All good things ...

So I've been trying (unsuccessfully, obviously) to find time to write something about the Sugar Bowl for the past three days. Basically every angle -- both the good and stupid -- has been covered.

I still want/need to write something because ... I mean ... obviously.


I'll start with this: Michigan had no business winning that game. Michigan had no business having a chance to win that game. The offense sucked, the defense couldn't stop a third-and-anything and the total yardage was 2 to 1 in Virginia Tech's favor from beginning to end. It was a statistical domination that ended with the wrong (by a certain standard) team winning.

This bothers me not at all. MGoBlog said it best:

You, cold-eyed realist who gravitates to this place, are going to tell work colleagues who went to universities other than your own that Michigan deserved to win this game in no way whatsoever. And then your shit-eating grin is going to drive them from you.

The shit-eating grin: I has it. I has it bad.

It'd been 11 years since Michigan ended a season by beating Ohio State and then winning a BCS game. That's a long time. That's Drew Henson, John Navarre, Marlin Jackson, Chris Perry, Braylon Edwards, LaMarr Woodley, Chad Henne, Mike Hart, Jake Long, Brandon Graham and countless other guys on legitimately excellent teams, which this one wasn't. This was a pretty good team that wasn't great at anything and finished 11-2. There have been five Michigan teams ever* to win 11 games; this was inexplicably one of them.

Again, I don't care. I watched this ...


... and this ...


... and probably 20 other games that ended with me screaming profanities about a really good Michigan team getting its collective soul crushed in devastating and infuriating fashion.

Law of averages, I guess. 11-2.

. . . . .

I'm not gonna try to make any blanket spin-it-forward assessments since (a) bowl games are weird matchups with long layoffs and a bunch of hard-to-quantify variables and (b) next year's team obviously won't be exactly the same as this year's team. But a couple things were obvious enough that they warrant a paragraph or two.

The offense was OMG AWFUL. Part of that was the matchup: Virginia Tech likes to put eight or nine in the box on every play against everybody, which was more than the O-line could handle and just exacerbated Michigan's lack of a mid-range passing game. In other words, the Sugar Bowl was the Michigan State game with a more fortunate result. Both touchdowns were miraculous circus catches by Junior Hemingway, who's gone next year and doesn't have a duplicate anywhere on the roster.

There's an alternate universe in which that game plays out in almost exactly the same fashion and Michigan loses something like 24-3. I mean, this had no business not being intercepted ...


... and this was just as fortunate ...


... and this (which came after a fumbled kick return and resulted in a field goal) was Yakety Sax-worthy:


Those three plays produced 17 of Michigan's 20 regulation points. So yeah.

A large majority of the organized offseason time will probably be spent on finding some reliable ("throw it up and hope for the best" doesn't qualify) passing-game stuff that Denard can actually execute. I'm pretty sure 56 rushing yards from a Denard-centric offense won't usually be sufficient for a win. It'd also be helpful if Rocko Khoury could snap the ball accurately since he's gonna be the starter next year; David Molk will be missed on the interior even though the rest of the line returns intact.

As for the defense, ARGH STOP A FREAKIN' THIRD-AND-LONG! The secondary got pretty well picked apart by a decent-but-not-great passer and should have been responsible for about 30 points allowed if not for Frank Beamer going into his shell at the stupidest possible times (more on that momentarily). VT insisted on trying to get David Wilson the ball on about two of every three plays, which isn't stupid in and of itself but is when Michigan is blowing stuff up in the backfield on a regular basis and covering nobody. Mike Martin and Ryan Van Bergen were largely responsible for every red-zone non-touchdown (of which there were four) by destroying the interior of the Virginia Tech offensive line and allowing nothing on the ground all night. Those guys went out in style.

The rest of the defense -- all of it -- comes back, which is good but seemed more promising after 11 games than it does after 13. I'm hoping that the benefits of experience and system stability produce some significant improvement in the back seven; that certainly seems possible but will need to actually happen for the defense as a whole to avoid a regression.

Going back to Beamer and VT's playcalling ... umm ... yikes. Going for it on fourth-and-2 with a 6-0 lead when Michigan was incapable of producing a first down and a nine-point lead would have been situationally ginormous? Mmmkay. A fake punt (or the option for a fake punt) from midfield late in the fourth quarter of a tie game that your defense had totally dominated? Gack. I appreciate these awful decisions but don't understand the thought process behind them given the way the game was playing out. Michigan had no business winning from a run-of-play standpoint; Virginia Tech had no business winning from a game-theory standpoint. The game-theory gods are powerful.

