Dave Wannstedt Guys Quotations

They were like all of us, me included, looking for someone to feel sorry for you. But that's the nature of the game. That game is not going to determine what type of season we have. That game is not going to be the determining factor of what happens in December. How we react to that game is going to determine what type of a season we have. And our guys have responded.

I didn't do a good enough job of getting the guys prepared. I must not have done a good enough job of preventing our guys from reading newspapers and magazines and thinking we were a little further along or a better football team than we are today.

The good thing about him is he gets it. He understands the whole picture. A lot of guys would never get it. Either they're too selfish or they're not smart enough to understand it. But with Ricky, as long as we're winning, he's going to be a major reason why.

By (the) time you get out there and it's game time, you're confident in your plan and you believe you're going to be successful. The guys who can separate what you can control and what you can't control are the ones who keep moving and don't crack. It's a battle, though, because of all the media attention and scrutiny.

I probably won't do that until two weeks before the season begins. The best guys will play.

They blocked us, there's no mystery in that. I didn't do a good enough job of getting these guys ready ? they must have been reading the newspapers too much and that's my fault. We've got to get better ? if you can't stop the run, you've got no chance to win no matter the level and we've got to get that done. We wanted to blitz them, but we could never get them to third down.

They blocked us, there's no mystery in that, ... I didn't do a good enough job of getting these guys ready ? they must have been reading the newspapers too much and that's my fault. We've got to get better ? if you can't stop the run, you've got no chance to win no matter the level and we've got to get that done. We wanted to blitz them, but we could never get them to third down.

If we had never done this before or never had success doing it, or had offensive schemes that hadn't been successful or the guys that are teaching had never done it ... it's not an issue, ... It's a little frustrating. When you don't have success, there's a lot of what Bill Parcells says ? there's a lot of exit doors.

We've got a really outstanding group of linebackers. So, we're going to rotate those guys around a bit more. Blades will be the only one that doesn't really move, but we're going to alternate some guys. We have to try to get them all on the field as much as possible.

These guys are strong. These guys are committed to playing football at the University of Pittsburgh.

For us to make some strides as a football team, that position is critical. I don't care what level you're talking about, those guys up front have to perform -- and perform at a high level. We were inexperienced last year. That's scary. Now we're a year older and that will benefit us this year.

I must not have done a good enough job myself preventing our guys from reading the newspapers and magazines. We were thinking we were a little further along or a better football team than we showed.

Leonard can make big plays; he's already shown that ... The biggest thing about this team is they have talent and experience on offense.These guys are all seniors and most of them have played for two or three years.

I was disappointed how our guys responded, and that's my responsibility. We didn't respond the way you need to come back and win the game.

As a whole, the defense looked good. A few guys really showed up to play today. Developing the defensive line is one of our challenges and I was encouraged today.

I'll follow those guys. They're the best. Guys like Zach and Jason, that's the reason you coach. Players that work like that and who are committed like that -- people that you can trust, week in and week out. That's what makes it fun.

We want to be a top-10 program on the field, off the field, in recruiting and with everything we do. We have a lot of guys here who told big schools they are going to Pitt.

I think it was just a throwback weekend. We're back to our originals. But it was neat that the guys did appreciate it.

From a fundamental standpoint, particularly on defense, I didn't do a good enough job of getting the guys prepared. We hit adversity. We did not deal with adversity the way championship teams deal with adversity. We didn't handle it well.

We came up here and our guys wanted to win this game so bad and we played so hard. We prepared so hard during the week, and it just hurts. It really does.

We need to be more of a threat with speed on the field. Kinder and Marcel Pestano will get a chance to see if they can help push the ball down the field. Teams are going to roll coverage to Greg Lee on every play and we need other guys to step up.

I told our guys when we went to Tampa, I said, 'This is going to help us down the road from the standpoint of the traveling and possible distractions.' You have to discipline your mind and be mature enough to deal with all of that during the season. And those things are going to come up during the season. Hopefully we've already crossed that bridge.

Being thrown into that situation is not easy, particularly when you don't expect it. You sign with a team as a freshman and expect to come in and have that buffer year. Then all of a sudden a month or a couple weeks before training camp, we say that one of you guys has to be ready to play against Notre Dame if something happens. I think they've handled it well.

We're going to give those two guys a chance to see if they can help push the ball down the field a little bit. We have to have other guys step up and that's the reason for the change.

There will be a lot of pressure on us to get it right in training camp. We don't have any exhibition games, any 'give-me' games coming out of the blocks. Virginia is a very tough game, especially for an opener. We have young players, but they have talent and we'll work hard to get them ready. These guys will respond to the challenge and we'll be a lot better prepared for the beginning of the season this time through it.