Football Notes

Even out of season, lots of tidbits and news out there about Pitt football recently. Guess football really IS king in American sports.

Todd McShay over at ESPN.com is already at it for 2011, mocking the first-round of the NFL draft. Because this is an Insider article, I'll only provide you with this information - McShay has Jonathan Baldwin and Greg Romeus in his first round, but no Dion Lewis.

ESPN blogger Brian Bennett says Pitt has little to worry about if the Big Ten expands by more than one team, while Cincinnati should be worried the most. I'd probably tend to agree with that.

And here's an article about Joe Pa's role in the expansion process. I think Paterno is doing this as kind of a last hurrah. Pitt fans are encouraged by the fact that he's mentioned Pitt as a potential expansion candidate. But I think it's more of him doing this for his legacy to not come off as the bitter old man when it comes to his relationship with Pitt. He very well might not be around when the new Big Ten opens for business, likely in a few years. So there's a good chance he won't even have to play Pitt, which of course, he doesn't want to do. By posturing for Pitt as a candidate, he knows that his decision alone won't make it - Pitt will be in or out, fairly independent of what he wants. Since that's the case, why not at least push for Pitt publicly, leaving the ace up his sleeve needed to 'prove' to critics that he doesn't really hate Pitt?

Bennett also has a solid piece on Jonathan Baldwin getting his thoughts on his basketball skills, game planning against him, and what he's working on for this year:

"My goal this year is to get better at my yards after catch," he said. "I want to run my routes crisper. And destroy defenders when I block them."

I hope deep balls are in the game plan for this year. With his size and athleticism, unless Tino Sunseri is woefully inaccurate or the retooled line has major blocking issues, there's no reason for Pitt not to go deep to him at least a handful of times each game.

And all is well back in the land of Pitt food courts and fried fish sandwiches once again.