The Panther-Lair.com 3-2-1 Column: Hurley, folk heroes and more

It’s time to drop the “Pitt is cheap” narrative
If you spend enough time around Pitt fans or on Pitt message boards or, God save your soul, reading Twitter, you run into a lot of Pitt narratives, Some of them are true. Many of them are tired. And a fair number simply need to be put down.

One that has pretty much all three bases covered is the notion that Pitt is cheap.

Granted, there are plenty of examples in fairly recent history of Pitt making significant decisions with an eye on the bottom line. And if there is any single theme that is a representation of the “same old Pitt” mantra - at least in terms of off-field activities - it’s the idea that Pitt is cheap. Because when we’re talking about off-field stuff, the heart of that line, “same old Pitt,” is that the University isn’t committed to winning.

They have a chance to do something big, but they go at it with a half-hearted effort because they’re Pitt and that’s what they do. That’s how the thinking goes, and when fans look back on recent ill-fated decisions, they can often tie it to a lack of commitment from the University as a whole and the Athletic Department on a more acute level.

Like I said, some of these narratives are tired but some are also true, and the “Pitt is cheap” motif is one that has some basis in reality. But it also fits into the third category: it needs to be put down, Because I think there’s now ample evidence that the University and the Athletic Department do have a fair level of commitment.

This isn’t to say that Mark Nordenberg wasn’t committed to athletics; I think he was more committed than many will give him credit for. But I also believe there was a shift in emphasis when Nordenberg retired and Patrick Gallagher took over as Chancellor.

I think you see it in the hiring of Pat Narduzzi. I think you see it in the various resources that have been put into the football program. I think you saw it in the seven-year extension Pitt gave Narduzzi last fall.

(Sure, they hired Kevin Stallings in the midst of this time period I’m talking about, but I think that situation was driven by forces beyond finances; I don’t think that was a “cheap hire,” at least not by intention.)

And I think this week you’ve seen it in the search for a new basketball coach. Matt Steinbrink has been reporting on the Center Court at the Pete board for the better part of a week that Pitt was willing to go into the neighborhood of $3 million per year for the new coach, a substantial amount that would put the Panthers into the upper echelon in college basketball, along with $1 million or so for the staff of assistants.

On top of that, they’re potentially on the hook - but apparently willing - to pay Stallings a lot of money to go away.

That’s a serious commitment. It’s the kind of thing “big schools” do when one of the most visible athletic programs is in a critical situation. And while it may not ultimately work out - Pitt’s big offer to Dan Hurley got turned down for less money at UConn - the willingness to make that offer, on top of Stallings’ buyout, is a big show of commitment.

Now, just throwing money at a problem isn’t enough; the great administrators in college sports or any business are able to do great things with the resources they have available. Heather Lyke will be judged on the decisions she makes and the way she conducts this process; that much will be on her. But it’s at least a little comforting to know that she’s got the support to make a competitive offer to the candidate she deems fit.

George Aston should be a local folk hero
A few years ago, word got out that Pitt was bringing in a walk-on linebacker from Virginia, and what followed was rather entertaining.

The walk-on linebacker had a pretty impressive highlight film; there’s no question about that. There were big hits and strong runs and all the things you would want to see - and expect to see - on any collection of highlights. But the reception among Pitt fans was where the phenomena really started to grow, because the fans couldn’t get enough of George Aston’s film.

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Superlatives flew around like crazy and hype grew exponentially. It reached comic proportions and eventually became a meme on the message boards. The jokes weren’t about George Aston; they were about the hype of George Aston, about the overinflated expectations being placed on a walk-on linebacker who probably wouldn’t see the field.

Or so we thought.

Fast forward to this spring, and everyone knows what has come of that story. Aston was a key weapon in Pitt’s explosive 2016 offense with 10 touchdowns, the same amount as receivers/NFL Draft prospects Jester Weah and Quadree Henderson. He was versatile, too, with five rushing touchdowns and five receiving scores; only eight players in the nation had at least five of each in 2016 and only one hit that mark last year.

And Aston was a tough blocker, having a big hand in James Conner’s 1,092-yard, 16-touchdown triumphant return campaign.

Aston blocked, scored touchdowns and generally played “tough guy football.” He went to work with little fanfare, personifying every cliché we’re told we like very much in this part of the country. So with all of that in play, it’s a bit of a surprise that he’s not more of a local folk hero than he is. And I mean a legitimate fan favorite beyond message board memes and the Pitt diehards who appreciate what he does.

