Wannstedt not pleased with Pitt’s reaction to adversity in loss
PITTSBURGH – Many story lines led up to Pitt’s 42-21 season-opening loss to Notre Dame Saturday night. It was a featured game on national television between two schools with rich tradition who wanted to start out this season on the right foot. It was also the fourth time that the schools met in season openers, with the other years being 1943 (Notre Dame won 41-0), 1976 (Pitt won 31-10), and 1977 (Notre Dame won 19-9).
However, no storyline was as heralded as the match-up between two new head coaches, Dave Wannstedt at Pitt, and Charlie Weis at Notre Dame, who each returned to their alma maters this year from the ranks of the NFL.
Tony Dorsett was in attendance at the game Saturday night and remembered the season opener against Notre Dame in 1976. He thought the debut of the opposing coaches added some spice to the game.
“I remember when we beat Notre Dame in 1976 to start our run to the national championship,” Dorsett said. “You had two great coaches who returned and will face each other in this game in Wannstedt and Weis, so that even added to the excitement that would have already been created in this rivalry.”
Wannstedt, a Pittsburgh native and Pitt alumni, returned as head coach after playing for the Panthers from 1970-1973, serving as an assistant from 1975-1978 before moving on to other colleges and then coaching in the NFL for 15 years. He is the ninth former Pitt player to take over as head coach.
Although he felt the game contained some NFL flavor, he considered it still to be a college game being played by college players, not NFL players.
“We thought we’d see some New England Patriots in their offense,” Wannstedt said, “but it was still Pitt versus Notre Dame, not the Miami Dolphins or the Chicago Bears versus the New England Patriots.”
Weis, a Notre Dame alumni (Class of 1978), had a similar resume, coaching in college and then the NFL for 15 years before returning to his school to take over the reigns for his first collegiate head coaching job. He felt the coaching rivalry aspect detracted from the real meaning of the game, which his Fighting Irish won.
“I was constantly hearing this game was the big match-up between the two former NFL coaches Weis versus Wannstedt who both returned to lead their old schools,” Weis said. “I felt that took away from the real meaning of the game, which took place between the players on the field, not between Dave and myself.”
Weis had a better view of the game afterwards considering he was looking at it from the winning side rather than the losing side.
“I’m relieved to have this first game under our belt,” Weis said. “I’m happy for our players and our fans and it was great to see all the players be able to run over to the sidelines and enjoy the victory in front of our band.”
Wannstedt did not have the luxury of celebrating a win after the game, and took responsibility to get the Panthers back on the winning track.
“I must not have done a good enough job myself preventing our guys from reading the newspapers and magazines,” Wannstedt said. “We were thinking we were a little further along or a better football team than we showed.”
Pitt took a 7-0 lead on its opening possession when quarterback Tyler Palko fired a 39-yard touchdown pass to Greg Lee, but the Panthers wouldn’t find the end zone again until Palko scored a 4-yard run with 12:55 remaining in the game.
By that time, the Irish had already built an insurmountable 42-13 lead.
“Notre Dame was obviously a fine football team and we must have miscalculated them and that’s my responsibility,” Wannstedt said. “We hit adversity and did not deal with it the way championship teams deal with adversity, so we’ll address that. The way we played in week 1 will not be the way we play in week 11.”
Saturday’s game was actually the second time two first-year head coaches battled in a Pitt-Notre Dame game. In 1986, first-year head coach Mike Gottfried led the Panthers to a 10-9 victory at Notre Dame in Lou Holtz’s first year as head coach of the Irish.