt being offered a spot in the conference. One coach isn't going to change things. There would have to be at least a handful of them to even get the conference to consider it.

Frankly, while a conference championship for football can help, I think it can hurt even more. Any team with a chance at playing for a National Championship has to go through one more hurdle. I know the arguments for them - keeps your team in front of the voters, could give a team another strong win, etc. I just think that in the world of college football where there's no playoff, if you're in a BCS conference, why run the risk of having an undefeated team lose a game, knocking them out of a potential championship? More times than not, if you're in a BCS conference and you go undefeated, you're going to play for the championship. Period.