The career of Pitt senior kicker David Adbul has come to a premature end.

Abdul had surgery to repair a valve in his heart in June and had been holding out hope that he could recover in time to play for the Panthers this year. He was not medically cleared to participate in training camp but was hoping he would be cleared when he was re-evaluated a week ago by Pitt's doctors.

Yesterday, however, he found out that he would not be cleared and thus would be out for the season. And because he already has had a redshirt season -- he sat out 2004 recovering from a car accident that left two bones in his leg broken -- he has no eligibility remaining.

"Unfortunately David's football career at Pitt is over," Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said. "He'll be put on medical [scholarship] and if there is a deserving [walk-on] senior on our roster we could use the scholarship for a year."

Two walk-ons, sophomore Conor Lee and freshman Dan Hutchins, had been battling for the job as starting kicker while Abdul recovered and will continue to do so.

But now that Abdul is out of the picture, Wannstedt said there could be a third person joining the competition -- punter Adam Graessle.

"Adam has been kicking," Wannstedt said. "He was a pretty good field-goal kicker coming out [of high school] but right now we will try and keep his attention on punting. We have two opportunities to kick down at Heinz Field before the season and I'll put a lot of weight on those."

Offense takes step back

The defense manhandled the offense yesterday in both sessions and Wannstedt was not pleased about it. He especially was irritated by a lack of effort from certain individuals and said he thought the offense took a step back for the first time.

"We sure as heck didn't make any progress in a couple of areas," he said. "It was pretty evident that certain areas of our team did not come out here with a desire to win. For as well as we executed the last few days on offense, I don't know where we were at -- hopefully not thinking about a few plays we made in a scrimmage. Thank God we are still in training camp."

Not only did the offense perform badly, it also added some injury to insult. Quarterback Tyler Palko banged his throwing hand on a helmet while throwing a pass, starting receiver Oderick Turner's ankle was injured and starting fullback Conredge Collins pulled up lame during a drill. Of the three, only Palko returned to action but the first pass he threw after the injury was intercepted.

Quick hits

Freshman running back Dorin Dickerson (ankle) participated in full-contact drills for the first time and Wannstedt came away impressed. "For the first day in full-speed action I thought he did OK. He ran up there hard and broke some tackles," Wannstedt said. ... Walk-on long snapper Mark Estermyer appears to have earned a scholarship. "He's been doing a good job long-snapping for us the last couple of years," Wannstedt said. "We're looking at a couple of other guys as well." ... Redshirt freshman Doug Fulmer and junior Joe Clermond have jumped into the starting defensive end spots based on their performance in the scrimmage Saturday. Also, freshman defensive tackle John Malecki is working some with the first team. Two other freshmen defensive linemen, tackle Jason Pinkston and end McKenzie Mathews, have earned more playing time with the first and second teams.