Nobody blamed Heinz Field after yesterday's disappointing loss and now its all the coaches fault. Right? Before I argue my point, I want to be clear that yesterday was absolutely on Duzz and unacceptable however Heinz Field is still absolutely the biggest problem with Pitt football. Players play coaches coach. Coaching means more than everything in football vs any sport however do you really think the Steelers would be winning and competing for championships year after year without Ben, AB and Bell. No way and yes as much as I love Connor, to be fair he's not Bell.
As I've said countless times, Pitt will always be a 6-6/7-5/8-4 team with the current setup which is mediocre and gets you an annual useless toilet bowl & makes nobody happy. Pitt needs to take its $25M to $30M a year from ACC (will take a lot more $) and start investing this $ in a NEW stadium plan on campus either in the OC lot area or Panther hollow. Announce a stadium initiative and if you get $200 from a 1M alums that's a good start & not unreasonable at all. I'm sorry but we need to relocate the baseball or other Pitt buildings in that area because football is the reason you get $25M to $30M from the ACC and every other Pitt sport is funded by it outside of hoops. As I've also said multiple times, if you want to seriously compete for ACC championships you need 8 to 10 4/5 star recruits consistently a year and right now we don't have enough elite players to get us to that next level. We get 1 or 2 a year consistently. Perfect example yesterday was when 4 star Tyler Boyd was on the field. The other corners couldn't cover him. Our current guys are nice 3 star players but couldn't get open yesterday like him. We can argue about outperforming 3 stars like Donald, Revis, etc. along with 4/5 stars busts which I get but there is a reason why the recruiting rankings work MAJORITY of the time. There will always be a team or two who define the odds like Wisconsin but if you want a sure thing in recruiting we need to make the change. I'm tired of hearing about the high ceiling players who reminds us of this elite 4/5 player because that formula has proven it DOESN'T work. If the Pitt coaches were so smart and it did work, all of the other top school would be doing the same thing but instead they get 4/5 star players like Boyd or Shady. All you need to do is look at Penn State when they went on probation. Recruiting went way downhill & hurt the program. Look at their recruiting rankings the last 3 to 4 years and where they are at today. Many argue Franklin isn't great coach but is a great recruiter however you tie it with their on campus atmosphere & its a home run. Whether you like it or not, atmosphere means everything to elite 4/5 start players because we compete against PSU, UM, ND and OSU for many of the top players. 4/5 star recruits visit Heinz or watch the yellow empty atmosphere on TV. Then they go to those other schools mentioned and we lose almost every time. We need the right size stadium and am fine with 55,000 seats which would be the perfect for Pitt. We don't need 100K fans nor could we ever get them which is a 100% fine. Stop saying we can't do it as that's pure denial of the problem because if you accept the current setup we might as well be in the MAC conference. Heinz Morgue vs those neighboring top school atmospheres is losing situation for us and am not sure why many can't see this because we see the same results year after year regardless of the coach.
I know firing the coach will always make fans happy today however nothing is going to change unless we make the biggest change. I'd argue that we should have never fired Wanny who is pro Pitt as anyone but it doesn't matter. Yes, his coaching was bad at times as well. Plus, we are never getting an elite coach because they know its impossible to recruit in this current setup and nobody plays or is building off campus facilities. Miami wants out of Dolphin Stadium while USF and Temple are VERY close to new stadiums (google and read the articles on pro stadiums). Change is critical in any business and we need Lyke to get this done. H2P!
As I've said countless times, Pitt will always be a 6-6/7-5/8-4 team with the current setup which is mediocre and gets you an annual useless toilet bowl & makes nobody happy. Pitt needs to take its $25M to $30M a year from ACC (will take a lot more $) and start investing this $ in a NEW stadium plan on campus either in the OC lot area or Panther hollow. Announce a stadium initiative and if you get $200 from a 1M alums that's a good start & not unreasonable at all. I'm sorry but we need to relocate the baseball or other Pitt buildings in that area because football is the reason you get $25M to $30M from the ACC and every other Pitt sport is funded by it outside of hoops. As I've also said multiple times, if you want to seriously compete for ACC championships you need 8 to 10 4/5 star recruits consistently a year and right now we don't have enough elite players to get us to that next level. We get 1 or 2 a year consistently. Perfect example yesterday was when 4 star Tyler Boyd was on the field. The other corners couldn't cover him. Our current guys are nice 3 star players but couldn't get open yesterday like him. We can argue about outperforming 3 stars like Donald, Revis, etc. along with 4/5 stars busts which I get but there is a reason why the recruiting rankings work MAJORITY of the time. There will always be a team or two who define the odds like Wisconsin but if you want a sure thing in recruiting we need to make the change. I'm tired of hearing about the high ceiling players who reminds us of this elite 4/5 player because that formula has proven it DOESN'T work. If the Pitt coaches were so smart and it did work, all of the other top school would be doing the same thing but instead they get 4/5 star players like Boyd or Shady. All you need to do is look at Penn State when they went on probation. Recruiting went way downhill & hurt the program. Look at their recruiting rankings the last 3 to 4 years and where they are at today. Many argue Franklin isn't great coach but is a great recruiter however you tie it with their on campus atmosphere & its a home run. Whether you like it or not, atmosphere means everything to elite 4/5 start players because we compete against PSU, UM, ND and OSU for many of the top players. 4/5 star recruits visit Heinz or watch the yellow empty atmosphere on TV. Then they go to those other schools mentioned and we lose almost every time. We need the right size stadium and am fine with 55,000 seats which would be the perfect for Pitt. We don't need 100K fans nor could we ever get them which is a 100% fine. Stop saying we can't do it as that's pure denial of the problem because if you accept the current setup we might as well be in the MAC conference. Heinz Morgue vs those neighboring top school atmospheres is losing situation for us and am not sure why many can't see this because we see the same results year after year regardless of the coach.
I know firing the coach will always make fans happy today however nothing is going to change unless we make the biggest change. I'd argue that we should have never fired Wanny who is pro Pitt as anyone but it doesn't matter. Yes, his coaching was bad at times as well. Plus, we are never getting an elite coach because they know its impossible to recruit in this current setup and nobody plays or is building off campus facilities. Miami wants out of Dolphin Stadium while USF and Temple are VERY close to new stadiums (google and read the articles on pro stadiums). Change is critical in any business and we need Lyke to get this done. H2P!
