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From the Desk of Jim Snyder
How many were at those camps
This past week Paul Zeise had an article, which caused a bit of a flap. Quite frankly I thought it was a rather benign article but others read more into it. In the article Paul Zeise quotes Walt as saying Ohio State gets 2,000 players at their camp. Keeping in mind that the Buckeyes are only a couple of years away from winning the national championship. This year there were 3,800 campers in Columbus.
Many of these were 9th and 10th graders. The vast majority are not Division I prospects. Ohio State has a few days set aside for a Senior Advanced group. There are about 275 in this group. They are there by invitation. Scholarships may be offered to about 20 or so in this group.
Now that the Nike Camp, the Metro Index Camp, the North East Camp at West Allegheny and the Pitt summer camps are behind them it appears about 16-18 players got offers from Pitt from these camps. It looks like Pitt has now offered 75-80 players.
It had been reported elsewhere that Pitt got a little bit of a slow break this year in recruiting because of the turnover of the Pitt staff. Coach Harris not only had to hire new coaches but they physically had to move their families to Pittsburgh. I interviewed a few high school coaches outside of the immediate Pittsburgh area that commented on it but their players are now seriously considering Pitt so they appear to have recovered for the most part.
A little football recruiting
Pitt now has verbal commitments from five players. Three of them bring more speed into the program. LaRod Stephens, Dominic Jones and Bryan Williams all bring speed in the 4.4 to 4.5 range. They can run and they are very good athletes.
John Brown and Marlon Terry both played tight end in his school last year. John Brown should end up on the offensive line while Marlon should be a defensive lineman before it is all over.
We have tried to make the point that Pitt has a very tough time going against the Buckeyes for players in the state of Ohio. However, they can go against many of the other Big Ten schools. Dominic Jones and Bryan Williams both had Big Ten offers and chose Pitt.
We have received video on Bryan Williams and Marlon Terry. Rivals is a little backed up in the editing room this summer so it might take a couple of weeks but we will have video for you on the two latest commitments.
Pitt has only 9 seniors in their last year of eligibility. The number of scholarships granted this year will be down over prior years. Until Pitt breaks fall camp even the staff would have trouble pinning down a hard number but it figures to be in the 15-16 range. It is also possible they might try and “gray-shirt” a lineman or two before it is over.
We still think it is unlikely that a quarterback will be taken unless fall camp tells them it would be prudent to grab one. It is a down year for quarterbacks in the state and Pitt has four young ones in the system. They have offered “jumbo athlete” Greg Boone. If they land him I am sure they would give him a legitimate shot at quarterback but he could end up playing any number of positions.
We also think Pitt is now probably out of the business of recruiting defensive backs this year. They figure to take one more running back with Irvan Brown the leading candidate although they are certainly recruiting others. They will probably take one tight end (it could be John Pelusi) although again they are looking at others. They also will probably take one linebacker and two wide receivers. The balance of the scholarships available to them figure to go to linemen (either offense or defense).
Coach Dixon has a motto –“You never stop recruiting”. There are players Pitt will continue to recruit (but have not offered) in case someone leaves fall camp believing that IUP is a better option for playing time.
The perfect number is nine
As indicated in an earlier War Room the Big East football schools have a legal commitment to stay with the basketball schools through 2010. Perhaps more importantly they probably also have a moral obligation.
Should the football schools decide to leave in 2010 the perfect number is nine (9) not 10, 11 or 12. When putting together a football schedule it allows you to play 4 conference games at home and 4 away. The Big East has struggled with scheduling for many years with trying to schedule around playing only 3 conference games at home every other year. It means that schools like East Tennessee State, Villanova and Furman work your way on to the schedule not just at Pitt but also at the other conference schools. It is getting tougher and tougher to schedule MAC schools. Many are demanding two for one scheduling. As Maryland and Pitt found out last year that is risky business.
It also allows you to play a balanced schedule in basketball. Most schools like to play 16 conference games. You have 8 at home and 8 away. If you are in an all-sports conference nine (9) is the perfect number.
If you have more than nine (9) you must enter into an arrangement that generates enough cash to pay the additional schools. Given the location and fan base of most of the Big East Conference I am very skeptical that three teams more will generate enough cash from TV or conference championship games to feed additional Big East schools.
The service academies appear to be in the process of playing softer schedules. They just were not competitive on a big time basis. Army could not win a game in Conference USA and will leave after this year. They were getting their brains beat in on a regular basis in Conference USA. Navy has scheduled Duke, Vanderbilt and Rice this year. The also are playing two division 1AA schools (Northeastern and Delaware). These schools would love schedules that give them 6-4 record headed into their annual Army - Navy game. In short they are trying to schedule a few wins.
