Wannstedt wasting no time preparing for next year

Dave Wannstedt doesn’t want to dwell on his team’s disappointing 5-6 season. In fact, he… Dave Wannstedt doesn’t want to dwell on his team’s disappointing 5-6 season. In fact, he doesn’t really have the time to – not if he is going to go out and do something about it.

That’s why Pitt’s football coach is already on the road, busily recruiting the pieces that will make up the foundation of what he hopes will be a top-10 football program. While doing everything in his power to piece together his first official recruiting class, the Pitt alum knows that the 2005 season can’t be forgotten. It simply needs to be corrected.

“We’re all disappointed with how things ended up,” he said in a phone interview while on a recruiting trip in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania. “As a former Pitt guy and a former Pitt player, nobody is more disappointed than me and nobody else is more determined to get this right.”

Wannstedt appears well on his way to righting the ship. He stands to return several key starters next year, most notably quarterback Tyler Palko, wide receiver Greg Lee and several standout defensive players, such as Darrelle Revis and H.B. Blades. Add to that his incoming recruiting class, which is ranked inside the top 15 by many online publications, and fans can tell that Wannstedt is serious about making change.

“We know where our deficiencies are,” he said. “We are going to have a great recruiting class. It’s my first recruiting class from top to bottom. This is going to be the foundation for years to come.”

As for the recruiting process, he noted that while the players themselves haven’t changed, the complex rules and regulations to recruiting are not the only differences he is beginning to notice.

“[Recruiting] has changed from the standpoint that recruits are making their decisions much earlier,” he said, talking of the importance of getting to players early. “Now, you have kids committing much earlier than we ever thought.”

He also talked of the importance of having solid fan support, something that he was impressed with in his first year at the helm, when it comes to selling his program to these recruits.

“I think when you talk about building a top-10 program, and I said this right when I was hired, you need good coaches, good players and good academics,” he said, “but you also have to have great fan and student support and I think that [the support] was outstanding all year.”

“To be able to put ourselves in a position to win five of our six home games had a lot to do with the fans and we appreciate that, especially after the rough start,” he said of the team’s 0-3 and 1-4 starts to the 2005 season.

The support is something he hopes fans and students alike will continue to show throughout the building of his program, something he constantly referred to as a “process.”

“We want to maintain support throughout the process,” he said. “It’s easy to support a team when they are up because everybody wants to be up. Anybody can be there for the end product.”

But what kind of product can fans expect at the end?

“It is going to be a good one,” he says with sheer confidence.