Allen leaving the B1G poster boys and heading to the ACC!
We'll be playing them down the road, he seems like he puts a decent defense together when he has the talent.

Really found this odd. Leaving the B1G and a CFP team for the ACC and Clemson.
Either him and Franklin are on the outs, or the $$$ was too good to ignore?

Seriously this organization is beyond repair at this point. Art Rooney isn't even the owner imo it's Mike Tomlin.

What a joke

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This is scary as hell

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This is the projectes price for Russell Wilson. Will Rooney pony up the money to keep him, or roll the dice with Fields and possibly a draft pick?

Does anyone know if Aaron Donald’s house has survived the fires in LA?

We posted last week about UTSA center C.J. James visiting Pitt this week. Here's the latest on where that stands:

- James is still set to visit Pitt on Thursday. He visited Arizona over the weekend and is visiting South Carolina today. Pitt will be his final visit.

- Those three schools are the top options for James, but he has heard from a lot of schools since he went into the portal on Dec. 30. I've been told that a number of schools from the SEC and Big Ten reached out, but in the interest of time, James narrowed his focus to the schools that interested him the most - Arizona, South Carolina and Pitt.

- James is arguably the top center available in the portal. He started 47 games over the last four years (at Abilene Christian, New Mexico and UTSA) and allowed a total of 55 pressures, according to Pro Football Focus. 18 of those pressures came in 2022; in the other three seasons, he allowed 37 pressures in 36 starts. This past season, he started 13 games and allowed 12 pressures.

- It's worth noting that several schools - SEC and Big Ten - specifically tried to get James to cancel his Pitt visit in order to visit their schools, but he declined. Pitt very much has his interest.

- A big part of the appeal is location. James is a native of Massachusetts, and after spending the last four years in Texas and New Mexico, he's looking to get closer to home. Obviously, Pitt is the closest.

- The timeline is pretty tight here, and I would expect James to pick a school fairly quickly after his visit to Pitt - or during his visit, if he feels like Pitt is the best option. It certainly seems like the Panthers are in good shape.

Pitt will have at least three transfers visiting this weekend, with more targets in contact and visits on the horizon.

Here’s the latest intel that we’ve gathered.

Weekend visitors
Chances are, there will be more than three transfers who visit this weekend. For right now, we’ve got three confirmed.

Lawrence Hattar
Hattar was a two-year starter at guard for Ferris State, including this past season when the Bulldogs went 14-1 and won the Division II national championship. A 6’5” 335-pound guard from Livonia (Mich.), Hattar was named a first-team All-American after this past season, and he has been a hot commodity in the transfer portal. More than 20 schools have offered Hattar, and he has visits scheduled to Kansas State and North Carolina. Pitt is up first this weekend, and while offensive tackle has been the priority, I think the staff wants to build out the offensive line any way it can. Hattar would certainly give the coaches more options in what kind of personnel they put together.

Blaine Spires
Spires is a defensive end at Utah State, where he has spent the last two seasons after four years at Bowling Green (2019-22). A native of Youngstown, Spires made three starts in 2023 but was expected to be the Aggies’ top pass-rusher this season. A toe injury took him off the field after four games, though, and he finished 2024 with three tackles for loss and one sack.

Spires has drawn interest from a number of schools since he went into the transfer portal, but the Pitt visit this weekend could be the decider for the 6’3” 230-pound defensive end. For the Panthers, defensive end is a position where a lot is needed - both in quantity and quality - after losing three ends to the transfer portal and one more to graduation.

It seems like Pitt has a good shot of landing Spires.

Rashan Murray
Another Division II All-American, Murray is a local native - he played high school ball in the City League - and he has spent the last three years at Cal (Pa.) after initially committing to Akron as a senior. 2024 was Murray’s breakout year, as he recorded four interceptions and earned DII second-team All-America honors. He has heard from several schools since he entered the portal, but Pitt is the only visit he has scheduled right now.

After the transfer of Ryland Gandy, Pitt could use another corner to fill out the rotation, and Murray seems like he could be a good fit with Rashad Battle, Tamon Lynum and possibly a young player (like Shadarian Harrison).

Other targets to watch
A few other guys to keep an eye on:

Zy Crisler
Crisler is an offensive guard from Mississippi who went to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College after high school and then spent the last three years at Illinois. While playing with the Illini, he started 13 games at right guard in 2022, 11 games total (nine at right guard and two at right tackle) in 2023 and six games at right guard this past season.

That’s 30 starts (and 36 total games played) over the course of three years, with a couple All-Big Ten honorable mentions after the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Crisler is 6’6” and 335 pounds, so size is no issue, and while he seems to have made his two starts at right tackle in a spot-duty role, it’s at least notable to consider as possible option.