This is where I reiterate that I heart Brady Hoke for spending his formative coaching years in the MAC and Mountain West, two conferences where defense is mostly optional and going for it on fourth-and-anything is almost always the right decision. The fake field goal (and he said after the game that it was a called and semi-busted fake) was Michigan's third this year; the other two resulted in touchdowns against Michigan State and Nebraska. This one didn't result in a touchdown but might have been the difference between zero points (on a fairly lengthy kick) and a guaranteed three on a de facto extra point. Those three points turned out to be kinda big.

On a related note, I said this about two weeks ago:

Va. Tech was 65th in FEI's special-teams rankings this year, and that was with Journell. With a kicker who's never made a field goal, a receiver punting (albeit pretty well at 44 yards a punt) and a nonexistent kick-return game (19.7 yards per return), that number is effectively even lower. Michigan's special teams have crept up from bad to about average (59th in FEI) and might actually be an advantage (!) in the Sugar Bowl unless Va. Tech blocks seven punts.

Word. Crazy stat: Brendan Gibbons was 1 for 5 on field-goal attempts last year and somehow went from that to 13 of 17 this season and absolutely perfect (and clutch) in the last two games. I don't think I can possibly understate how hard it would have been to believe a year ago that the 2011 version of Michigan would win a BCS game in which the kicker was awesome and the offense gained 184 total yards. In summary: Wwwhheeeeeeeee!

Obligatory video:

Of course.

BTW, that was totally not a false start by Gibbons. Nothing to see here. Move along/celebrate/break out the stupidly branded** shirts.

Yeah, like that.

. . . . .

I didn't really want this thing to end. I don't even know how long it's been since I said that about a Michigan season; maybe 2003 ('04 and '06 were fun but ended horrifically). That was different, though, since that team was loaded with seniors and talent and was utterly dominant when things were clicking (except for the disaster that was special teams).

EDSBS said this in passing:

This is not a very good Michigan team, but they are a very good Michigan TEAM.

It was a very good Michigan team because of Mike Martin and Ryan Van Bergen and David Molk and Kevin Koger and Junior Hemingway, who had to start from scratch and earn all of this the way nobody before them had to. The Ohio State game was about defining a legacy; the Sugar Bowl was about writing an ending.


The end.

. . . . .

*That's obviously skewed since there were only eight or nine regular-season games until the past half-century and only 12 games total until the past decade, but still.

**My 4-year-old thinks "ORANGE YOU GLAD" is hilarious, which pretty much says it all.

The most amusing commitment ever

And I'm just talking about the gloves (WHY ARE THEY SO TIGHT):


The awkwardness: It's so thick. I wonder if that was more embarrassing for Landon Collins or Landon Collins' mom; I'm leaning toward the latter. Her motherly look* is strong and not exactly subtle but apparently lacks the desired impact.

Also, "LSU Tigers No. 1?" Ouch. Ouch a lot.

*I know this look well but only disappointed my parents in not-on-national-TV situations. So yay for that.

POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME? Sure

Beautiful.

Catching up is still engorged with holiday ham

So ... stuff happened and I felt zero need/desire to get off my couch long enough to write about it. Lo siento, happy holidays, etc. FYI, I'm avoiding actual game stuff (BAYLOR WASHINGTON WWWHHEEEEEE) and saving that for my post-bowl recap-type thing.

Justin Wilcox to Washington??? Wow. What's interesting here isn't so much Washington getting Justin Wilcox but Wilcox taking a lateral-at-best move just to escape the raging tire fire that is Tennessee. Everybody wants out: Four coaches have bailed in the past week, including Wilcox, whose defense was pretty much the one bright spot for UT last year. It's a disaster.

As for the Washington angle, Nick Holt got canned right after the Baylor hilarity and it took all of two days to bring in one of the most desirable D-coordinators in the country. Wilcox is good; he was being talked up as a candidate for the ASU head coaching job and some other lower-level ones but apparently didn't get a viable offer. He's also a Northwest guy: He came to Tennessee from Boise State and worked/played at Oregon before that, so Washington makes slightly more sense in terms of the "lateral move" thing. Steve Sarkisian is S-M-R-T.

Not so S-M-R-T: Derek Dooley. Between the DeAnthony Arnett debacle (more on that momentarily) and the pulling-scholarships-for-inexplicable-reasons thing ...

