After going 2-1 last week, Pitt baseball is still on the move, climbing up to #20 in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll just out yesterday. The team remains unranked in the ESPN/USA Today and Baseball America polls. The #20 ranking is the highest in school history.
Also in baseball-related stuff, head coach Joe Jordano is headed to the...wait for it...Erie Hall of Fame. He ranks second in school history with 359 wins and with another good season next year, could catch the all-time leader, Bobby Lewis, who has 402. As one of the top teams in the Big East, he could be up for his second conference Coach of the Year award this year. Like most, I don't follow the baseball program all that closely. Still, great to see the school really starting to excel in several sports.
Pitt's best player? That would be Joe Leonard.
And if you can believe it, ESPN actually runs a baseball version of Bracketology. Seriously. Pitt is projected to make the tournament in the regional with #1 overall seed Texas.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Dion Vs. Jonathan
So Pitt has one of those 'good' problems on their hands - who to promote for the Heisman? Dion Lewis or Jonathan Baldwin? Personally, I expect them to start off promoting both. Lewis appears to be the clear true candidate, but Pitt won't want to have egg on its face by only promoting him if Lewis would go down with an injury or if Baldwin should step up and really become a viable contender.
Frankly, I don't believe Baldwin is really the candidate some may make him out to be. He had 57 catches, 1,111 receiving yards and eight TDs last year. Good, but not great. Heck, Fitz couldn't get the Heisman with numbers that dwarfed Baldwin's (92, 1,672, and 22 TDs).
Being a wideout puts him at a huge disadvantage. There have only been four wideouts that won the Heisman in the award's 75-year history. The biggest thing of note is that they've all played other positions as well. Charles Woodson was also a DB and Tim Brown, Desmond Howard, and Johnny Rodgers were also kickoff and punt return specialists. To win as strictly a wideout, you'd need to put up incredible numbers or at the very least, put up great numbers on an incredible team.
Let's break down the numbers of the two players a bit. Baldwin's 1,111 yards were only good for 19th in the country and because his numbers are dependent on the quarterback's ability to get him the ball, is prone to having games with low outputs. He had only 44 yards against Buffalo, 17 against Rutgers, and 5 yards against Syracuse. In most years, Heisman winners can't have large lapses in production like that.
Now look at the other player. Dion Lewis is a running back - a position which has won the Heisman more than 50% of the time in the award's history. He's coming off a year with 1,799 yards and was an All-American. He finished a close third in the nation in rushing yards and the two players ahead of him are now in the NFL. Perhaps even more important, he had huge games of 150+ yards in more than half of the games he played in. Plus, he's not dependent on the quarterback getting him the ball as a WR is. Finally, his 17 TDs beat Baldwin's last year and I'd expect him to top him again this year.
Dion Lewis is not only Pitt's best candidate, he's the school's only realistic candidate for the Heisman. I say promote him, and promote him alone.
Frankly, I don't believe Baldwin is really the candidate some may make him out to be. He had 57 catches, 1,111 receiving yards and eight TDs last year. Good, but not great. Heck, Fitz couldn't get the Heisman with numbers that dwarfed Baldwin's (92, 1,672, and 22 TDs).
Being a wideout puts him at a huge disadvantage. There have only been four wideouts that won the Heisman in the award's 75-year history. The biggest thing of note is that they've all played other positions as well. Charles Woodson was also a DB and Tim Brown, Desmond Howard, and Johnny Rodgers were also kickoff and punt return specialists. To win as strictly a wideout, you'd need to put up incredible numbers or at the very least, put up great numbers on an incredible team.
Let's break down the numbers of the two players a bit. Baldwin's 1,111 yards were only good for 19th in the country and because his numbers are dependent on the quarterback's ability to get him the ball, is prone to having games with low outputs. He had only 44 yards against Buffalo, 17 against Rutgers, and 5 yards against Syracuse. In most years, Heisman winners can't have large lapses in production like that.
Now look at the other player. Dion Lewis is a running back - a position which has won the Heisman more than 50% of the time in the award's history. He's coming off a year with 1,799 yards and was an All-American. He finished a close third in the nation in rushing yards and the two players ahead of him are now in the NFL. Perhaps even more important, he had huge games of 150+ yards in more than half of the games he played in. Plus, he's not dependent on the quarterback getting him the ball as a WR is. Finally, his 17 TDs beat Baldwin's last year and I'd expect him to top him again this year.
Dion Lewis is not only Pitt's best candidate, he's the school's only realistic candidate for the Heisman. I say promote him, and promote him alone.