Crisler has been talking to Kade Bell and Jeremy Darveau at Pitt, and the coaches have talked to him about visiting next week (possibly Thursday). In the meantime, he also has visits to Colorado, UCLA, Mississippi State, Miami and Nebraska. So he’ll be busy.

Jez Janvier
Janvier is an interesting guy. He’s from Montreal and joined Eastern Michigan in the 2021 recruiting class. He played a bit in his first two years before moving to the defensive line in 2023, where he played a half-dozen games. This past year, he moved back to the offensive line and made five starts at guard.

A 6’5” 300-pound athlete who also played basketball and baseball in high school, Janvier has been in contact with Pitt. He’s another guard, so my guess is that guys like Hattar and Crisler would be a little above him on the priority list, but we’ll see how the coaches approach it.

Like I said, there will probably be more visitors this weekend, but that’s what we have confirmed so far. We’ll post more info as we get it.

John Fanta (big college basketball insider) has Jaland Lowe going #17 overall. Would be pretty impressive.

Oklahoma is making executive orders to keep the Sooners from losing players.

It's officially out of control.

If im reading this correctly, they just basically made pay for play legal by blocking the NCAA from investigating what exactly the athlete is being paid for.

Guess they had 27 players hit the portal and some damn good ones. Governor said enough is enough.

little picture, big picture stuff.

1. i see a lot of people who are surprised at some of the results this season; people who expected something better. i haven't understood this as we quite literally don't have a 4 on this team. we just don't. we have one center, who doesn't play defense at a p5 level. and some of you are shocked that we lose rebounding battles? why? leading to:
2. the DG brothers are not p5 level. GDG maybe as a backup center...i guess. we expected a jump from year one to year two and did not get it, whatsoever. did some of you expect a jump from year two to three? and please do not tell me that they shoot good 3 pointers - this team doesn't need 7 footers hanging around the perimeter. it's just dumb.
3. so your back court is pretty challenged. we play clemson this week - a team that always has a solid back court. can you guess what is going to happen? i can.
4. i don't know where this team ends up. we seem to be a solid little BB team. the guards are really nice. and that's great. but it's an incomplete team, which, at this point, is what we get with jeff capel. it's been 7 years now. i have a group chat with friends and after 7 years, we still ask, "i don't know what this team is trying to do on offense." that is, outside of having a good 3 point shooter who takes over. otherwise, it's a lot of passing around the perimeter. less so with blake but we still see it now. at least we have a center cam can actually score, though, which is a radical departure from our previous centers.
5. so where does this leave me? if i'm running almost any division one college, i'm probably not making expensive changes right now, barring a kevin stallings type of situation. there are just too many unkowns in the short-term. replacing JC would be expensive, and i have no faith that we could attract a clear upgrade.

part of me thinks we just go cheap with head coaches but tell them they've got $3m in pay to play, plus whatever we can dig up in NIL. instead of paying a coach $5m, we'll pay $2m + $3m for roster costs. and we tell them, if you have success and want to walk, have at it. i know this won't happen but i kind of feel as if the game is about jimmy's and joe's - and pitt can find similar coaches to jeff capel.

but the cost to can capel is still in the 7 figures somewhere. until that's reduced, we aren't garbage enough that paying the exit fee makes sense. if i'm green, i probably tell jeff it's time for new blood on the bench, help him find NIL money the best i can, and cross my fingers. also tell him he's got a real blind spot in evaluating and developing big guys, b/c it's massive. guards? i trust you all day, jeff.

i also would have questions about the guys on the end of the bench: how much are we paying them to have nearly zero contributions? how much is papa getting? can we use that money for an older transfer who can add decent minutes? i don't even remember the name of the dude who redhsirted last year. and the kid who isn't playing from this class. what's the point? you don't have the luxury to develop guys anymore, unless they're super cheap and have a real trajectory. we're doing that with the twins and it's been a waste. kind of a will jeffress situation - but he was before NIL so it was fine to take flyers on young dudes. doesn't seem to make sense anymore.

anyway, a good number of you will shout me down for being negative. but this team just has glaring flaws, which has been a consistent pattern with JC's teams.

** Some wins feel pretty good. Occasionally they can be euphoric.

** Conversely, most losses are disappointing. Some are really disappointing. But for me, I have to confess this one even stings a little more than usual.

** In fact, I’m stinging so much I considered not offering a post game entry today. But I’ve always pledged to write in the good and the bad. So perhaps this won’t be my best effort, but at least hopefully it will be a little bit better of an effort than our Panthers put forward today on the defensive glass.

** But this one stings a little more than usual not because of the loss in itself, but more because this is the first loss that makes me worry that this team isn’t quite the team that I thought they might be.