“After being committed for 11 months, the reason the recruiter Terry Joseph told Imani and then Derek Dooley told me was that they hired a new RB coach from South Carolina and don’t know if he’s a scat guy or spread guy, so they were re-evaluating backs and that Imani should look around at other schools.’"

... he's not making a lot of friends. He's also looking for a new D-coordinator, a new linebackers coach (Peter Sirmon is joining Wilcox at Washington), a new receivers coach (Charlie Baggett is "retiring") and a new special-teams coach (Eric Russell resigned to join Mike Leach at Washington State), and he's doing all that with basically zero job security following two craptacular seasons. Good luck with that.

DeAnthony Arnett headed in the general vicinity of home: DeAnthony Arnett was a relatively big-time recruit last year last year out of Michigan and ended up at Tennessee, in large part because his high school coach was Charlie Baggett (see above). He played up to his rankings as a freshman with 24 catches for 242 yards and two touchdowns but now wants to transfer closer to home, although his reasoning isn't exactly the same as Wilcox's:

His father, who was sick during the recruitment process, worsened and has had two surgeries -- one for his heart and one to place a permanent stent in his arm for dialysis -- since Arnett returned to Saginaw for winter break. Also, his family's economic situation worsened with a reduction in monthly Social Security checks, according to a family member.

Yikes. He asked to transfer to Michigan or Michigan State, both of which are within about an hour of Saginaw. Derek Dooley's response:

Tennessee and head coach Derek Dooley have granted Arnett a release, but only to Mid-American Conference schools, citing a policy that did not allow transfers to schools Tennessee recruits against and plays against.

In the last 10 years, however, Tennessee has not scheduled a Big Ten team, but in three of the past four years, the Volunteers have played a MAC school.

Nice. That was both petty and unjustifiable and resulted in everybody everywhere skewering Dooley, at which point he backtracked and granted Arnett a full release. I'll give him a little credit but not much since I'm guessing that was largely a PR move and had nothing to do with Arnett going home. Regardless, Arnett's now free to transfer to either school* and will probably be granted a hardship waiver by the NCAA, meaning he should be available to play in the fall.

*UPDATE: He's headed to Michigan State.

Notre Dame doesn't really need an O-coordinator: Brian Kelly promoted defensive backs coach Chuck Martin to offensive coordinator (?!?) over the weekend to replace Charley Molnar, who recently accepted the head coaching job at UMass.

Allow me to explain why this isn't totally inexplicable. First, Kelly is the playcaller and de facto offensive coordinator, so regardless of what the actual coordinator's role is, it isn't nearly as relevant as it is at most schools. Second, Martin was Kelly's successor as head coach at Grand Valley State and was promoted from D-coordinator to head coach and offensive coordinator. That went OK: Martin finished 76-7 with two national championships at GVSU. There's presumably some value to having a defensive background since it gives you a sort of reverse-psychology idea about what works best offensively. Kelly would know since he took the exact same path Martin did (D-coordinator to head coach and O-coordinator) when he got the head job at Grand Valley back in 1991.

So yeah ... Martin is basically gonna be the right-hand man on offense rather than having a relatively meaningless role on defense. Whether he'll actually have any effect on the playcalling or related results is tough to say; Grand Valley was definitely more run-oriented under Martin, FWIW. I'm pretty sure finding a competent quarterback is far more important than who gets the nominal title of offensive coordinator.

The Big Ten and Pac-12 are defining the distant future: I was slightly terrified when rumors started circulating the interwebz about some secretive Big Ten announcement. Possibilities: expansion, moving the Michigan-Ohio State game and moving the conference title game to Random City. That's pretty much an inclusive list of all Big Ten decisions worthy of a press conference.

The actual news:

The Pac-12 and Big Ten have agreed to a long-term interconference scheduling "collaboration" that, if successful, could have far-reaching ramifications for both of their memberships.

Intriguing. Upshot:

... by the 2017 season, the two conferences are expected to have a full, 12-game Pac-12/Big Ten schedule in place, meaning each Pac-12 team will play a separate Big Ten program on an annual basis.

There it is. Reaction: Ummm ... yay? I like the idea of forcing everybody in the conference to play an actual nonconference game against an actual team with some national appeal. I also like the idea of Michigan playing within driving distance. The downsides: This is actually in lieu of a ninth Big Ten game (the nine-game conference schedule was supposed to start in 2017), which would have helped balance some of the current scheduling oddities, and it pretty much eliminates the possibility of Michigan-Alabama or Ohio State-Texas or whatever. I probably won't see a regular-season game between a Big Ten team and an SEC team until Craig James is president, which will be never. But since those games are hardly happening anyway, I'm still giving whatever this deal is called a thumbs-up-ish. I'll also have forgotten about it by the time it starts.