Another Early Top 25
Pitt got another bid for a preseason Top 25 - this time by Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com. He's got Pitt pegged at #13. The disturbing trend of 2010 I'm noticing is that everyone seems to be giving up on Cincinnati:
With former Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly moving to Notre Dame, Pittsburgh might be the team to beat in the Big East.This isn't the first reference I've seen to Cincinnati's 'demise.' To his credit, he's not predicting a big fall for Cincinnati - he's got them ranked as well. But the loss of Brian Kelly doesn't necessarily make me think he's the reason the team won't win the conference next year. Not to mention, West Virginia is not going to be a pushover, either. I'm hoping the pundits are right, but I won't believe it until I see it.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Ugh
So a few weeks ago, I posted a note about RMU head coach Mike Rice handling coaching changes/rumors exactly the way the should be handled. When he had interest in another job, he acknowledged that interest, interviewed, was not selected, and returned to his former job. Unlike some, *cough* Jamie Dixon *cough*, who played runaround until fans felt they'd just gotten off a Tilt-A-Whirl, he handled the situation without much of a cover up. It was a mere few weeks ago when there was the talk about making RMU a mid-major powerhouse and Rice said:
He is now apparently a finalist for the newly-vacant Rutgers job:
My beef is this - he just signed an extension. I mean, JUST, as in, like, you know, April. If you intend to potentially leave before the next year, why sign another extension? I know that's merely for recruiting purposes, but it's not like Rice was a lame duck coach. His prior contract ran through 2016. And heck, maybe it's not even the extension. When you throw around language effectively saying you want to be around, you want to build something special, etc., then leave immediately afterwards, you're not only disrespecting the university, you're disrespecting the fans. If you have your eye on a larger prize down the road, I've got no beef with that. But to leave weeks after you've virtually alleged your near-term allegiance? Come on.
To me, it's not if Rice gets the job or not at this point. He's interviewed and essentially flipped the university off, weeks after they've said they'll try to do what it takes to keep him. Whether it's extending a contract no one really believes he would finish out. Whether it's upgrading the facilities, which they've pledged to do. Whether it's giving him their blessing to interview for other jobs.
No, that apparently wasn't enough. By vowing to stay to help the school improve, then grabbing his 30 pieces of silver at the first opportunity, Rice has turned into every other backstabbing coach that says one thing then immediately does another.
Way to go, Mike. You truly deserve to inherit a Rutgers team that lost its best player, had several others transfer, and in the current makeup of the Big East, will have its hands full in trying to compete as even a middle-of-the-road team. You're just now one more coach to root against and it makes it all the more easier now that you're in the Big East.
Congratulations. I hope that 8-22 record next year doesn't hurt too much.
"The grass wasn't greener," he said. "This is the place where I want to be and the program that I want to build even further."Man, when will we ever learn.
But that does not mean Rice will coach Robert Morris through the end of his contract. He said a job could open in the future that could compel him to leave.
"There may be a time or a place that makes it a no-brainer," Rice said. "But it's not right now."
He is now apparently a finalist for the newly-vacant Rutgers job:
The Mike Rice sweepstakes was supposed be over when the men's basketball coach signed an extension at Robert Morris last month. But that may not be the case.To Rice's credit, he wisely and honestly predicted that the time could come when he would move on. But there's no one who would have believed it would be not even a month later.
Reports surfaced Saturday that Rice is a finalist for the vacant Rutgers job, a position the school is expected to fill this week. The Times confirmed that Rice did have an interview with Rutgers officials earlier this week.
Rice said simply, “No. That’s all I can say,” when asked if he was offered the job. Robert Morris athletic director Craig Coleman, when asked to confirm the report or if Rutgers had contacted him, said “No comment at this time.”
My beef is this - he just signed an extension. I mean, JUST, as in, like, you know, April. If you intend to potentially leave before the next year, why sign another extension? I know that's merely for recruiting purposes, but it's not like Rice was a lame duck coach. His prior contract ran through 2016. And heck, maybe it's not even the extension. When you throw around language effectively saying you want to be around, you want to build something special, etc., then leave immediately afterwards, you're not only disrespecting the university, you're disrespecting the fans. If you have your eye on a larger prize down the road, I've got no beef with that. But to leave weeks after you've virtually alleged your near-term allegiance? Come on.
To me, it's not if Rice gets the job or not at this point. He's interviewed and essentially flipped the university off, weeks after they've said they'll try to do what it takes to keep him. Whether it's extending a contract no one really believes he would finish out. Whether it's upgrading the facilities, which they've pledged to do. Whether it's giving him their blessing to interview for other jobs.
No, that apparently wasn't enough. By vowing to stay to help the school improve, then grabbing his 30 pieces of silver at the first opportunity, Rice has turned into every other backstabbing coach that says one thing then immediately does another.
Way to go, Mike. You truly deserve to inherit a Rutgers team that lost its best player, had several others transfer, and in the current makeup of the Big East, will have its hands full in trying to compete as even a middle-of-the-road team. You're just now one more coach to root against and it makes it all the more easier now that you're in the Big East.
Congratulations. I hope that 8-22 record next year doesn't hurt too much.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Preseason All-American Honors
Pitt had an NCAA best four players selected to NationalChamps.net's preseason All-American team for 2010. Jonathan Baldwin, Dion Lewis, Jason Pinkston, and Greg Romeus all made the squad.
I'm unfamiliar with this website, but I expect those names will be on a lot of preseason All-American lists.
I'm unfamiliar with this website, but I expect those names will be on a lot of preseason All-American lists.
Lombardi Watch List Adds Pitt Pair
OT Jason Pinkston and DE Greg Romeus were added to the preseason watch list for the Lombardi trophy. One of those awards that can go to an offensive or defensive player.
There are only two other Big East players on the 75-man list.
There are only two other Big East players on the 75-man list.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)