** I’ll readily acknowledge this could easily be an overreaction.

** So let’s be clear that I’m not yet offering any kind of predictions that our tournament berth is moving toward the bubble.

** And even if this team was most everything we thought they might be, we were always going to lose a minimum of three more ACC games after Duke, and this one was on the list of games we might lose.

** So there’s that.

** But it’s still a game I believed we should win, and I’m a bit troubled that we didn’t.

** Or maybe it’s just as simple as needing to figure out how to improve our defensive rebounding.

** This has been a real problem for us at times this year. This was the first time it cost us a win.

** Also when we needed stops down the stretch, our defense failed us.

** Louisville scored on their final four possessions and 9 of their final 10 possessions. We were up 2 when that streak started. The math is pretty simple. We lost by four.

** What adds to the sting is that we did enough good things offensively to win this. We shot well enough and took care of the ball well enough. And we scored extra points over average on a great night at the foul line.

** On the offensive end down the stretch, we showed enough poise, and truly benefited from the full return of Damian Dunn.

** For whatever reason, Damian was seemingly the only Panther who could be counted on to clear the defensive glass, especially in the second half.

** But all of the Panthers, including Damian made gaffs on the defensive end. Long story short, this team has a long way to go to figure out how to defend ball screens as a team. A couple times we went under the screen without secondary help, leaving Reyne Smith way too much room to torch us.

** Reyne may be a pretty decent player, but he’s not nearly as good as the Panthers allowed him to be today.

** While I don’t necessarily question Capel’s second half strategy to play his main five for all but 2 minutes in the second half, I do wonder exactly what he’s thinking. Has he lost confidence in GDG? And if so, I’m not exactly sure why because it didn’t appear to me to me that his defense or rebounding was particularly worse than that of anyone else.

** And Cam can’t or shouldn’t be considered the main culprit for the Panthers’ defensive struggles. But he had several issues with his own man at times, his help was untimely, and his boxing out on the defensive glass was hard to locate.

** Otherwise, while much of the needed defensive effort was there, communication and attention to detail on that end was not.

** Nonetheless, if you enjoy college hoops as much as most of us do, you know that just a few days after a stinging loss, there’s an opportunity for one of those satisfying wins.

** On the road at Florida State would be one such win. So even if this loss brings some thoughts that maybe the team isn’t quite what we thought they were, a win on Wednesday gets us back on that path.

Big rivalry dual, we need to get one back after losing the last one two years ago.
125: Babin v. Stickenberger
Stick was up at 133 earlier this year. He has since come back down to 125 where he is a past NCAA qualifier. These two have never hit directly, and they have similar common opponents. TOSS UP

133: Chappell v. Maddox
Tebo is a 125 wrestling up, but Maddox is a senior who has never had a great record and was the backup until Stick dropped. Hard to tell but I think Tebo can keep it close and pull a win off potentially. TOSS UP

141: Ant/Priest v. Titus
Whoever we send out here is probably in a 50/50 match. Titus is on a downswing this year, with 1 win in his last 8. However he has some great past wins, including beating Cole in the last dual v. WVU when he was ranked no.1 overall. TOSS UP

149: Solomon v. Hillegas
Finn gets Hillegas who is a 5th year. He is 4-6 on the year and has dropped 4 straight. He can give Finn some problems but I would expect for Finn to get it done. PITT FAVORED

157: Evans v. Gavronsky
Gavronsky has a winning record on the year but is 2-6 in his last eight. He could potentially push Evans but the Evans I have seen this year is someone I would expect to win this. PITT FAVORED

165: Keslar v. Hall
Hall is a returning AA who has been on a really good run this year. He is 19-0 and has 57% bonus rate. I would expect him to win and get WVU bonus points. WVU FAVROED

174: Augustine v. Conley
Luca won 3-2 over Conley last time they faced off. Conley is 8-3 on the year with some solid wins. I would hope Luca wins and wins comfortably, but based on their common results I think it will come down to a few sequences. TOSS UP

184: Heller v. Robin
Robin is 16-5 on the year, but all 5 losses are by fall, tech or major. He is someone who is vulnerable to give up points and while he has some good wins on the year, I would expect Reece to win again, but maybe close. PITT FAVORED

197: Stout v. Bush
Stout likely has Bush who was a 184 all year but has been at 197 for the last two duals. He has 1 win and 1 loss at 197. Stout has looked great recently and I would expect him to come out and get a bonus win in this won. PITT FAVORED

285: Pitzer v. Wolfgram
Pitzer won by major last time these two faced. He hasn't been as dominant this season but he should still get the win. PITT FAVORED

5 Pitt Favored, 4 Toss Up, 1 WVU Toss Up

Jerry should go after tomlin, take him off our hands, and then have the same exact coach in Dallas that he had with McCarthy.