On a semi-related note, Larry Scott wants a Pac-12 team playing in China. I'm not sure what to say about that.

What is Michael Dyer doing? As you may or may not recall, Auburn suspended Michael Dyer indefinitely about a month ago for a violation of team rules (what else?). Every Auburn message board immediately exploded on the assumption that Dyer would be transferring, which seemed plausible at first and much more likely when this stuff started coming out from Arkansas State players:

This status goes to my fellow Arkansas State guy Michael Dyer .. #WelcomeToThePack! #Winning!”

@RedWolforDie: Michael Dyer to ASU. Welcome to pack bro!!

Yeah, that's the same Arkansas State that hired Gus Malzahn two weeks ago. Bringing an elite-ish SEC running back into the Sun Belt doesn't even seem fair but would be swell for Malzahn if it actually happens. Whether it will is a matter of debate (this is from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette):

The rumors of Michael Dyer to ASU are false. He plans to meet with Chizik and remain at Auburn.

That's ... umm ... straightforward. We should know either way in the near future since he'll have to be enrolled somewhere for the spring semester to stay eligible.

Penn State is like coaching leprosy: There's a pretty good chance that Penn State will eventually hire a coach; I'm putting the odds at 99 percent. That coach will presumably be somebody from the NFL since all the publicly known (and legitimate) candidates are currently not working in college.

Titans coach Mike Munchak reportedly is at the top of the list but came out and said this ...

"I love my alma mater, but I have no interest in being the head coach at Penn State. I never want to leave Tennessee. I have a great deal of respect for Penn State, and I hope they find a great coach there."

... and then leaked this:

Mike Munchak has repeatedly stated he would remain at Tennessee, but a source close to him said Munchak is struggling with the concept that he can "fix and make right" his alma mater.

"He loves his school and his heart is torn," the source said Saturday. "He really fits what they want and need to a tee."

So yeah. The only kinda-for-sure thing is that Munchak can have the job if he wants it, which he might.

The other candidates (depending whom you believe) are Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien, Packers quarterbacks coach Tom Clements and 49ers O-coordinator Greg Roman, who worked at Stanford under Jim Harbaugh until this year. Some credible people were saying late last week that O'Brien had moved to the top of the list and was actually negotiating a contract, but that seems doubtful now given the lack of actual news and the latest stuff about Munchak.

I'm curious whether any current and respectable college coaches were considered or if the job is just so horrifying right now that nobody was even interested in interviewing.

We can't afford to, like, spend money and stuff: The NCAA put together a decent plan over the summer to allow ("allow" being the key word) schools to provide $2,000 in annual stipend money to scholarship athletes and guarantee multiyear scholarships, which really should be a hard-and-fast rule and would help mitigate a lot of oversigning shenanigans.

The stipend thing got overturned a couple weeks ago because of objections from 125 schools, most of which were lower-level ones that couldn't afford it and whined about the "competitive advantage" it would provide the schools that could. Response: duh. The point is that the schools that can do it should do it, because there's no reason the athletic departments and Texas and Ohio State and Alabama need to have a $40 million profit margin while the athletes are getting none of that. If you can't do it, don't. The idea that Eastern Michigan is on a level playing field with Michigan is laughable to begin with; that shouldn't stop the adoption of rules that benefit as many people as possible, which is more important than allowing Eastern Michigan and Western Kentucky and the like to continue pretending to be D-I teams.

And now there's this:

More than 75 schools are asking to override a plan approved in October to allow multiyear athletic scholarships rather than the one-year renewable awards schools currently provide. That's the minimum number of dissenters needed for reconsideration by the Division I Board of Directors when it meets next month in Indianapolis at the annual NCAA convention. The NCAA announced the change the Friday before Christmas.

Argh. Multiyear scholarships aren't even a competitive issue; everyone has the same number of scholarships each year, so it's just a matter of making sure they're used correctly and not available for reallocated on an annual basis a la Nick Saban. Here's a quote that could come from any SEC school (or Houston Nutt's agent) but actually comes from Indiana State:

"Problem is, many coaches, especially at the (Football Championship Subdivision) level, in all sports, are usually not around for five years and when the coach leaves, the new coach and institution may be `stuck' with a student-athlete they no longer want (conduct issues, grades, etc.) or the new coach may have a completely different style of offense/defense that the student-athlete no longer fits into. Yet, the institution is 'locked in' to a five-year contract potentially with someone that is of no athletic usefulness to the program."

