The War Room is targeted towards our premium customers. We ask that all information reported in the War Room MUST stay right here! That’s the way this deal works. When this information is repeated outside of the Between Fifth and Forbes forum it only cheapens the price of yours and every other die hard who have purchased premium services. The War Room is one of our more popular features...thank you all for keeping the information on this board.
From the Desk of Jim Snyder
NCAA tightens academic standards
This past week the NCAA decided to introduce rules designed to encourage colleges to graduate student/athletes. Certainly this is a noble goal. The NCAA has often been filled with good intentions but their rules unfortunately often do not create the desired results. We hope they have better luck with this one. The penalties would include loss of scholarships and the school losing eligibility to participate in post season play for failure to graduate players.
Some commissioners are already complaining that athletes who enter into NBA or NFL draft should not be held against them. I certainly have no quarrel with a Larry Fitzgerald entering the draft to become an instant millionaire. He should be set financially for life. I am concerned that some coaches will encourage all poor students to enter the draft. If the NCAA is going to create a loophole the player had better be actually drafted.
I am also concerned that large state schools with very big stadiums will simply funnel athletes into majors like Parks & Recreation or Turf Management. As Beano Cook once said, “I have no idea what the requirements are but something tells me these guys are not reading Shakespeare or taking courses in physics.”
Pitt’s record is spotty. Many Pitt alums can point with pride to the football teams in the early 1960’s that graduated most players and had many go on to get advanced degrees. In the era prior to the arrival of Steve Pederson, however, Pitt not only had fallen on hard times on the football field but they were not graduating many football or basketball players. Steve put into place an academic support system that is now paying off with degrees. All of the seniors on the basketball team have graduated the past two years. In addition Chevon Troutman and Mark McCarroll have both graduated with a year’s eligibility remaining. Football Coach Walt Harris recently announced that 17 of 18 seniors this year would get degrees.
The system Steve put in place could not been accomplished without the support of the administration (Chancellor Nordenberg). It takes money. A few weeks ago the Pantherlair brought you an interview with former Pitt running back Billy West. He once got himself into Johnny Majors’ doghouse for missing practices to attend engineering classes. You must have support personnel that helps get student/athletes into classes so they can also practice.
The Big East Conference is scheduling some football games on Thursday nights for television exposure. The Big East also schedules their basketball tournament from Wednesday through Saturday thereby assuring most basketball players are going to miss a lot of class time. Any school that schedules games to accommodate the television networks also needs a support system in place to help its student/athletes graduate.
We believe that Pitt anticipated the new rules this year. They appear to have been quick to offer good students this year and slower to offer those with question marks on their academic record during the current recruiting season.
A little football recruiting talk please
It is still early in the recruiting process but things are beginning to heat up during the “Evaluation Period”. The Pantherlair will give you our list of the top players in the state of Pennsylvania after the Nike Camp next week and after the Metro Index Camp later this month.
A quick observation is that this year’s class in Pennsylvania is that it is very thin at quarterback and wide receiver and deep in linemen. Seton LaSalle quarterback Bill Stull already has five offers and should get more with the shortage of high quality quarterback prospects this year. Central Catholic’s Shane Murray may also benefit.
Pitt has already offered 11 wide receivers and only Penn Hills David Harvey comes from Pennsylvania. It looks like Pitt will take two wide receivers. They could both be from out of state.
There are no Bill Fralic’s on the horizon but there are a lot of Division 1 offensive line candidates that should help Pitt restock up front. The Panthers already have a commitment from Burrell’s John Brown (6’ 5” 280). It would not surprise us if they also got Elliot Bates (6’ 4” 290) from Chartiers-Houston to commit later this summer. A top target is also Jason Kacinko (6’ 6” 300) from Penn-Trafford who already has four offers.
The addition of new assistant coaches from Northern Illinois (Bill Bliel) and Stanford (Wayne Moses) has Pitt recruiting a little outside the box. Traditionally Pitt does not usually recruit Illinois or California. But they already have offered two wide receivers from California and a tight end from Illinois.
We received an e-mail from California wide receiver DeSean Jackson from Long Beach (5’ 11” 170). He indicated he was in Pittsburgh recently for a wedding when Walt Harris informed him that Pitt was offering a scholarship. He is a Rivals Top 100 player who also got an offer from Michigan this week. We spoke briefly to DeSean this week but he was in the middle of working on a term paper and asked that we call back. We will follow up. This could be a tough one. He will have many schools to chose from.
The Big East versus the television networks
The old football contract between the Big East and ESPN/ABC had a clause, which allowed the network to reopen the deal if the Big East lost teams. The network has exercised that right but has been unable to come to an agreement with the Big East on a new fee structure. ESPN/ABC wants a bigger reduction than the Big East is willing to give them. According to one of our “birdies” they could not reach an agreement and the matter is headed to arbitration.
Correction to earlier reports
A week or so ago we reported that Pitt had offered Penn Hills running back Ken Lewis and lineman James Cole. This was based on an interview with Penn Hills Coach Neil Gordon. We were skeptical, as were others, and checked with one of our “birdies”. Pitt is recruiting both players but has not offered either of them a scholarship at this point.
Quite frankly talking to reporters is painful to Coach Gordon. He would rather have a root canal than sit through an interview. Most coaches throughout the country are very cooperative and look at the process as a chance to help get scholarships for a few of their players but about 5% of them do not. There are three high school head coaches in Western PA that are very protective of their players and are not media friendly. Coach Gordon simply happens to be one of them. In any event we have corrected the database. Pitt is talking to these two prospects but has not offered.
