Panthers experience many 'downs,' few 'ups' 
by Jacob Oberdorf, Staff Writer
January 20, 2011
I feel I have been a little unfair to all you Pitt football fans by not writing a single column about the team over the college football season. Even a diehard Penn State fan such as I could find something to write about the Pitt football program in the last year.
First, there is the fact that Pitt was picked as a heavy favorite to win the Big East Conference and make a trip to a BCS Bowl Game . . . but the team choked and lost games to teams that shouldn’t have even been close to Pitt’s caliber. Then there is the fact that the Panthers were embarrassed at home by Miami (Florida) in front of some of the greatest Pitt Football players ever as the school was honoring the 1979 National Championship team. And how could I forget mention the “backyard brawl” when Pitt failed to even show up in a 35-10 spanking at the hands of the West Virginia Mountaineers.
Now even though Penn State also experienced an off-year, it was still a treat for me to be able to walk into school every day and see those miserable faces on all of my friends who are Pitt fans. This joy, however, grew even greater in the past month when Pitt hired a rather unknown football coach, Mike Haywood, from the University of Miami (Ohio). Haywood led the Redhawks to a MAC championship after winning only one game the previous year.
Because of this track record, a lot of Pitt fans already doubted the move made by Steve Pederson, the Pitt athletic director. Pederson is in his second term as Pitt athletic director after leaving the University of Nebraska, where he held the same position. Pederson ironically had the same problem while at Nebraska in making a controversial hire for its football program.
After the Haywood hiring, the situation worsened for both Pitt football and Pederson when Pederson’s newly hired football coach was arrested and charged with domestic violence towards the mother of his young child. After hearing the news, Pitt officials took control of the case and fired Haywood just two weeks after they hired him.
This fiasco made Steve Pederson and the Pitt football program the laughing stock of Division I football. Many Pitt football alumni were quoted as being embarrassed for the actions the university had taken in not doing a firm background check on Haywood. As a result of the hiring and firing, the Panthers have lost many top recruits for the 2011 season. Additionally, many key players from last season have left school early to enter the 2011 NFL draft.
Pitt then tried to fix this coaching hole by interviewing long time Penn State Defensive Coordinator Tom Bradley. However, Pitt was slow to schedule this interview and Bradley is now expected to accept the head coaching job at the University of Connecticut (UCONN), which won the Big East Conference this season and will be a competitor for the championship next season.
For now, however, Pitt has finally found its head football coach in former University of Tulsa coach Todd Graham. Graham is another relatively unknown coach, even though he led his Tulsa Hurricanes to a win in South Bend over Notre Dame. Coaching at Pitt will be a big transition for Graham considering he is going to a big-time program from the smallest Division I school in the country.
But for now, in my opinion, it can’t get any worse for you Pitt football fans…I hope.
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