Nice. It'd be a real tragedy if a kid who's of no "athletic usefulness" after a few years got a chance to finish his degree via the scholarship the school offered him out of high school. Boise State's objection is also pathetic:

... a "recruiting disaster" that would encourage a "culture of brokering" and pit wealthy schools with larger recruiting budgets against their less-well-heeled brethren.

That's already exactly what happens. Making scholarships a two-way deal (players currently can't get out without losing eligibility, but the school can stop renewing a scholarship and start using it again immediately) only makes things fair for the student-athletes.

The good news: Those objections probably won't matter, as the override can apparently be overriden with a five-eighths vote by athletic directors next month. Fancily titled NCAA vice president of governance David Berst said this:

"The overriding concern had to do with the time to prepare and plan (for a change) rather than objecting to the concept," he said. "I'm anticipating the rule will still be in effect (after the next board meeting)."

Hopefully he's right.

Independence Bowl trophy derp: There's something wrong with your lovely crystal football:

Nice. Blame Truman the Tiger, BTW. Blame him for everything.

Why are you doing that? The joke of a game that featured a meh Illinois team and a worse-than-meh UCLA team began with the ref flipping an Oreo instead of a coin. I don't know or care why; I just wanted to point out that it was an appropriately inexplicable start to a game between two teams that had no business playing in a bowl.

Jordan Jefferson is a walking pity party: Hey, remember how Jordan Jefferson got arrested after that bar fight and charged with a bunch of awful-sounding crimes? Here's what he learned:

“Whenever I was going through that, I was questioning why it had to be me to go through this. ...

"It’s a terrible situation for anybody to go through. I was mainly focused on getting the position back and finding ways to contribute to this team to help to get victories instead of answering questions about that situation."

“I’m back with my team, back with the coaches I love, playing the game I love, so there’s really no bitterness. We’re playing in the national championship game, so it’s all good.”

I really have nothing to add, but The Daily has a pretty good piece that spends about 1,500 words justifiably destroying his entitlement and lack of remorse. It's worth a read.

RGIII is probably gonzo: Unsurprising (there's no possible way his stock can go any higher) but still depressing. Also gone: Justin Blackmon, Vontaze Burfict, Jonathan Martin, David DeCastro, Riley Reiff, Whitney Mercilus and Mohammed Sanu.


I wasn't saying boo-urns.

I love the Iowa State Hawkbucks: Joe Arpaio's unwavering desire to annoy people doesn't stop at law enforcement:


What's the difference?

Gratuitous picture: I have no reason for posting this other than the obvious one:

Yup.

Happy New Year

Yes, that's Les Miles photoshopped into a diaper and a top hat. And no, I don't have an explanation. Just savor it.

Site note: I'll write something Tuesday about the various happenings I missed in the past week while I was lounging on my couch and/or engorging myself on ham and cinnamon rolls. Laziness FTW.

I know what I want for Christmas

I typically partake in two types of planning for my post-Christmas spending: one on the assumption that I'll get a handful of gift cards to Walmart or Target or wherever and the other on the assumption that I'll win Powerball (obviously) and have unlimited money to do whatever I want forever and ever.

This is the kind of thing that goes on the second list (click for the big version):

YES. Forever Saturday Field at Husky Stadium can become a reality for just $50 million. I'm on it.

Pitt would like Paul Chryst to stick around plz

It took Pitt about half as long to settle on a replacement for Todd Graham as it took ASU to hire Todd Graham, which is impressive since ASU actually knew a coaching search would be necessary and Pitt obviously didn't. The replacement: Paul Chryst (not Mario Cristobal despite the bajillion reports that claimed Cristobal was the favorite).

So ... Paul Chryst. He's interviewed for roughly 483 jobs in the past year and finally got one. The reason he's interviewed for 483 jobs: 483 places have been interested in hiring him (or at least talking to him) because of the pretty awesome things he's been doing at Wisconsin for the last seven years and Oregon State for the two years before that. A hypothetical and uber-subjective list of the best offensive coordinators in the country would probably include Chryst somewhere near the top.

