Pittsburgh Panthers' head coach Dave Wannstedt is trying a new approach for his practices this fall, he will
split the freshman and 3rd teamers from the starters as far as practice schedules. He wants to run a practice in the morning for the starters and backups, and in the afternoon have another practice just for the incoming freshman and the rest of the roster who did not practice in the morning.
Why the heck would he do this? Coach Wannstedt says by using this technique it will help him better evaluate the incoming freshman and get them more reps at the same time. He has visions of using a lot of his first recruiting class (ranked in the top 20 nationally) this season. If he is doing this for evaulation reasons, it is a good method and it is legal by NCAA standards. But what Panther fans should worry about is how does this effect the chemistry.
Two players pushing for a lot of time are WR
Dorin Dickerson and TE
Nate Byham. How is Tyler Palko suppose to get his timing down with the receivers if they do not practice together for the first 5 days? Football is a team sport and this also does not promote team chemistry. There is already some very limited time between the beginning of camp and the first game. Not to mention all of the restrictions the NCAA places on teams as far as the amount of practices they can hold, so I think Wannstedt's method could backfire on him.
