The Power Of Chryst Compels You

Wisconsin offensive coordinator Paul Chryst will be the next coach at Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh made the announcement Thursday. Chryst's hiring was widely reported Wednesday.

Pitt was left scrambling for a coach after Arizona State plucked Todd Graham Dec. 14 after his one season with the Panthers. Chryst, 46, was a candidate for Pitt's coaching vacancy last year, and was under consideration for recent openings at Illinois and Kansas.

He joined the Badgers as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2005, and was previously Wisconsin's tight ends coach in 2002. He was offensive coordinator at Oregon State from 2003-04 and served as an assistant with the San Diego Chargers from 1999-2001.

Wisconsin averaged 44.6 points, fourth best in the nation, and 467 yards per game this season. - LINK

There you have it folks, meet the new coach of Pitt Panther football Paul Chryst. While it seemed like Mario Cristobal was the frontrunner for the past couple days, Chryst's name surfaced as the pick last night and a press conference is scheduled for 3 P.M. You can tune in to the conference here.

After a year of of having Todd Graham force his spread offense on a team that just didn't have the right personnel for that system, we are back to the power running/play-action scheme that I believe is going to give the Panthers the best chance to succeed.

In 2010 Chryst produced a running game that came 4 rushing yards by Montee Ball short of having 3 1,000 yard running backs, something that has never happened before in college football. With a healthy Ray Graham, an improved Isaac Bennett, and the newly appointed All-American incoming freshman Rushel Shell we could have a poor man's version of that ground attack. And I don't care how much Tino Sunseri takes to the system, in my eyes his time at QB1 is over. Bring on Chad Voytik to get the ball to the likes of Street, Shanahan, and Hubie Graham who with this offense could be poised to break out next year.

Steve Pederson seems to have made the right pick here, but take all of this with a caveat as Pitt fans should be reserving any judgements on their new coach until AFTER the 2012 season. If at that time Chryst is still the head coach and we have seen significant improvement off this 6-6 team, then we can give Pederson our approval. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little excited to see what the Panthers have to offer in 2012.