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.
From the Desk of Jim Snyder
NCAA tightens academic standards
This past week the NCAA decided to introduce rules designed to encourage colleges to graduate student/athletes. Certainly this is a noble goal. The NCAA has often been filled with good intentions but their rules unfortunately often do not create the desired results. We hope they have better luck with this one. The penalties would include loss of scholarships and the school losing eligibility to participate in post season play for failure to graduate players.
Some commissioners are already complaining that athletes who enter into NBA or NFL draft should not be held against them. I certainly have no quarrel with a Larry Fitzgerald entering the draft to become an instant millionaire. He should be set financially for life. I am concerned that some coaches will encourage all poor students to enter the draft. If the NCAA is going to create a loophole the player had better be actually drafted.
I am also concerned that large state schools with very big stadiums will simply funnel athletes into majors like Parks & Recreation or Turf Management. As Beano Cook once said, “I have no idea what the requirements are but something tells me these guys are not reading Shakespeare or taking courses in physics.”
Pitt’s record is spotty. Many Pitt alums can point with pride to the football teams in the early 1960’s that graduated most players and had many go on to get advanced degrees. In the era prior to the arrival of Steve Pederson, however, Pitt not only had fallen on hard times on the football field but they were not graduating many football or basketball players. Steve put into place an academic support system that is now paying off with degrees. All of the seniors on the basketball team have graduated the past two years. In addition Chevon Troutman and Mark McCarroll have both graduated with a year’s eligibility remaining. Football Coach Walt Harris recently announced that 17 of 18 seniors this year would get degrees.
The system Steve put in place could not been accomplished without the support of the administration (Chancellor Nordenberg). It takes money. A few weeks ago the Pantherlair brought you an interview with former Pitt running back Billy West. He once got himself into Johnny Majors’ doghouse for missing practices to attend engineering classes. You must have support personnel that helps get student/athletes into classes so they can also practice.
The Big East Conference is scheduling some football games on Thursday nights for television exposure. The Big East also schedules their basketball tournament from Wednesday through Saturday thereby assuring most basketball players are going to miss a lot of class time. Any school that schedules games to accommodate the television networks also needs a support system in place to help its student/athletes graduate.
We believe that Pitt anticipated the new rules this year. They appear to have been quick to offer good students this year and slower to offer those with question marks on their academic record during the current recruiting season.
A little football recruiting talk please
It is still early in the recruiting process but things are beginning to heat up during the “Evaluation Period”. The Pantherlair will give you our list of the top players in the state of Pennsylvania after the Nike Camp next week and after the Metro Index Camp later this month.
A quick observation is that this year’s class in Pennsylvania is that it is very thin at quarterback and wide receiver and deep in linemen. Seton LaSalle quarterback Bill Stull already has five offers and should get more with the shortage of high quality quarterback prospects this year. Central Catholic’s Shane Murray may also benefit.
Pitt has already offered 11 wide receivers and only Penn Hills David Harvey comes from Pennsylvania. It looks like Pitt will take two wide receivers. They could both be from out of state.
There are no Bill Fralic’s on the horizon but there are a lot of Division 1 offensive line candidates that should help Pitt restock up front. The Panthers already have a commitment from Burrell’s John Brown (6’ 5” 280). It would not surprise us if they also got Elliot Bates (6’ 4” 290) from Chartiers-Houston to commit later this summer. A top target is also Jason Kacinko (6’ 6” 300) from Penn-Trafford who already has four offers.
The addition of new assistant coaches from Northern Illinois (Bill Bliel) and Stanford (Wayne Moses) has Pitt recruiting a little outside the box. Traditionally Pitt does not usually recruit Illinois or California. But they already have offered two wide receivers from California and a tight end from Illinois.
We received an e-mail from California wide receiver DeSean Jackson from Long Beach (5’ 11” 170). He indicated he was in Pittsburgh recently for a wedding when Walt Harris informed him that Pitt was offering a scholarship. He is a Rivals Top 100 player who also got an offer from Michigan this week. We spoke briefly to DeSean this week but he was in the middle of working on a term paper and asked that we call back. We will follow up. This could be a tough one. He will have many schools to chose from.
The Big East versus the television networks
The old football contract between the Big East and ESPN/ABC had a clause, which allowed the network to reopen the deal if the Big East lost teams. The network has exercised that right but has been unable to come to an agreement with the Big East on a new fee structure. ESPN/ABC wants a bigger reduction than the Big East is willing to give them. According to one of our “birdies” they could not reach an agreement and the matter is headed to arbitration.
Correction to earlier reports
A week or so ago we reported that Pitt had offered Penn Hills running back Ken Lewis and lineman James Cole. This was based on an interview with Penn Hills Coach Neil Gordon. We were skeptical, as were others, and checked with one of our “birdies”. Pitt is recruiting both players but has not offered either of them a scholarship at this point.
Quite frankly talking to reporters is painful to Coach Gordon. He would rather have a root canal than sit through an interview. Most coaches throughout the country are very cooperative and look at the process as a chance to help get scholarships for a few of their players but about 5% of them do not. There are three high school head coaches in Western PA that are very protective of their players and are not media friendly. Coach Gordon simply happens to be one of them. In any event we have corrected the database. Pitt is talking to these two prospects but has not offered.
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.