I'm going straight to the numbers here:

2011 Wisconsin: 15th in yardage, fourth in scoring
2010 Wisconsin: 21st in yardage, sixth in scoring
2009 Wisconsin: 30th in yardage, 25th in scoring
2008 Wisconsin: 47th in yardage, 37th in scoring
2007 Wisconsin: 46th in yardage, 49th in scoring
2006 Wisconsin: 35th in yardage, 26th in scoring
2005 Wisconsin: 45th in yardage, 14th in scoring
2004 Oregon State: 54th in yardage, 49th in scoring
2003 Oregon State: 10th in yardage, 22nd in scoring

There's nothing mind-blowing there, but keep in mind that he hasn't had a single below-average season at any point and has been consistently very good with a pro-style-ish offense at two places with (typically) less-than-elite talent in major conferences. There's no question about quality of competition or ability to duplicate success or whatever. Interestingly, Oregon State was actually extremely pass-heavy back in 2004, when Derek Anderson went ham on the Pac-10; Chryst apparently got Alvarized upon moving to Wisconsin but has been no less successful seeing as how Wisconsin's running game has finished no lower than 37th since Chryst arrived and no lower than 21st in any of the past five years.

That probably seems like the norm because Ron Dayne was a truck, but the Wisconsin offense wasn't that great when Chryst got there: The total yardage rankings the previous three years were (chronologically) 83rd, 41st and 93rd. The offense has been at least as good as it was in the best of those seasons every year since. So yeah. Chryst can definitely run an offense regardless of what he's given.

That's good news for Pitt since this year was ... ummm ... not good (except for Ray Graham's half a season). Todd Graham's supposedly awesome passing game was not awesome with Calvin Magee calling plays and Tino Sunseri throwing ducks, and Sunseri might not be back anyway (even Chryst doesn't know for sure). Ray Graham will definitely be back, though, which is swell since he was on his way to 1,500 yards before blowing out his knee and is probably one of the top 10-ish running backs in the country if/when healthy. I could see him putting up ginormous numbers next year with Chryst running the show and presumably still lacking a good quarterback.

As for the bigger picture, I wouldn't count on a Wisconsin-style offense every year since the Oregon State numbers paint a different picture, but I am counting on a pro-style-type thing even if the next Dan Marino shows up at some point in the near future. Chryst isn't Todd Graham; he also isn't Dave Wannstedt since his offenses have a pulse. The question is what he'll do on defense since D-coordinator Keith Patterson is expected to head to ASU after the BBDFKDSFJSA Compass Bowl. The unemployed pickings are gettin' slim since it's almost Christmas (although Mike Stoops is still out there).

Speaking of employment, this tidbit is pretty unsurprising:

Athletic director Steve Pederson said (Chryst's) contract includes a "very significant" buyout.

I mentioned this late last week but will repeat it here for amusement's sake: Chryst is Pitt's sixth head coach in the last 12 months! And that includes three permanent hires!!! Think about that and then laugh a little bit. It doesn't seem unreasonable to have a head coach stick around for more than a couple weeks. Chryst is only 46 and could presumably be there for many years if he wins.

Pitt's a tough place to figure out. The stadium experience blows because of the off-campus thing with Heinz Field, but Western Pennsylvania is loaded with talent, the facilities are pretty new and there's enough money and tradition that Pitt seems like (at least on the surface) one of the more desirable locales in the Big East. Winning doesn't seem impossible ... it's just that nobody's really done it since Jackie Sherrill inherited the Johnny Majors juggernaut. The 2009 team that went 9-3 and then won the Sun Bowl was probably the best in like 25 years (the '04 team played in the Fiesta Bowl but went 8-4, which lol Big East). So Pitt is basically ASU Northeast. It's also worth noting that Pitt is en route to the ACC, where 8-4 records probably won't be sufficient for BCS bids. The overall quality of competition is going up a notch.

I don't have much doubt that Chryst is an excellent playcaller; being an excellent coach is a little different. There are a lot of variables that are currently unknowable, specifically on defense and in recruiting (Chryst is listed as lead recruiter for one of Wisconsin's commits this year). I do think being the polar opposite of Todd Graham will be a benefit for the obvious reason that Todd Graham is The Devil right now. Here's Chryst's amusing and un-coach-like answer to ESPN's relatively vague "who are you" question:

The good news is I’m someone that doesn't talk about himself as much as try to represent who he is with what he does.

That's the entire response. He's a lifelong Upper Midwesterner and therefore not a smooth-talker. I'm pretty sure the fans will like him after the whole Graham debacle; they'll love him if he can turn Pitt into the regular ACC contender it should probably be.