Pitt football team has finally climbed to No. 1 in the rankings, except this time it's a list they didn't want to be on.
Sports Illustrated recently did a six month study of all of the Top 25 teams in last season's preseason poll and the Panthers ranked No. 1 with the most players (22) in trouble with the law.
What are you doing, Swervin? It was very clear to me - and some others at the time - that Pitt was making a mistake in firing Wannstedt and if people can't admit it in retrospect, or try to couch it in someway, I don't know what to tell you?
I like when people say, "Well, it was the right decision to fire him but the guys we hired after him were bad choices. However, that doesn't change the fact it was the right decision to fire him."
Uh, no it wasn't.
All that matters is the health of the program and if the program takes a step backwards it was a mistake. Our program took 25 steps backwards and we are just now recovering from it.
It was a horrifically stupid decision to fire him without a clear plan in place for his successor or to invest more heavily in the program. Just getting rid of him because we couldn't get over the hump is one of the most breathtakingly moronic decisions I've ever seen.
It really hurt us bad.
I said this at the time and I will say it now and I'm sure people won't listen now either. A "small market" program like Pitt cannot afford to act petulantly like a Michigan or a Florida can. We simply don't have the resources that many of those other schools have and compete with them we have to operate more intelligently, more efficiently, and more patiently than our competitors.
That firing was an example that our A.D. did not understand that simple principle and that was disturbing. In a best case scenario, I think you confuse the job of athletic director with the job of general manager and that's not how it should work – ever.
It was also a stupid decision to hold a press conference where we ostensibly took responsibility for every crime committed by an NCAA football player.
In that Sports Illustrated report, it later came out that 12 of the 25 teams in their preseason top 25 did not participate in the study due to their respective state's open records laws. That's pretty substantial and they should've acknowledged that upfront but they didn't.
I think people resort to the Sports Illustrated report because they know they don't have any other argument. However, that might be the weakest argument of them all.
I'm over it now but it was definitely a MAJOR mistake and anyone who says otherwise is just not being honest with themselves.
