Some weeks ago
I posted about college football coaches, and the way they can turn around a floundering program. It's fun when Charlie Weis goes to Notre Dame and immediately takes them back to the top 10, or when Urban Meyer has Florida thinking undefeated after several years of mediocrity. Unfortunately, instant coaching turn arounds work both ways, a fact I was reminded of while watching a bit of TV Friday night, and stumbling onto Pitt @ Rutgers.
Pitt's new coach is Dave Wanndstedt, ex of of the NFL, where
he never won anything. Pitt was coming off of several respectible seasons, and went 8-4 last year, winning the Big East and earning a spot in a BCS Bowl Game (where they were
atomized by undefeated Utah, in Urban Meyer's last game before heading off to Florida). They were greedy though, and didn't renew their old coach's contract since they had their eyes in Wanndstedt, who was a local boy and who they hoped would take their football program to the top.
Well, he's taking them somewhere; they're now 1-4 on the season, their only victory came over a Division 2 school, and when I turned on the game Friday night they were losing to the perennially-dreadful Scarlet Knights of Rutgers by a score of 27-0 at the half. Pitt looked slow, disinterested, and uncoached on both offense and defense, and I thought their QB had perhaps the weakest throwing arm I'd ever seen at a major football school. His lefty passes were going out like shotputs, with no zip and a strange sidearmed sort of throwing motion. I figured he was injured or filling in for an injured starter, but I see by
the final box score that he's their
regular QB (though not a very good one), and that Pitt managed a few touchdowns in the second half and made the score respectible, and that their QB threw the ball 60 times for decent yardage. So I guess he's just always like that, and has found a way to be successful with it. Unlike his coach.
Wanndstedt may yet turn things around this year, or next year, and there's no way they can fire him after just one year, given how much they paid him to come coach there. It usually takes time to recruit players and remake a college team, and what with
Pete Carroll's current dynasty run at USC, every college will be looking to hire an NFL coach for their magic pixie dust of success.
