Kevin Stallings - How Bad Are Things At Pitt?

Kevin Stallings has, to be charitable, had a rough first year at Pitt.

Over at Fanrag.com, the guys think he’s already on thin ice. And they could be right, he may be.

But why should he be?

This whole notion that there are bad ACC jobs is ridiculous. Yes, some are better than others. Duke and UNC are the top of the heap, but Louisville and Syracuse aren’t bad. And it wasn’t that long ago that Notre Dame and Virginia were seen as bad jobs.

In our opinion though, the toughest ACC jobs are Clemson, Florida State and Miami. Yet look: Florida State has been pretty tough, Clemson is nobody’s picnic and Jim Larranaga has made Miami into a major pain in the butt.

The point is that you can succeed at any ACC school, as Kevin Keatts is about to prove at NC State.

So it can be done at Pitt, even if Stallings isn’t the guy to pull it off. But ask yourself this: would Archie Miller fail at Pitt? Would Gregg Marshall? Tubby Smith?

Remember this: when Larry Brown left Kansas he complained that he couldn't recruit there. Roy Williams and Bill Self didn’t have that problem, did they?

Still, Pitt’s in a jam. Things were fading for Jamie Dixon and Stallings, already an unpopular hire, is in real danger.

If he doesn’t last though, it’s not because Pitt is a hopeless job. It is a job that, when open, needs to be dealt with intelligently. You might get lucky and find a guy like Buzz Williams who just wants a change.

More than likely though you’ll need to sell a guy like Miller or Marshall or Keatts early in their careers.

The good news is that their are lots of talented young coaches who'd run over their mother to get that job.

Well that would not be good news but you get the idea. Like any job, you need a good fit. And the right fit for Pitt would make it a highly competitive program.