That picture pretty much sums up the clueless state of Pitt football these days, no?
It's been one train wreck after another in a season that was supposed to culminate in a Big East Championship, BCS appearance, and maybe even a Heisman Trophy winner. It's got me and many others pretty bent out of shape, and when a team annoys me to this level, I have to vent.
So in honor of the complete disarray surrounding this once-proud program in 2011, here are the 11 most embarrassing moments of the Pitt football program during the 2010-11 season. Normally, I would've thought such a negatively-themed list was reserved exclusively for the Pirates on this site, but that should tell you just how bad things have gotten. A recap of the carnage:
11. Jon Baldwin rips the team, then awkwardly backtracks (December '10)
The mercurial talent had a sometimes-interested, sometimes-not season in 2010, uneven if nothing less. He flashed incredible ability at times, and at other times displayed the undesirable personality traits sometimes seen in elite wide receivers. But once all was said and done, JB seemed intent on burning each and every bridge linking him to the Pitt Panthers:
At first, it sounded as if Baldwin was non-committal on his future, but when asked, “Why would you stay [for your senior season] when you have no chemistry with QB Tino Sunseri, a new coach/system taking over next season and possibly hurt your draft stock for the 2012 draft, Baldwin clarified, “Oh, I misunderstood you … Heck yeah I’m leaving. It can only get worse. They had me running a lot of deep routes [this year] and yards were hard to come by. I barely ran intermediate routes; it felt like they were purposely trying to disrupt my draft stock.”
After the comments lit up the internet, Team Baldwin went into damage control mode, with both father and son trying to spin Jon's words into something else:
"Yesterday, I received a text message from a reporter at a time when I was very emotional. Because of everything that happened, I wasn't using the best judgment and am very sorry about the things that were printed. I love my teammates and coaches at Pitt. I have not made a final decision on the NFL Draft. My only focus is on my commitment to my team and preparing to win our bowl game next month." - Jon Baldwin
"He was just misquoted, that's all, he was misquoted. He still has a bowl game to play, he still has a few weeks of practice and he hasn't decided what he is going to do. No decision has been made." -- Jeff Baldwin, father of Jonathan
Dumb comments, dumber backtrack. For a guy who seemed to give up at times during the 2010 season, this seemed like a fitting way to end his Pitt career: disappointing.
10. OL Keith Coleman was charged with aggravated assault, harassment and disorderly conduct after breaking a man's collarbone in Oakland. (September '10)
This was the third installment in the future Time-Life Series, "Best of COPS: Oakland Edition", and lit up message boards, blogs, and talk shows at the time it happened. Never before had Pitt experienced such a rash of discipline problems like this under Wannstedt, and it seemed to be a growing epidemic at the time.
9. Freshman Jeff Knox arrested and charged with simple assault, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct - the fourth arrest of the season for the Panthers (Sept '10)
"Mr. Knox then slapped her in the head, knocking her to the ground. He jumped on her, grapped her by the throat, picked her up by the throat and slammed her head into a wall,
according to the complaint."
Notice the date of this article - Thursday, September 23 - the same day as the Miami game. Nothing like a well-publicized arrest to serve as a distraction before one of the biggest games of the season.
Thankfully, this would be the final time a Panther would get entangled with John Law during the 2010 season. Nonetheless, no one knew at the time that it would be the last incident, and the noose was undoubtedly tightening around the neck of Dave Wannstedt.
8. "Hey, I play for Pitt football. Please, don't arrest me." (September '10)
Another dark moment that will live in Pitt infamy, this time involving Jason Douglas, Dan Mason, and a lot of alcohol. Let's recap:
You want details? Take it away,
PG...
Mr. Douglas was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a vehicle while DUI and being involved in an accident that resulted in personal injury, as well as a misdemeanor charge of driving while under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance and a summary underage drinking charge. Mr. Douglas, 19, is free on $500 bond, pending a preliminary hearing at 8 a.m. Thursday. According to court records, Mr. Douglas, a redshirt freshman from Opa-locka, Fla., was arrested after police were called to the scene of an accident at 1:41 a.m. at East Carson and 22nd streets. The victim, Christopher Paul, suffered head and neck injuries. Police found him lying in the street, and paramedics drove him to UPMC Presbyterian where he was in serious condition Sunday.
Police said he was slow to comply with their orders to exit the vehicle, and when he spoke without prompting, he said, "Hey, I play for Pitt football. Please, don't arrest me," according to the affidavit that supports his arrest.
Teammate Dan Mason got in the car with Douglas, who blew a 0.178 on the breathalyzer. For that act of dumbness alone, Mason was demoted by Wannstedt as his punishment. This was arrest #2 of 4 for the Panthers, and left many shaking their heads in disbelief.
7. Jabaal Sheard throwing a man through a glass door on the South Side (July '10):
The officer said he identified himself as police, ordering the two to stop, but he said Sheard ignored him and continued to beat Parker in the face and body.
Other officers arrived and unsuccessfully tried to break up the fight, police said. One officer used a baton on Sheard, who grabbed Parker and threw him through the glass door of the LaFond Gallery, police said.
As Parker laid on his back bleeding, police said Sheard continued to hit him, which is when they used pepper spray on both men.
