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Q: Cincinnati put forth a decent BCS showing last year only to be out-recruited by fellow Big East teams such as Pitt and WVU. How would going to (and hopefully winning) a BCS bowl impact Pitt's recruiting?

Jason Andryko, Irwin

ZEISE: It will probably help, I don't think it would hurt but I don't know that one trip to the BCS would all of the sudden put Pitt in the mix for some of the top national recruits. I do think it would be interesting to see, with Dave Wannstedt's recruiting ability, what a few years in a row of going to BCS games would do to the Panthers recruiting. But even without winning, Wannstedt's put together some of the top classes in the Big East over the past four years so I'm not sure how much better it would get.

Q: Bob Smizik wrote in his blog that he was sitting in the press box for the Pitt-USF game -- was that the first time in a long time? And will Ron Cook ever go to a game so that he can stop bashing Pitt for just a day? Both are in love with the Big Ten, why is that?

Eric Wirtner, Las Vegas

ZEISE: I think that you and the rest of the "P-G columnists hate Pitt" conspiracy theorists for this are so far off base with this that is silly. Bob Smizik is a Pitt graduate and I assure you he doesn't hate or love any conference more or less than any other. And Cook has been to the Youngstown State, Buffalo, Navy, N.C. State, Louisville, Connecticut and South Florida games, which, judging from recent attendance tells me he has far more interest in the program than a whole lot of so-called Pitt fans who bash him. The all-timer to me from the "conspiracy crowd" came when they criticized Cook as a "Penn State apologist" for writing about the N.C. State loss instead of Penn State's loss to Iowa that same day -- even though he was assigned to cover the Pitt-N.C. State game (obviously long before the results were known) and was sent to Raleigh to do just that.

The bottom line is these two are professionals and columnists, they have an opinion and it is not always one fans, who are emotionally invested in their teams, might like. But both are fair and unfortunately for Pitt that has meant pointing out some unpleasant things and some shortcomings the program has. And I think if you read the articles Cook has recently written about Frank Cignetti, Phil Bennett, Dion Lewis and Bill Stull, to name a few, you'd probably come to the conclusion that he's been as good to Pitt as he has been tough on them. And the fact that generally half the people agree with what he writes and half the people disagree with it means one thing --- he is doing his job the right way.

Q: With Pitt being ranked 15th and Notre Dame being in the top 20, do you think it is possible that this could be the "ESPN College GameDay" game of the week?

Anthony E., McKeesport

ZEISE: I would think it would be in the discussion. The only other interesting games that day would be Oklahoma State versus Texas Tech, which, is for like third place in the Big 12 South or Iowa-Ohio State, but I think they've already been to Columbus once this year so I doubt they'd go back. But who knows that goes into the decisions -- today they are scheduled to be in Colorado Springs for Army-Air Force, which is a meaningless game on so many levels.

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