5AF's Premier College Football Thread: 2017-18 Pittsburgh Super Panthers Football Thread (and Basketball)

[Freddy Rumsen]

That's what I did, good reading skills.

[Dickie Dunn]

Thank you.

It was a joke

[Freddy Rumsen]

i know

[Rocco]

Capel's wife was an adjunct professor of mine. I don't think she liked me very much, so she's probably a good judge of character.

Should have brought Miller home. Capel's fine. Hopefully he learned from whatever made him fail at OU.

[Dickie Dunn]

Well that was certainly a lot different than the Stallings press conference. Dude killed it. Can easily see what he's such a great recruiter. Seems like a genuinely good person who is excited about the opportunity.

[willeyeam]

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us ... e-the-tree

[Tomas]

Capel's wife was an adjunct professor of mine. I don't think she liked me very much, so she's probably a good judge of character.

Should have brought Miller home. Capel's fine. Hopefully he learned from whatever made him fail at OU.

If he fails the same way he did at OU (one Elite 8 in 5 years, while NOT getting implicated in NCAA violations he probably was a part of), I can live with that.

[shafnutz05]

Capel seems like a great hire...hope it pans out.

[Dickie Dunn]

@PaulZeise

Heather Lyke said Kevin Stallings was fired for reasons that went beyond just the record. Said it was an entire package and included everything from interacting with student athletes, people on campus and in the community. It was about fit and what felt like a lack of progress.

Also, multiple outlets are reporting than Capel is trying to bring Brandin Knight back.

[willeyeam]

@PaulZeise

Heather Lyke said Kevin Stallings was fired for reasons that went beyond just the record. Said it was an entire package and included everything from interacting with student athletes, people on campus and in the community. It was about fit and what felt like a lack of progress.

Also, multiple outlets are reporting than Capel is trying to bring Brandin Knight back.

Yinzer's are gonna eat this up

Knight as an assistant is a good move though in reality

[Dickie Dunn]

Agreed.

[slappybrown]

Capel seems like a great hire...hope it pans out.

[willeyeam]

pittclique,

since you guys aren't as weird as PL people and somewhat more sane, I pose the following:

Would you rather have Capel or Hurley if you had your choice?

[slappybrown]

Capel

[Dickie Dunn]

Capel

[willeyeam]

i think i agree

[Dickie Dunn]

Capel is younger, has spent a lot of time learning from the best, and their head coaching records are similar. The big thing to me is that while Hurley turned one good season at Wagner into the Rhode Island job, where he has undoubtedly done good work, Capel has experience running a big time program and knows what it takes to succeed (and fail) in that position. Hurley is completely green in that regard.

Another thing that I had not considered until today’s press conference is that Capel truly seems like a great person, while Hurley most definitely seems like a lunatic.

[slappybrown]

I don't think there's a right answer either would be a great result. Capel has been there before and had some success at a high P5, and you can look at his stint as AHC with rat face as finishing school. He's younger than Hurley too.

Hurley will be successful at UCONN almost certainly, but he's never been at a P5 or uconn type before, so a little more unknown

[slappybrown]

Yea DD beat me to it

[willeyeam]

Capel learning under coach K has to have some nice dividends, and he knows the ACC. Also he probably knows how to get all these players their cash without being caught so another plus

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

I was hoping pitt would think outside the box a little bit because in a sea of sameness in the ACC, pitt is the kind of team that needs to think a little bit differently. That is one of the reasons why I was pretty much the only person that didn't hate the idea of scheyer getting the job.

With that in mind, I don't see how pitt could have done much better than Capel. Some would say miller would have been better, but at least capel's brush with cheating happened almost a decade ago compared to miller's possible forthcoming arrest. I would have rather seen hurley but honestly I cant give a specific reason why I'd prefer hurley.

one thing I do find encouraging is that capel does seem genuinely interested in this job for whatever reason. he probably was a legit candidate at a lot of other places but chose this stupid school for some reason.

so all in all there isn't aint much to complain about. even the perception of a drawn out job search was overblown.

pitt got it right. how crazy is that?

[Stoosh]

I would have been really satisfied with Hurley, but I'm more excited to see Capel now that I've had a chance to really read up on him and put this into context.

Hurley would have been a terrific hire from the "perspective" side, both nationally and locally. He was pretty much the national media's agreed-upon "Best Name Out There", so if Pitt gets him, the optics look terrific. They ponied up a big salary to prove they were serious about investing in the program, and they got the guy that pretty much everyone agreed was the best name available.

I never got the sense, though, that Hurley would have been a great fit. His heart is in the northeast and I can get that. He's a New Jersey native and the Hurley name is legendary in the northeast. He cut his head coaching teeth at programs in the northeast. I never got the sense that he wanted to leave and with UConn presenting a perfectly good reason for him not to leave, Pitt had to try to buy his interest. I think the fact that it took him so long to decide after details of Pitt's offer leaked ultimately spoke volumes about where Hurley's heart was and to that end, I'm glad this panned out the way it did.

Capel checks pretty much every box that Pitt wanted and needed the new coach to check.

His coaching record is solid enough. He understands the ACC style of play. A caller to the Fan the other day brought up a solid point, too - Capel was an assistant under Coach K at a time when Duke finally began to embrace the recruitment of one-and-done players. Because of that, Coach K had to adapt his coaching style and systems to his players. Adapting systems/styles to fit players was something that Dixon REALLLLLLY struggled with at times, and it's something Pitt will need to do to win in the ACC.

Capel's recruiting ties and familiarity with the ACC footprint should pay off. His reputation as Duke's top recruiter doesn't necessarily mean he's going to start bringing in classes full of McDonald's All-Americans, but I think he'll get more than coaches before him were able to get.

As others have said, he's spent years learning from one of the best. He knows how the infrastructure of a successful ACC program needs to be set up and how it needs to operate. That kind of stuff goes a long way, too. It's something that noticeably changed when Narduzzi got here and I think it's something that will change for the better with Capel, especially with the support from the AD.

The biggest thing for me, though, comes back to his energy level and this is a big thing for Pitt. Capel seems genuinely excited to be here and it didn't come off as an act (Zeise mentioned that when Dixon left for TCU, Capel reached out to Scott Barnes to let him know he was interested in the job then). Pitt needed someone to genuinely connect with the fan base, and they hit it out of the park with Capel. Like a few people said, judging by social media reactions, he won over current students, alums, casual fans, the season-ticket holders AND much of the "Sean Miller or Bust" segment.

This reminds of Pitt's hiring of Narduzzi; there was this sense that the program took a big step or two forward. I get the same sense with this hire.

[NAN]

pittclique,

since you guys aren't as weird as PL people and somewhat more sane, I pose the following:

Would you rather have Capel or Hurley if you had your choice?

I can't answer without some bias, but Capel. But I would have been happy with Hurley as well. Regardless, Pitt got a good coach IMO.

[Freddy Rumsen]

Capel