The team's first off-field incident of the season, it sounded like an incredibly ugly, violent and public confrontation involving an extremely high-profile player. We should have known that it would serve as the precursor to a nightmarish run by the football program that's continued on months later in varying forms.
6. A nationally-televised humiliation against Miami (September '10):
450 alumni on hand, including Tony Dorsett, Jimbo Covert, Ruben Brown, and Coach Johnny Majors. Sky-high expectations. An ESPN audience. And once again, the Miami Hurricanes completely and utterly dominated the Pitt Panthers, this time by a 31-3 final on the Heinz Field turf.
With the season-opening loss to Utah lingering in the back of everyone's minds, this was a clear sign that Pitt might not be the national player some had expected them to be in 2010. They were outplayed, outcoached, outhustled, and outmanned by a Miami team that would also fire their coach following the season. It was a telling sign of the distressed state of the program, and on the field, for a change.
5. Losing to UConn (November '10):
The Huskies, 4-4 at the time, brazenly went for it on fourth-and-1 on their own 19-yard-line with 2:45 to play - and converted. It was an in-your-face symbol of the makeup of this particular Pitt team in absolutely blowing a chance to go to a BCS game with a win.
The nauseating components of the loss included allowing Jordan Todman a career-high 222 yards rushing; giving up a momentum-destroying touchdown on a kickoff; not one, but two horribly shanked punts from Dan Hutchins; Ray Graham's fumbled kickoff, directly resulting in seven UConn points in the fourth quarter; Tino Sunseri throwing two picks, overthrowing receivers and in general looking like was running a disorganized offense, one that drew a penalty on a fourth-and-1 and had to punt; Jon Baldwin giving an on-again, off-again effort that Randy Moss would be proud of; and of course, the Wannstache and his staff.
4. Losing the Backyard Brawl to West Virginia (November '10)
Another chance for Pitt to win the conference and go to a BCS game, and what happens? A
humiliating 35-10 loss to their rival on home turf. More than any other game, this one probably served as the tipping point to fire Wannstedt.
3. Letting Dave Wannstedt decide whether or not to coach the bowl game
If the powers that be at Pitt wanted to part ways with Wannstedt, they should have written the buyout check and made a clean break. That's what big-time programs do, and the last time I checked, Pitt considered themselves a big-time program, although that's highly debatable at this point.
Instead, their undeniably poor decision to let Wannstedt dictate whether or not he wanted to coach in the BBVA Compass Bowl blew up in their faces and became the latest embarrassment to a team collecting embarrassments like the hoarders you see on TV.
To the surprise of almost no one, Wannstedt passed on the opportunity to coach in a meaningless bowl that no one will watch for a school and an A.D. that just told him he wasn't good enough for them. And by dragging his feet as long as he did, Wannstedt surely did nothing but add more chaos to an already-disorganized situation.Wanny took his share of criticism for the way he handled his exit, but to me, it's simply human nature and it's what a lot of people would've done in the same situation.
2. The firing of Dave Wannstedt
The Wannstache came to Pitt a few years ago and gave fans the hope of taking the program to a level that Walt Harris could not reach. He left it in arguably a worse position than Harris did when he bolted to Stanford, a position that would get even worse after the final regular season game was played .
Wannstedt was likable, he was personable, he had a fantastic relationship with local coaches and with the media. He was many things that Walt Harris was not, but in the end, his teams did not meet expectations, despite talented rosters that produced a number of NFL players. No matter how great his personality was, fans and boosters want wins, and Wannstedt simply did not get enough of them.
That being said, Pitt couldn't have handled the ending of his tenure any worse than they did, with a sham "resignation" forced by Steve Pederson being exposed at a brief press conference with Wannstedt surrounded by many of his players in support of their coach.
The general public isn't as dumb as it looks at times. Steve Pederson assumed that it was, and the only one looking dumb at this point is him.
1. The hiring and firing of Michael Haywood
When reasonable candidates like Al Golden and Dana Holgorsen came and went, Pitt decided to go on the cheap and promote a MAC coach who preached discipline and accountability to the point that winning seemed like a non-factor. Unfortunately, that very person getting arrested and capturing national headlines during the busy New Year's college football news cycle forced the university's hand into a knee-jerk firing, turning Pitt talk into a daily punchline of "Can you top this" (in a bad way).
What will happen next is anyone's guess. Penn State's Tom Bradley has been widely mentioned as Haywood's replacement, but that seems like a short-sighted pick. I'm always wary of the long-long-long-time assistant's ability to slide into the commander's seat (see: Stewart, Bill; Coker, Larry; Guthridge, Bill), and that's exactly what we'd get in Bradley.
Bradley definitely has his selling points, first and foremost in Western PA recruiting, but I don't think he's got a high enough ceiling. Of course, at this point in the game, Pederson and Nordenberg are probably hoping for someone who won't manage to ruin whatever's left of their program and recruiting class, and Bradley would certainly help in those areas. But I can't get into the administration's heads. I don't know what they're looking for in a head coach anymore, and frankly, they might not, either. I do know that they better figure it out soon, though, because things could get a whole lot worse before they get any better.
