Football board
- Thread starter Drew1208
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Three and a half months and that will be this board, just with fewer posters
It’s usually the same. A month after football starts, we can’t wait for basketball and a month after basketball starts, we can’t wait for football. Other than our 10 years of outstanding basketball, it has been like this since the mid 80’s.
Can't say I blame them, yikes.
It makes me worry about my sanity/perception. I think the Bball team can have a respectable year, maybe have 8 ACC wins. But I thought the football team could win 9 games and that looks deeply wrong.
It makes me worry about my sanity/perception. I think the Bball team can have a respectable year, maybe have 8 ACC wins. But I thought the football team could win 9 games and that looks deeply wrong.
Fwiw, this is why I gravitate towards bball over fball. In football you lose 1 game like we did yesterday and it carries far more weight. Your post-season hopes for a big bowl game (let alone getting into the playoffs) pretty much go down the drain. In basketball, you can withstand an upset or two and still have a chance.
If JC is here for seven yrs I expect a much better bb program than 7 yrs of PN .
I agree - largely because I think Capel’s a smarter guy than Narduzzi, and I think being smart gets you quite a bit. It’s harder to build a winner in basketball than it is in football (but it’s harder to build a truly elite football program than it is in basketball), but I think having a smart head coach is important in both. We’ve got that in basketball IMO
You think it’s harder to build a winner in basketball?
I disagree 10000%.
Land Efton Reid and another stud last class, keep Champagnie, and you’d have the Pete rocking by January/February which would create a domino effect.
Needing 85 scholarship players makes building a winner much more difficult at a place like Pitt with all the disadvantages we have.
Everything being equal I’d think Fb is a far harder turnaround. Need more players .A great qb still needs a line to protect him and receivers to catch the passes and a rb . Not to mention a defense and injuries are far more likely to ruin seasons and careers …. A great bb player needs two or three other decent D1 players and a few average role players and you got something .
Saying that , I think PN had a far easier path to success at Pitt than JC . Pitt bb was a total joke when JC took over and persuading impactful players to come here when they can go just about anywhere they want is a tough sell without booster involvement.
To me you need to give a coach 5 yrs until you truly know the future direction of a program rebuild unless the guys a total disaster (KS) . PN has proven to me he’s not the man and why his contract was extended at 4+ million/yr baffles me . I still have the belief that JC can build a winner at Pitt . The clock is ticking though !
I think it’s harder to build a championship contender in football, absolutely. But I think recruiting in basketball is significantly more difficult than it is in football. There are just fewer recruits to go around in basketball, and more mouths to feed - you’ve got all the same P5 schools that you have in football...but you’ve also got Big East schools that recruit like P5s, A10 schools like VCU who are recruiting top 100 kids, and a collection of mid-major conference schools that recruit like P5’s (Gonzaga). Capel has landed more top-100 recruits than Narduzzi has, and he’s been here half as long, even with the additional challenges of basketball recruiting. The fact that Narduzzi has built a .500-ish program with worse recruiting is (IMO) evidence that it’s an easier floor to reach, moreso than evidence that Narduzzi’s a better coach. The schedule in football is easier, too, with 25% of Pitt’s football games being against opponents from a lesser division (UMass, WMU, NH) whereas in basketball only 22% of games this year are against lesser opponents (non-ACC or major conference). The ACC is better in basketball than it is in football, too, and you have fewer gimme basketball games than you do in football in conference play.
But I think that the opposite side of having 85 scholarships to fill in football is that it makes building the equivalent of a 7-5 program in football easier than building the equivalent in basketball. You’ve gotta fill the spots, but ultimately you’re looking for 22 starters (about 25% of your allotment), and maybe ~40 of your guys (50%) at most are going to play in games that matter. In basketball, you’re looking for 5 starters (~40% of your allotment) and at least 9 of your scholarships (70%) are going to play in games that matter. The stakes are a lot higher in basketball, and the hit rate needs to be a lot higher, too. I think it’s just that building an elite football program (Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia) is a whole different level than it is in basketball, where you can conceivably have schools like Gonzaga compete at the highest level.
Maybe I’m not making sense. Or maybe I’m wrong. Who knows.
Recruiting is different in basketball because every program from all over the country is going after the same 200 players at national recruiting events. There isn't much "regionalness" to basketball recruiting anymore. But if you land a few of those kids, you can be very good very quick, much quicker than football
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