There are two possible exceptions to the rule of nine (9). Get Notre Dame. There is no evidence that Notre Dame wants to join the Big East in football but if they did that might encourage one or two other revenue generators into the mix. This looks like a long shot option at this point. Notre Dame could join the Big East and make the 9th school. You would only go above this if for some reason Notre Dame insisted or you could bring in other revenue generators.
There is a second more sinister possibility. It appears the BCS conferences are trying to resolve the access issue with non-BCS conferences. They may well fear the anti-trust implications that swirl around them. For argument sake let’s assume Notre Dame goes into the Big 10 and the PAC 10 takes in UNLV and Brigham Young. I could see a scenario where they might say if you want to remain a BCS status you must expand to 12 schools. This would bring more schools under their umbrella. The Big East schools would be forced to share their money. This would allow schools in the SEC, ACC and Big 12 to keep more. They simply pay more than schools out of the Big East share.
The perfect number is nine (9).
Some new features
Last fall Rivals released their “Show me” function on the message boards. Apparently there were flaws so that it could not be used with all versions of Windows. It is back. Hopefully it has been corrected. I love this feature. Try it. Hopefully it will make it easier to navigate the message boards.
Rivals also has in “beta testing” a new search feature which will be available to our Ultimate Ticket subscribers shortly. It will allow you to search the Rivals network in a manner similar to the Google search engine.
As a reminder the Locker Room is open again and is available for “Off Topic” subjects. Hopefully it will give Pittsburgh sports fans a place to gather for topics other than college football and basketball.
Note to Pantherlair.com Fans: The staff at Pantherlair.com works diligently to bring you the best information on University of Pittsburgh football and basketball recruiting (in addition to game coverage). Thousands of Panther fans visit our site on a daily basis. We have received a tremendous amount of e-mail thanking us for our efforts. If you like our site, please feel free to tell other fans about it. “Spread the word” and let’s add to our online family of Panther fans.
This post was edited on 7/2 5:41 AM
This post was edited by Jim Pantherlair on 7/2 3:23 PM
From the Desk of Jim Snyder
How many were at those camps
This past week Paul Zeise had an article, which caused a bit of a flap. Quite frankly I thought it was a rather benign article but others read more into it. In the article Paul Zeise quotes Walt as saying Ohio State gets 2,000 players at their camp. Keeping in mind that the Buckeyes are only a couple of years away from winning the national championship. This year there were 3,800 campers in Columbus.
Many of these were 9th and 10th graders. The vast majority are not Division I prospects. Ohio State has a few days set aside for a Senior Advanced group. There are about 275 in this group. They are there by invitation. Scholarships may be offered to about 20 or so in this group.
Now that the Nike Camp, the Metro Index Camp, the North East Camp at West Allegheny and the Pitt summer camps are behind them it appears about 16-18 players got offers from Pitt from these camps. It looks like Pitt has now offered 75-80 players.
It had been reported elsewhere that Pitt got a little bit of a slow break this year in recruiting because of the turnover of the Pitt staff. Coach Harris not only had to hire new coaches but they physically had to move their families to Pittsburgh. I interviewed a few high school coaches outside of the immediate Pittsburgh area that commented on it but their players are now seriously considering Pitt so they appear to have recovered for the most part.
A little football recruiting
Pitt now has verbal commitments from five players. Three of them bring more speed into the program. LaRod Stephens, Dominic Jones and Bryan Williams all bring speed in the 4.4 to 4.5 range. They can run and they are very good athletes.
John Brown and Marlon Terry both played tight end in his school last year. John Brown should end up on the offensive line while Marlon should be a defensive lineman before it is all over.
We have tried to make the point that Pitt has a very tough time going against the Buckeyes for players in the state of Ohio. However, they can go against many of the other Big Ten schools. Dominic Jones and Bryan Williams both had Big Ten offers and chose Pitt.
We have received video on Bryan Williams and Marlon Terry. Rivals is a little backed up in the editing room this summer so it might take a couple of weeks but we will have video for you on the two latest commitments.
Pitt has only 9 seniors in their last year of eligibility. The number of scholarships granted this year will be down over prior years. Until Pitt breaks fall camp even the staff would have trouble pinning down a hard number but it figures to be in the 15-16 range. It is also possible they might try and “gray-shirt” a lineman or two before it is over.
