University of Pittsburgh

Tuesday 12 Qs: Beard, Bortuzzo, Chad, Franky

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

photoWelcome to Tuesday 12 Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 1 p.m., obviously in the immediate aftermath of the Mike Tomlin press conference, and offers you a chance to dictate the discussion.

The format is simple: Use the comments section below to submit an entry. No more than one per person, please. Submit it early if you prefer, and I’ll pick from that batch to get rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live.

All topics welcome, as always.

Stephen Dotts: Was the Steelers’ victory over the Texans a significant step in the right direction, or a product of three lucky minutes?

DK: I’m not, in any walk of life, a fan of analysis through omission. What happens actually happens. If Le’Veon Bell rans for 350 yards in one game, no more than 20 in any of the rest, he still ran for those 350. There are no rejected outliers in sports. Everything counts.

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Column: Pitt will bounce back … if it’s stubborn

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James Conner’s 874 rushing yards are third-most in Pitt history through six games. — PITT ATHLETICS

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

James Conner has a fairly blunt philosophy when it comes to facing blitzing defenses, and it’s one that’s best evident in the slight smirk he’ll betray as he describes it: “They want to bring it? Fine. Come right up to the line. Corners don’t like to tackle. They want to stay in pass coverage. You run hard at those guys early and … man, they won’t be tackling for 60 minutes, I’ll tell you that.”

Wonderful, right?

Who’d want their big, bruising back to think any other way?

And, you know, even though Conner was referring to how he and his Pitt teammates plan to take on Virginia Tech’s all-guns-blazing defense Thursday night — 7:32 p.m. kickoff at Heinz Field, plus a national TV audience on ESPN — the truth is he was saying much the same just five weeks ago after running roughshod over Boston College up in Chestnut Hill.

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Tuesday 12 Qs: Tomlin, Haley, Scuds, Searage

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

photoWelcome to Tuesday 12 Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 1 p.m., obviously in the immediate aftermath of the Mike Tomlin press conference I’ll be covering, and offers you a chance to dictate the discussion.

The format is simple: Use the comments section below to submit an entry. No more than one per person, please. Submit it early if you prefer, and I’ll pick from that batch to get rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live.

All topics welcome, as always.

UPDATE 1 p.m.: Back from the South Side. Here we go …

eseeger89: Based on what you’ve seen and heard through six Steelers games and your familiarity with the principals, are you sticking with your prediction of 11-5?

DK: I don’t see value in “sticking by” opinions, whether they’re predictions or anything else. What I write is what I write on the day I write it, and I move on to the next piece. Ideally, sure you’d love to look like Nostradamus with everything, but I find that the “sticking by” philosophy only leads to a bad foundation for forming further opinion. Situations change. So should viewpoints.

That out of the way, wow, no. Absolutely not.

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Friday Insider: Consol ice mystery solved?

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

fridayinsiderA weekly feature aimed at rounding up a whole lot of odds and ends from a whole lot of time spent around our local teams …

• Just a couple weeks ago, some of the Penguins’ players and even coaches were calling the Consol Energy Center ice some of the worst they’d ever experienced at the NHL level.

So imagine my surprise late Thursday night when I raised the topic anew with a couple guys in the locker room, and they were fairly singing about the stuff.

“The ice was great,” Marc-Andre Fleury told me.

“Really nice,” Pascal Dupuis would echo a bit later.

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Tuesday 12 Qs: LeBeau, Geno, Pedro, Jordan

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Mike Tomlin and Dick LeBeau have been together for all of Tomlin's tenure. -- GETTY IMAGES

Mike Tomlin and Dick LeBeau have been together for all of Tomlin’s tenure. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Welcome to Tuesday 12 Qs, our chat that takes place at 2 p.m. and offers you a chance to dictate the discussion.

The format is simple: Use the comments section below to submit an entry, with no more than one per person, please. Submit it early if you prefer — I’ll be up at Consol covering the Penguins’ practice — and I’ll pick from those to get the thing rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live.

With the opener coming Thursday, hockey’s a hot topic, but all topics are welcome, as always.

JC Steel: DK, I sense a theme in your Steelers’ columns that the coaches are not taking advantage of the player talent at their disposal. It seems to me that the coaches are forcing all players into their systems, rather than fitting the systems to the players. How can that be fixed?

DK: New coaches. Or the same coaches but far less tied to the past or their ideal of what the Steelers should look like rather than what they do look like.