Aston should resonate in the city of Pittsburgh. The general Pittsburgh sports fan, the one who keeps an eye on all local sports but doesn’t necessarily immerse himself or herself in the minutiae of every team, should know who George Aston is. Because George Aston is, for all intents and purposes, what we’re told Pittsburgh is.

If following sports has taught me anything, it’s that Pittsburgh is defined by a few key characteristics. We are blue-collar, for instance. We carry lunch pails, too. Never mind the emphasis on tech and health care sectors, nor the proliferation of food trucks; this is who we are. This is the archetype. And whether it’s true or not, this is who we root for on our sports teams.

We don’t care much for the whiners or the showboats (unless they score a lot of touchdowns - we’re talking NFL-record touchdowns, or something close to it). We prefer the guys who put their heads down and go to work. Sure, maybe some of those clichés are based on an outdated notion of what Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania really are, but there’s still some truth underneath it.

After all, who among us hasn’t listened to local sports talk radio in the last 10 years and heard a Pittsburgh sports fan claim that what the Steelers really need is to start using a fullback again?

And that’s the other thing: this town loves a fullback. It makes sense, because if you love “tough guy/blue collar/lunch pail football,” there is no position that fits better than fullback, right? This is the place where, as you might recall, a guy like Dan Kreider took on legendary status for role in his eight seasons with the Steelers.

Aston seems to have everything Pittsburgh sports fans want in their athletes. To some extent, he’s almost a Pittsburgh sports fans’ ideal athlete, built in a lab - no, a steel mill; it’s got to be a steel mill - with particular attention paid to toughness, not talking too much and getting into the end zone with regularity - but without silly dances.

George Aston is Western Pennsylvania Football, and while so many of the qualities that are ascribed to this region don’t have a basis in reality anymore, I do think it’s true that we still want to see those qualities in our athletes.

If Pittsburgh sports fans would look, they’d see exactly what they’re looking for in George Aston. Maybe it’s a reflection on Pitt’s place in the city that he’s not better known. But I think that if those general fans would pay a little closer attention, they’d see a player they really like.

And then they’d understand all the message board memes.

Tradition could be a good thing for Pitt
It was interesting to talk with Carson Long this week. His name used to be a fixture in the Pitt record books before Conor Lee and then Chris Blewitt kicked him out (sorry for the pun).

But Long wasn’t in the South Side on Tuesday to talk about his PAT record or being No. 4 on Pitt’s all-time scoring list. He was there with a group of fellow former Panthers from the 1970’s to talk about someone who was at Pitt long before they were:

Dr. John B. “Jock” Sutherland, who coached the Panthers to 111 wins from 1924-38 with a .818 win percentage that ranks behind only Jackie Sherrill (Sherrill had an .842 win pct. with 50 wins over five seasons).

Sutherland is truly one of the all-time greats, not just at Pitt but in college football. He won five national championships as a coach plus two as a player and was respected by everyone from Knute Rockne to Vince Lombardi. He was a titan of the game, a legend of the sport and one of the men responsible for creating the legacy of Pitt football.

As one former player said Tuesday: “We wouldn’t be here if not for Dr. Sutherland. We had some hard times at Pitt; we’ve been up and down. And the downtimes, I think we’ve been able to have a resurgence because we had a tradition, and that tradition was built by Jock Sutherland.”

Tradition is an interesting thing. For some schools, it can be a powerful tool, a unifying factor that gives the fans a common origin point: no matter when a Notre Dame fan was born or when he or she went to college, they all have the same history. Their fandom all runs down the line from Rockne to Leahy to Parseghian.

The history matters. The tradition matters. It creates a DNA in the fans, in the coaches and in the players. And from those ties comes a strength that, as the former Pitt player said, can lift up the program when it is down.

Maybe somewhere along the line, Pitt had that kind of tradition, those strengthening ties that ran from Pop Warner through Jock Sutherland and into the 1970’s when the resurgence happened with John Majors and Jackie Sherrill.

But it’s been lost. There doesn’t seem to be much strength from Pitt’s tradition and history these days beyond the occasional hype video with some eye-opening Tony Dorsett runs or a pad-popping Ironhead Heyward clip. Perhaps the football program could do well to work on establishing a bolder link to its history. Old videos of the Dream Backfield aren’t going to inspire a four-star recruit from Detroit to pick Pitt, but if you start building that legacy back up, if you start insisting that this program really was dominant and it can be again, then maybe you can start putting some cache behind the name.