We still think it is unlikely that a quarterback will be taken unless fall camp tells them it would be prudent to grab one. It is a down year for quarterbacks in the state and Pitt has four young ones in the system. They have offered “jumbo athlete” Greg Boone. If they land him I am sure they would give him a legitimate shot at quarterback but he could end up playing any number of positions.
We also think Pitt is now probably out of the business of recruiting defensive backs this year. They figure to take one more running back with Irvan Brown the leading candidate although they are certainly recruiting others. They will probably take one tight end (it could be John Pelusi) although again they are looking at others. They also will probably take one linebacker and two wide receivers. The balance of the scholarships available to them figure to go to linemen (either offense or defense).
Coach Dixon has a motto –“You never stop recruiting”. There are players Pitt will continue to recruit (but have not offered) in case someone leaves fall camp believing that IUP is a better option for playing time.
The perfect number is nine
As indicated in an earlier War Room the Big East football schools have a legal commitment to stay with the basketball schools through 2010. Perhaps more importantly they probably also have a moral obligation.
Should the football schools decide to leave in 2010 the perfect number is nine (9) not 10, 11 or 12. When putting together a football schedule it allows you to play 4 conference games at home and 4 away. The Big East has struggled with scheduling for many years with trying to schedule around playing only 3 conference games at home every other year. It means that schools like East Tennessee State, Villanova and Furman work your way on to the schedule not just at Pitt but also at the other conference schools. It is getting tougher and tougher to schedule MAC schools. Many are demanding two for one scheduling. As Maryland and Pitt found out last year that is risky business.
It also allows you to play a balanced schedule in basketball. Most schools like to play 16 conference games. You have 8 at home and 8 away. If you are in an all-sports conference nine (9) is the perfect number.
If you have more than nine (9) you must enter into an arrangement that generates enough cash to pay the additional schools. Given the location and fan base of most of the Big East Conference I am very skeptical that three teams more will generate enough cash from TV or conference championship games to feed additional Big East schools.
The service academies appear to be in the process of playing softer schedules. They just were not competitive on a big time basis. Army could not win a game in Conference USA and will leave after this year. They were getting their brains beat in on a regular basis in Conference USA. Navy has scheduled Duke, Vanderbilt and Rice this year. The also are playing two division 1AA schools (Northeastern and Delaware). These schools would love schedules that give them 6-4 record headed into their annual Army - Navy game. In short they are trying to schedule a few wins.
There are two possible exceptions to the rule of nine (9). Get Notre Dame. There is no evidence that Notre Dame wants to join the Big East in football but if they did that might encourage one or two other revenue generators into the mix. This looks like a long shot option at this point. Notre Dame could join the Big East and make the 9th school. You would only go above this if for some reason Notre Dame insisted or you could bring in other revenue generators.
There is a second more sinister possibility. It appears the BCS conferences are trying to resolve the access issue with non-BCS conferences. They may well fear the anti-trust implications that swirl around them. For argument sake let’s assume Notre Dame goes into the Big 10 and the PAC 10 takes in UNLV and Brigham Young. I could see a scenario where they might say if you want to remain a BCS status you must expand to 12 schools. This would bring more schools under their umbrella. The Big East schools would be forced to share their money. This would allow schools in the SEC, ACC and Big 12 to keep more. They simply pay more than schools out of the Big East share.
The perfect number is nine (9).
Some new features
Last fall Rivals released their “Show me” function on the message boards. Apparently there were flaws so that it could not be used with all versions of Windows. It is back. Hopefully it has been corrected. I love this feature. Try it. Hopefully it will make it easier to navigate the message boards.
Rivals also has in “beta testing” a new search feature which will be available to our Ultimate Ticket subscribers shortly. It will allow you to search the Rivals network in a manner similar to the Google search engine.
As a reminder the Locker Room is open again and is available for “Off Topic” subjects. Hopefully it will give Pittsburgh sports fans a place to gather for topics other than college football and basketball.
Note to Pantherlair.com Fans: The staff at Pantherlair.com works diligently to bring you the best information on University of Pittsburgh football and basketball recruiting (in addition to game coverage). Thousands of Panther fans visit our site on a daily basis. We have received a tremendous amount of e-mail thanking us for our efforts. If you like our site, please feel free to tell other fans about it. “Spread the word” and let’s add to our online family of Panther fans.
This post was edited on 7/2 5:41 AM
This post was edited by Jim Pantherlair on 7/2 3:23 PM
