BleacherCoaches.com

Quick note from Miami. Haven't read any of your posts yet but wanted to make a few comments.

Dave Wannstedt is widely considered a great human being and very good coach, by his coaching peers. I am getting this from the horses mouth. His downside is his rigidity in adjusting from gameplans that he praticed all week. This is not uncommon for human beings to do this. But the lack of flexibility here is what sunk him.

I personally feel this is a terrible move by pitt. Wanny is a guy I would be proud to have coach my son and give him life lessons. This is a guy who truly loves his players and would do anything for them. When these types get fired, it is a real shame.

You can't blame everything on wanny. There was a TON of poor execution over the years, and the players need to take responsibility for not winning some of these games.

its understanable that he was let go, from a profit standpoint, but college football definitely lost a "good guy" in the process. There in lies the shame and the reality of it all.

I agree with TAE, Wanny is a gentleman and a class act. There were extraneous issues such as the embarassing off-the-field incidents, but none of that would have mattered if the wins came when they should have, or if $$$ was being generated by the program. Just like at PSU, nobody cares about Navorro Bowman repeatedly smoking pot, players ganging up on students who whistle at a teammate's girlfriend, or shooting arrows through the wall of an apartment complex. Just call it what it is: The wins didn't come as they should have given Pitt's talent level and given the weakness of the BE, and the program was not lucrative from a financial standpoint in part because of the lack of wins.

13-9 was great and all, but we finished 5-7 that season. Where was the effort and execution (particularly defensively) that we all saw in that game against Navy where we gave up 48 points and lost???

Wanny's failure in not garnering at least one very financially lucrative BCS bid over the past few years did Wanny in, especially the past two years when it should have happened but didn't due to career performances by Mardy Guillyard and Jordan Todman, which were the result of poor preparation and even worse execution. Had Pitt just beaten UCONN, even the blowout loss at home to WVU would have resulted in a BCS bid for Pitt and would have saved Wanny's job, in my opinion, at least through next season.

One BCS bid for Pitt's football program over the past 2 seasons could have financed a large portion of a yearly budget for virtually all non-revenue/Olympic sports. Not getting that bid at least once over the past 3 seasons when the talent was there to do so kills a university like Pitt, who doesn't have the financial supportthat a tOSU or PSU or Florida has.

Wanny was indeed a solid recruiter when it came to getting the best players available, but his strategy in recruiting hurt the program and depth/talent at other key positions. Wanny's "eggs in one basket" approach resulted in abundances of talent at certain positions (DL, WR, RB) and serious definiencies in many other areas (OL, LB, DBV, and QB). There is no reason Pitt should have a walk on center starting, with the backup a converted LB recruit.

My immediate concern as a fan is #1 Given that Wanny has a contract through 2014, how much will this impact the finances in terms of bringing in a top flight coach, which will be a big cost (ie-Will Pitt need to hire a "cheap date" like an O or D coordinator or a second rate person?) and #2 what will happen with the stellar recruiting class that Wanny landed for next year...If Wanny is staying on the payroll as a "special assistant to the AD" and if he is as loyal and supportive of Pitt as he portrays, then he will be on the phone today contacting every one of the signees and getting them to reaffirm their commitments to Pitt in moving forward and supporting the football program regardless of the new coach. On the other hand, this class is considered Wanny's and the new guy may want some other personnel of his own to fit his program.

The next few weeks are absolutely critical in terms of getting someone on board, getting a coaching staff assembled, and getting commitments to sign in early February. It is imperative that Pitt gets this right. If they do not, it could set the program back to the days where I had to sit in an ice storm at Pitt Stadium and watch us lose to Temple in front of 5,000 fans.

So, I am OK with Wanny coaching the bowl game, but it would be in the university's best interests for Wanny to be a goodwill ambassador with recruits while he is coaching. My guess is that wanny won't coach the bowl game, but I could be wrong.

Maybe Tom Bradley is composing handwritten letters expressing his keen interest in the job and in building a wall around western PA to Pitt's trustees, Nordy, and Pederson. My guess is that those letters were already composed around 5PM last evening and have arrived by now at the University of PGH via overnight FedEx.

The "wall around Western PA." is a horrible idea. Hiring Bradley or whoever else Pitt related is more of the same. I think Tom Bradley is a good coach, and probably should get credit for Penn State's last 65 or so wins. But I don't think a Western Pa. guy is the answer. The WPIAL sucks to what it was once, outside of the Pitt program and Terrelle Pryor, what kids from the wpial are doing anything? Virginia,New Jersey, Ohio, Carolina, and Florida is where we should be getting our talent. Maybe a guy like Bud Foster? He's from outside the srea, a tremendous defensive coach, pair him up with a good coordinator and you have something there.


Wannstedt is a good guy, and I understand why people think its dumb and they are upset to see him leave, but at the end of the day, What has he done? He didn't get fired for winning 9,10, and potentially 8 games over this 3 season stretch, He got fired because he lost to Bowling Green,Oregon State,NC State, Cincinnati the two previous seasons, the past two backyard brawls.


He does have some big wins, but for the most part 42-31 isn't good. Especially with wins against Youngstown twice,The Citadel,EMU,Grambling,Buffalo twice,Navy twice. Thats 9 of the easiet wins you can get. So take all of those away you have a 33-31 coach. With one bowl win. 3 bowl appearences in 6 seasons. No Conferences titles, and a 2-4 record against your biggest rival. That warrants being fired.

crimson

i saw you throw bud fosters name out there, he got offered the auburn job before chizik got it and he turned it down i dont think he'll ever leave virginia tech

I understand what you're saying about not getting the BCS bid really hurting Wanny, but the money goes to the conference on an even split for all members. Pitt gets the same amount of BCS money for their 1 big east participant every year if it is them or if it is not. It's not like they're going to get 2 teams in the BCS anytime soon.

Uhhhh what? The fact that Pitt gets money from being in a conference every year should have nothing to do with job security. BCS berths save your job, simply being in a conference that gets money from other team's berths does not

WPIAL~Titan wrote: Wanny's failure in not garnering at least one very financially lucrative BCS bid over the past few years did Wanny in, especially the past two years when it should have happened but didn't due to career performances by Mardy Guillyard and Jordan Todman, which were the result of poor preparation and even worse execution.

One BCS bid for Pitt's football program over the past 2 seasons could have financed a large portion of a yearly budget for virtually all non-revenue/Olympic sports. Not getting that bid at least once over the past 3 seasons when the talent was there to do so kills a university like Pitt, who doesn't have the financial supportthat a tOSU or PSU or Florida has.

I believe this is what BisonBlue07 was referring to, Crimson, in which he's 100% correct. Unless the Big lEast set-up is different than that of the Big 10 where the funds are distributed evenly to all conference teams(I thought this was the same for all conferences in the big-6).