Obviously on-field success right now is what needs to happen most, but a greater emphasis on the players who wore Pitt uniforms in the past might help create greater pride in the players who wear them now.

Pride can come from a lot of places, and not many of them can be manufactured. But drawing on that history, that legacy of men like Sutherland might help generate some extra pride - and possibly some extra motivation toward making Pitt what it once was and potentially can be again.

Creating a respect for the past can manifest a respect for the present, and from that respect, pride can grow. Carson Long and his friends want to restore Sutherland’s gravesite in the Homewood Cemetery. Once that’s done, they would like to see Pitt make an annual trip to the site for a ceremony, something to inspire the players and remind them of what they can be. That seems like a good idea to me.

TWO QUESTIONS

Did Pitt get used by Dan Hurley? And was Pitt right to turn away from Sean Miller?
Double hoops question this week, because by the end of the week, these were the two big questions. After seeing Dan Hurley emerge as Pitt’s top target only to pick Connecticut just one day after Sean Miller announced that he wasn’t a candidate for the Pitt job.

On the Hurley question, the answer to whether or not he used Pitt to get more money from UConn is…probably, yeah. It’s unfortunate, but that seems to be the case, and in the last 24 hours it’s looking more and more like Pitt might have been a third option for Hurley behind going to UConn and staying at Rhode Island.

Why he felt that way, I couldn’t say. I can, however, see the appeal of those two options, though. UConn is willing to sell out for basketball; they’ve shown that in the past. And while the matter of conference affiliation has often been included in the question of “Which is a better job?”, I think that the separation between “Power Five” and “mid-major” conferences is far less severe in hoops than it is in football.

Sure, Pitt is in the ACC and UConn is in the AAC, but that’s probably not a deal-breaker for a lot of coaching candidates, particularly if the AAC school in question is UConn (if it were USF or Cincinnati, the situation might be different). But whereas in football, a school virtually needs to be in a Power Five conference to have a chance at a national championship, basketball is far more inclusive.

Is the ACC a better conference? Yes. Can you win a national championship at UConn in the AAC? Yes.

It might be a little tougher to get there at Rhode Island, but it’s not altogether impossible. It’s a place where Hurley can make the NCAA Tournament on a regular basis; plus, he’s comfortable and has been for quite some time. If they could pony up the cash - which was probably one of Pitt’s strongest selling points - then I could see that being an attractive option for him.

So when Rhode Island got knocked out of the NCAA Tournament last weekend and Hurley entered the offseason coaching carousel, he had strong interest from Pitt - and it looks like that interest turned into a negotiating tool, as Pitt’s highly-competitive offer became a bar for UConn and Rhode Island to strive for.

And even when UConn’s final contract proposal came in under Pitt’s, it was good enough to seal the deal.

On the Miller question - “Was Pitt right to turn away from Sean Miller?” - I don’t have a clear answer. It’s really a matter of personal opinion, and your opinion on the question is driven in large part by how much risk you’re willing to assume and how much negative publicity you’re willing to stomach.

I do think that Pitt hiring Sean Miller would bring with it negative publicity, both locally and nationally. Miller has proven that he’s a good coach, and he would be a great hire from that perspective. But the stink of the FBI investigation, regardless of whether or not it ultimately stretches to him directly, is pretty strong. Pitt would take criticism for hiring him, for, as critics would say, prioritizing winning over playing by the rules, for dipping into the murky end of college athletics in an overzealous effort to get the basketball program back on track.

That’s what critics would say. And they would say it loud. And to be quite honest, there wouldn’t be much Pitt could say in response other than, “Well, we feel confident nothing will come of it.” From there, they would just have to eat you-know-what and wait for the whole thing to (hopefully) blow over.

The bigger question, though, is how much risk Pitt would be willing to assume. Even with significant contractual clauses providing ways to get out of the situation without much financial commitment, there would still be the threat of potential NCAA action or, in the worst-case scenario, involvement with the FBI.

Those are big “if’s” and maybe none of them come to fruition, but that isn’t the question Pitt would need to ask itself. Pitt would need to ask itself the other hypothetical: “Are we prepared to handle the fallout if one of those big ‘if’s’ do come to fruition?”

At this point, it looks like Pitt decided that it didn’t want to take on that risk.

Can the defensive line be a strength?
Back to football.

