Dave Wannstedt's Love for Pitt a Smokescreen for Bad Coaching

How can a coach who regularly underprepares for games, underteaches basic skills and underachieves be viewed by university officials and the mainstream media as a guy who loves Pitt?

In what parallel universe does talk mean everything and action mean nothing?

And why does the coach at Pitt have to be an “ambassador” for the university, when it is so obvious to fans that he is challenged to do just the coaching task well?

Pitt does not need its head football coach to be a school ambassador. The chancellor should have discretionary funds to pay a staff member to do that.

Dr. Robert E. Witt, University of Alabama president , seems to be perfectly content with Nick Saban focusing 100% of his effort on football; TCU president Dr. Victor J. Boschini, Jr likes the way Gary Patterson, head football coach, concentrates on winning.

I’m sure coaches Saban and Peterson promote their universities’ academics and use every positive they can find to help them recruit. They wear their school colors proudly.

If Wannstedt’s job requirement to help attract the best and the brightest to Pitt’s pre-med program is the lasting effect of Walt Harris’ agent Bob LaMonte criticizing the athletic program at Pitt in 2004, then the chancellor, Pitt athletic officials and the mainstream media covering them needs therapy—immediately.

Send Chris Dokish, Pitt Big East Basketball reporter, for a therapy session too. In his latest report, Chris calls for Wannstedt’s termination but has ample praise for the floundering coach:

“Let me first say that I’ve always rooted for Dave Wannstedt…He is a great guy, a Pittsburger through and through, and he clearly loves the university and the city.”

(“What’s Next for Pitt Football,” Big East Team Blog Pittsburgh, November 29, 2010).

No offense Chris, but I could find many Pitt grads in Pittsburgh who meet your criteria.

Dokish regains sanity by spelling out the reasons Wannstedt must go.

But why is Wannstedt a great guy? Where in his contract does it say, “Talk nice, suck up, be an average coach but a good ambassador?”

Wannstedt has convinced everyone he is the personification of all Pitt stands for. His blaming everyone but himself, his whining about officials and his inability to win the big game on a big stage are not the attributes Pitt stands for.

Dokish goes on to spare no punches, listing all the ways Wannstedt promotes himself in contrast to the results he has achieved.

If Wannstedt wasn’t already sitting in the retirement bus, why would he have allowed summer expectations to rise so high, ensuring that anything short of a Top 15 finish would be viewed negatively?

If Wannstedt weren’t calling it in everyday, why would he have cheated Pat Bostick out of a chance to compete for the quarterback’s job this season? No one believes Wannstedt conducted an open competition for the job last spring, including sometime Wanny apologist Paul Zeise.

If Wannstedt loved Pitt, he would do what he was hired to do: Winning Big East titles and positioning the Panthers to compete for a national title, but he hasn’t.

He continues to make poor on the field coaching decisions, does not effectively evaluate player performances, can’t recruit well to fill team needs and cannot use big play receivers effectively.

If Wannstedt loved Pitt, he wouldn’t tolerate a soft football team. He wouldn’t continue to play guys who pay so little attention to the coaches that they make the same mistakes over and over again.

Zeise summed up the shortcomings in his Pitt-West Virginia summary: Three turnovers,  dropped pass by Mike Shanahan and Henry Hynoski, dumb penalty on punt that rolls into end zone and Sheard using terrible fundamentals on a tackle attempt in missed sack (Zeise, Red Shirt Diaries, November 26, 2010). 

Self-reflection and continual improvement are essential skills for any football coach. Wannstedt’s self-reflection is limited to finding someone to blame, as he did after the West Virginia loss:

“Ray Graham, he’s put the ball on the ground a few times the last couple of weeks. We know that and he needs to correct that.” (pittsburghpanthers.com) 

As far as Graham’s corrections are concerned, what role do you, coach Wannstedt, and running backs coach David Walker play and what responsibility do you have to correct Graham’s problem?

Further proof that Wannstedt has quit on Pitt football? Read what he has to say about Dion Lewis’ disappointing 2010 season:

“Obviously, with Dion Lewis and the expectations and all the hype – I don’t think anything that was said or written was out of line with his performance last year. I think it was all legitimate. For whatever reason, we just never get on track with our running game. There were some setbacks there.”

Can you hear Jim Harbaugh explaining an underwhelming season by a supposed Heisman candidate with “For whatever reason?” Or Doug Marrone?

And who created all the hype, coach Wannstedt? Who approved creating Heisman-hype websites for Greg Romeus, Jon Baldwin and Lewis?

You did.

No true Pitt fan and all around good guy phones it in like Wannstedt has done all season.

Other Pitt alums turned coaches received rough treatment from the Pitt administration and fans. After 14 of the most successful years ever in Pitt football history, Jock Sutherland was disregarded and disrespected by the university’s first football-idiot chancellor John Bowman and resigned after the 1938 season.

John Michelson played football for Sutherland and took over the Pitt program in 1955. He achieved bids to the Sugar and Gator Bowls and had four nationally ranked teams—1955, 1956, 1959, 1963—but was fired after a disappointing 1965 season.

Both Carl Depasua and Foge Fazio were Pitt men and both were fired after disappointing seasons.

But the current Pitt man as head football coach, Dave Wannstedt, is not held accountable. He is able to earn $1.5 million in a work-when-you-want situation, not really responsible for anything that happens to his Pitt team.

And the Pitt administration, apologist fans and mainstream media eat it up.

Wannstedt’s got the gift of a used car salesman who sells clunkers and gets a pass every time.