Six days a week, Dave Wannstedt is Pitt's best football coach since Jackie Sherrill. Six days a week, Wannstedt is the smiling face of a program that is winning friends and gaining recruits across the region. Six days a week, Wannstedt is exactly what the Pitt administration and alumni long have wanted at the top of the football program.

But on that seventh day -- game day -- Wannstedt's not so hot.

Wannstedt knows how to run a football program. He knows how to recruit. He knows how to glad-hand the alumni. He is expert at dealing with the media. He's very good with the general public. He's the guy any school would want as the face of its program -- except for those bothersome game days. On those Saturdays and the occasional Thursday and Friday night, too often things that should not go wrong do go wrong.

On game day, Wannstedt's Pitt teams have failed to live up to, if not expectations, the level of the team's talent.

With Pitt heading to pre-season camp this week and the opener with Bowling Green just 27 days away, there are two major questions concerning the Panthers:

• Do they have a quarterback to guide what otherwise could be a good offense?

• Is Wannstedt, 16-19 and without a winning season in his three years on the job, finally ready to win?

To the first, Bill Stull should be the answer, if he wins the quarterback competition in camp. Stull, who was injured and lost for the season in the first game last year, doesn't have to be Dan Marino -- not with LeSean McCoy at running back. But he has to be capable, and, by most indications, he will be. The fact that he has a potentially outstanding group of receivers should help him succeed.

To the second, it's anyone's guess. Some guys just never get over the top. But here's the thing about Wannstedt that his detractors don't like to acknowledge. He got over the top with the Miami Dolphins, where he coached from 2000 to 2004. No question, Wannstedt failed in his first NFL head-coaching job. He was 41-57 in six seasons with the Chicago Bears, where he made a mistake trying to be coach and general manager.

When he got another chance with the Dolphins, he was ready. In his first four seasons, he was 11-5, 11-5, 9-7 and 10-6. His team fizzled in the playoffs, but it's hard to criticize that kind of record. Forty-one victories in four seasons in the NFL shows an ability to coach.

Wannstedt's tenure came to a sudden halt the next season, 2004, when he resigned in November as the team plunged to 4-12. Whatever the final judgment is on his Dolphins' years, there can be no disputing Wannstedt can win.

It has taken him more time than expected to reacclimatize to the college game. But he has been here before, as an assistant in some great college programs. He was on the staff of Johnny Majors and Sherrill at Pitt, and with Jimmy Johnson at Oklahoma State and Miami. He also was an assistant at USC. All that and his record with the Dolphins speak to a coach who can get it done.

There was no excuse for losing to Ohio University in the second game of his tenure. There was no excuse for not being more ready for Navy last year and losing in two overtimes to a team that lost by 20 to Wake Forest 10 days later and by seven to Delaware 17 days later. How did the defense that shut down the super-powered West Virginia offense give up 38 points in regulation to Navy?

That's where Wannstedt's teams have fallen. They have not been ready to play up to expectations every week.

There are significant expectations this year. The Panthers were picked to finish third in the Big East. That is a modest goal. Pitt should do better.

This is the year Wannstedt gets it. He is too good a coach to continue to stumble against inferior opposition. He has done too much good recruiting to continue to head a losing program.

Pitt can win nine games this year, maybe 10. It can win the Big East and go to a major bowl game. It can place itself as one of the elite teams in the conference. The work Wannstedt has done on those six other days has put the Panthers in a position to do all this.

"This season, it seems like everything is in the right place,"' said All-American linebacker Scott McKillop. "Our defense is coming back. We have a great running back [McCoy], who is a special player."

This is the year Wannstedt becomes a seven-day-a-week coach.