I think I wrote a similar question last week about the linebackers, asking if they can be a strength of the defense for the first time in…10 years? Maybe more?

That’s an important question for the success of the defense this season, but probably the biggest question mark for the defense and, by extension, the team, is up front:

Can this defensive line make a positive impact? Because quite frankly, that didn’t happen last season. You probably already know the numbers right now, but if not, here you go - the entire defensive line in 2017 combined for 23.5 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks.

For comparison, in 2016, Ejuan Price had 23 tackles for loss and 13 sacks. That’s one player against more than 10. Price was exceptional, but that’s a pretty miserable level of production for an entire defensive line. And while stats aren’t everything, in a 4-3 defense like the one Pitt runs, the numbers are pretty important for the guys playing up front.

The defensive ends were of particular disappointment (depending on your expectations), as five players - Rashad Weaver, Dewayne Hendrix, James Folston, Allen Edwards and Patrick Jones - combined for 15 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks. Five players in the ACC had at least 7.5 sacks last season.

That’s five individual players who matched or exceeded the collective output of Pitt’s defensive ends.

Okay, enough piling on with the numbers (although we could probably do that all day - by my count, 47 players in the nation had at least 7.5 sacks). Let’s get to the bigger question: Can the defensive line do better in 2018?

That’s really the key discussion, and it will likely be the key element in this defense taking the next step from 2017’s late-season surge into a consistent start-to-finish impactful performance. The linebackers are coming together. The secondary seems to have a very strong group of athletes. But those seven positions will all be considerably more stressed if the front doesn’t improve.

Obviously, as we sit here in March, you and I don’t know the answer of whether or not the line will get better. But we can still look at what Pitt has.

For starters, Hendrix and Weaver have to be really good. Those are the key guys, and even if Folston starts over Weaver, the highest upside is with Hendrix and Weaver. Those three plus Jones will play a lot in a rotation, but Hendrix needs to finish his career on a high note and Weaver needs to turn his promising redshirt freshman season into a productive redshirt sophomore campaign.

Inside, there are a few reasons for optimism. Shane Roy is a leader for the tackles, but last year he was out-produced by Amir Watts (5 TFL, 1 sack), who worked as a backup. Roy, Watts, Keyshon Camp and redshirt freshman Jaylen Twyman will be the rotation, and here again, there is upside in that group.

If - and this is a big “if” - if a decent percentage of those players take a big step forward from where they were in 2017, then there’s a real chance they can make a positive impact on 2018. And if - another “if” - if that happens, this defense has a chance to be really good.

ONE PREDICTION

Quintin Wirginis will have the most impact of any player who didn’t play in 2017
So, if we’re talking about guys who didn’t play last year but are expected to contribute this season, we’re obviously focused on a small group of players.

There are injured players like Tre Tipton and George Aston; they’ll have an impact as they return from sitting out. Or redshirt freshmen like Jaylen Twyman or Jerry Drake or Paris Ford; at the very least, they’ll be two-deep players and possibly more. And, of course, there are the guys who weren’t even here last year, like Chase Brown and Stefano Millin.

But of all the players who weren’t on the field for Pitt in 2017 but will be this year, the odds-on favorite from where I’m sitting for the biggest impact is Quintin Wirginis.

A redshirt senior who was supposed to be the starting middle linebacker last year season before a suspension took his first three games and an injury took the final nine, Wirginis is healthy and active on the field this spring and the coaches can’t say enough good things about the impact he’s already making.

Pat Narduzzi and Rob Harley have both talked about how Wirginis is doing a good job getting the defense called properly - with Narduzzi saying that it’s better than it was last year in that regard (I’m sure that’s not a direct shot at Saleem Brightwell, but he definitely set up a comparison point). But while that’s important, I also think Wirginis can make an impact after the snap, too.

Last season, Brightwell started all 12 games at middle linebacker and finished second on the team in tackles with 73. He also had five tackles for loss, one sack, one interception and one forced fumble.

I would be willing to wager that Wirginis, provided he stays healthy all season, will surpass almost all of those stats in 2018. At the very least, I expect him to have more tackles, more tackles for loss and more sacks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up forcing more fumbles.

Wirginis is a good player who will make the defense better both pre- and post-snap. I said earlier in this column that the defensive line was the key to the defense, and I think that’s true: as a position group, there’s probably none more important than the line. But as far as individual players, Wirginis is right near the top.

And I think he’ll live up to it this fall.