Q: Paul, with all of this talk centered around the more popular teams getting into bigger bowls, regardless of their win loss record. What is the incentive to get to nine wins? Why bother? You could win seven and go to the same pointless, of slightly more pointless game. Collage football is becoming a gigantic joke. You want to know what wrong with America now days, why people are screaming for change, why the economy stinks -- Look no further than college football and apply the same formula to business.

Greg Bartoletti, Frederick, Md.

ZEISE: Wow, I don't know if I can digest all of that in one sitting -- the world banking problems are the same symptoms of the problems that ail college football? I'm not smart enough to think that far out of the box. I will say this -- winning nine games is more desirable to winning seven because, and I hate to quote Herm Edwards but "players play to win the game". In other words, bowls are exhibition games, nice trips away for a few days during the holiday and not much more than that. Getting to a nice bowl -- other than the BCS bowls, which are generally attained by winning a conference championship -- is relative. I mean, the Hawaii bowl is not very prestigious -- the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville supposedly is -- which bowl you think I'd rather go to if I was a player? No, players play for the sake of trying to win games, the pride, the culmination of a week's worth of hard work -- all of that is why players participate in college football. A bowl, any bowl, is a nice reward but the goal is to win as many games as possible.

Q: Do you think Pitt football will ever get back to the days of the late 70's early 80's when they had some of the most dominant teams of that era? Yes, nine wins are nice, but no way could we match up with Florida, USC, Oklahoma, etc. What has changed? Pitt, like the teams just mentioned, must recruit nationally. Is it a matter of money that limits recruiting? What is keeping Pitt from returning to the days of old?

Bill Kaib, Greer, S.C.

ZEISE: College athletics and in particular college football has changed. It is an arms race of funds, boosters, facilities and everything else and while Pitt can be competitive in these areas -- it can't keep up with the Jones you are mentioning because it is a different market, a different place. That doesn't mean Pitt can't win a national championship, but I think that it will be tough to go through a period where they are ranked in the top five for five or six years in a row and making a run at the national title every year. Pitt could certainly become the dominant program in the Big East but to keep up with Texas, Oklahoma and those kinds of programs is very tough. Again, there are a whole lot more programs like Pitt, Georgia Tech, Boston College, Virginia Tech -- than there are Texas, Oklahoma, USC-type programs and for good reason -- there just aren't that many places with the resources to do what those programs are capable of.

Q: Now that the regular season is over, can you comment on what you believe are the weak areas of this team and how/if those area are being address with either upcoming players or recruiting?

Shawn Kunes, Cranberry

ZEISE: Well the corners certainly need to be improved and with the young guys -- Ronald Hobby, Jared Holley and Antwuan Reed on this team, there is no doubt that competition at those spots will be very intense come the spring. I think Aaron Berry is a good player who had a bad season, so you'd assume he'll come back strong next year at one spot then Jovani Chappel and Ricky Gary will have to hold off one or more of those three. You'd hope a year's experience and an offseason of working out and healing will improve the quarterback play immensely, but that remains to be seen. I think the outside linebackers, and Greg Williams in particular, gained some very badly needed experience and I'd expect that position to be much better as well. But when you go 9-3, I think there is a lot more positive than negative so I'm not ripping them team, I just think these are just areas that can and will improve. One other thing that improved this year -- coaching -- and I think there were some very good lessons learned about college football and trusting players to make plays that will carry over into next year.