Pitt Football Coach Graham Quits After One-Season
By Matt Shetler
Graham is one-and-done as the Pitt head coach as he accepted the same position at Arizona State today.
Not only is Graham out the door, but three of his assistant coaches—Calvin Magee, Tony Gibson and Tony Dews—already left to take jobs at the University of Arizona under their new head coach Rich Rodriguez.
He finished 6-6 in his only season on the Panthers sideline, but his tenure will be more remembered for failed promises and immature behavior than he will for anything Pitt did on the field.
Graham came riding into town with promises that his “high octane” offense would be on display. Yet Pitt suffered a gas leak somewhere between the spring game and the beginning of the season, because Graham’s high octane offense ran on empty all season long.
He promised “speed, speed, speed,” and kept preaching it all season, but by the third game of the year, he began to sound more like a used car salesman than a football coach.
He was given the benefit of the doubt because he hadn’t had much time to recruit the type of players needed for his system since he got off to a late start in recruiting after the firing of Michael Haywood.
The most disturbing part to most Pitt fans wasn’t necessarily the lack of execution. That’s generally expected when a new system is installed. Instead, it was the willingness of Graham to throw his players under the bus at will when things didn’t go well.
Especially quarterback Tino Sunseri.
The Panthers were picked to finish second in the Big East but found a way to let winnable games get away while quarterback Tino Sunseri struggled to grasp the complex system.
Pitt allowed 57 sacks, easily the most in the FBS. Graham raised eyebrows early in the season when he placed the majority of the blame on Sunseri, saying he held onto the ball too long. Graham later backed off, pledging to “coach up” Sunseri and vowing to be in it for the long haul.
To his credit, Sunseri handled the Panthers struggles much better than Graham.
As it turns out, Graham won’t even be around long enough to coach the Panthers in the BBVA Compass Bowl, marking the second consecutive year that the Panthers will have an interim coach in the Compass Bowl.
In typical Graham fashion, he let his players know via text that he was leaving.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s Paul Zeise reported the text from Graham to his players that read.
“Please text this to players please:
“I have resigned my position at Pitt in the best interest of my family to pursue the head coaching position at Arizona State.”
“Coaching there has always been a dream of ours & we have family there.”
“The timing of the circumstances have prohibited me from telling you this directly.”
“I now am on my way to Tempe to continue those discussions. God Bless, Coach Graham.”
Unfortunately for Pitt fans they will never get the opportunity to find out if Graham’s system would have worked for the Panthers.
Instead Pitt will be looking for its fourth head coach in the span of one year.
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