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Friday Insider: Open mind, spot for Kapanen

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PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION — ALEX MESSMER

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

fridayinsiderA weekly feature aimed at rounding up a whole lot of odds and ends from a whole lot of time spent around our local teams …

• Kasperi Kapanen is a child by any professional sports standard at age 18 years, three months. But he also just might be in the Penguins’ opening-night lineup Thursday against the Ducks, based on what I’m told from on high inside the organization.

Imagine that, huh?

It’s not just Kapanen’s age that would be impressive about the situation but also the fact he was taken No. 22 overall in the June draft. That, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean the 21 ahead of him won’t someday surpass him. Prospects develop at a different pace, and forwards have the easiest assimilation into the NHL. But it does mean Jim Rutherford and staff look dead-on in the unbridled joy they displayed that night in Philadelphia on the draft floor. And I mean, you should have heard what they were saying off the record. They flat-out love the kid.

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Tuesday 12 Qs: Cole, Wing, Greiss, Lance, racism

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

photoWelcome to Tuesday Twelve Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 1 p.m. and offers you a chance to dictate the discussion.

The format is simple: Use the comments section below to submit an entry, with no more than one per person, please. Submit it early if you prefer. I’ll pick from those to get the thing rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live. All topics welcome, as always.

Ghost: So, no Gerrit Cole tomorrow. Still like having Edinson Volquez take the ball, with how he’s pitched for the Pirates. Gotta beat Madison Bumgarner first. But once they do, isn’t Cole lined up to pitch twice vs. the Nats? If they can just beat Giants, looks like pitching lines up optimally, far as we can go.

DK: To start, welcome. Kind of surprised it was this hard to pick out a wild-card question from the bunch — as opposed to the usual Russell Martin angst — but hey, it’s your event!

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Column: Maybe Pitt’s real problem is boredom

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James Conner plows into Akron front seven for some of his 96 yards Saturday at Heinz Field. -- PETE MADIA / PITT ATHLETICS

James Conner plows into Akron front seven for some of his 96 yards Saturday at Heinz Field. — PETE MADIA / PITT ATHLETICS

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

So riddle me this: If the University of Pittsburgh’s football program can’t take its own schedule seriously, why should anyone else?

No, really, not to pile on after the Panthers’ astounding 21-10 loss to Akron — you read that right — on this otherwise sunny Saturday afternoon at Heinz Field, but it doesn’t take an RPI database to determine that seeing a MAC opponent slated for Week 5, then spending most of Week 5 worrying about whether or not said opponent will be afforded the proper respect, that isn’t exactly the recipe for great galvanizing.

Plainly put, Pitt looks like a bored team.

With a bored base of fans and students.

With bored yellow seats, even, all 30,000, maybe 40,000 for any given game.

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Friday Insider: Real story on Russ, Part XXVII

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

fridayinsiderATLANTA — A weekly feature aimed at rounding up a whole lot of odds and ends from a whole lot of time spent around our local teams …

• Every time Neal Huntington speaks a syllable about Russell Martin, it’s being parsed like a State of the Union speech or, more oddly, being portrayed as hyperventilating hot news. But the reality is that not a solitary facet of this story has changed over the course of the summer.

And that’s the real story.

When I reported in mid-August that the Pirates had not approached Martin with an extension offer, it kind of stirred the nests in either camp. That happens a lot in this business. A story you put out one day will lead to even more information coming loose, often volunteered, because the various parties will have a reaction and want to make their perspective known.

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Tuesday 12 Qs: Cutch, Deebo, Frankie, Olli

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

photoATLANTA — Welcome to Tuesday Twelve Qs, our chat that takes place each week early in the afternoon … except this week, when we’ll go instead at 5 p.m. so I can bring you the freshest info from the Pirates’ clubhouse here at Turner Field.

The format is simple: Use the comments section below to submit an entry, with no more than one per person, please. Submit it anytime you want. I’ll pick from those to get the thing rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live. All topics welcome, as always.

UPDATE 5:16 p.m.: Sorry for the late push-off. Lots happening. Here we go …

jbucey: Do you believe the Pirates’ pitching staff has handled Andrew McCutchen getting thrown at properly? What are you hearing from them or him?

DK: It’s not always as simple as isolating on the pitchers. Not always. The manager and/or coaches will find a way to communicate what they want done. And it’s extremely evident after this weekend that the Pirates’ singular focus was beating Milwaukee. Which they did. It was equally evident, given the scores of those games, they were in no position to be throwing at people.

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