The spoils of a 5-6 season are early mornings, cold days, lots of conditioning and hard work.

It is not fun being a member of Pitt's football team these days, but it is a lot more fun now than it was a few months ago when the final days of a disappointing season were ticking away.

Panthers coach Dave Wannstedt took a hard look at his first season and realized that, beyond a lack of personnel in some key areas, there were two important ingredients missing -- chemistry and accountability. The offseason regime has been designed to improve both. The results, at least heading into spring practice, have been mostly positive.

"As coaches, when you have a losing season, you have to look at yourself first, and that's what we did," Wannstedt said. "We made some changes in our approach and our communication with players and the way we handled certain situations. And we have a much better idea of what we need to get done to get to where we want to go.

"But, secondly, we had to look at our team as a whole and figure out the areas that we failed in.

"We were able to address some personnel issues through recruiting, but, above that, we wanted to get these guys on the same page early and we wanted to raise the bar in terms of being accountable to each other. I told our team leaders, this has to be their team because the guys will follow their lead."

The first change Wannstedt made was instituting accountability wherein if an individual fails to live up to his responsibility, the whole team pays. If a player misses a meeting with a tutor, is late for a study hall, is late for a meeting with an academic advisor or a workout or physical therapy, then every member of the team has to do more running.

"I have moles all over campus," Wannstedt said, with a laugh. "Actually, the refreshing thing is this -- I haven't had to check up on every little thing because the players are doing it themselves. We have guys calling other guys in the morning to wake them up and make sure they get to class. We have guys calling around to make sure other guys have a ride to the South Side for training. We've had amazing results.

"Our leaders have really attacked this, and the other guys have indeed followed. We have a team that is much closer right now because they all have more ownership in it. They all know they need to rely on each other to come through -- and that's really what we're after, team unity."

The other initiative has been a tough training program informally known as "Fridays with the coach."

The players have their usual weightlifting and conditioning program all week, but Friday is special. They show up at the South Side facility at a designated time then board buses and head to an undisclosed location to train in the streets -- Rocky Balboa style.

One Friday, they ran up the hill from Second Avenue across the Swinburne Bridge into Oakland. Another time, they ran the steps inside the Cathedral of Learning -- all 36 floors -- twice. One time, they showed up at 5:30 a.m., only to be told to run down the walking path next to the Monongahela River, even though it was dark and cold. Their instructions were to keep running until they ran into the other coaches -- who were a few miles down the path.

The only other rule is that coaches can't ride the buses because Wannstedt said: "I want the players to be able to grumble about it and air their grievances, and they won't do that with coaches around. Open communication is a good thing, it really helps bring players closer together."

Last Friday, about 85 players ran up the steps -- one player counted somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 -- from the bottom of University Avenue to the top despite a chilling wind. They did that 10 times, while injured players who can't run, did their crunches and sit-ups and stretches on the sidewalk at the bottom.

Most important, senior quarterback Tyler Palko led the way, and defensive leaders Darrelle Revis and H.B. Blades were right behind him. And injured safety Mike Phillips led the pack on the sidewalk.

"It really shouldn't have come to this for us; we shouldn't need hold each other accountable," Palko said.

"We should all be motivated on our own, but, I'll be honest, a lot of us have realized that coming off the Fiesta Bowl we thought we were a lot better than we were. We had a lot of individual agendas and we didn't play together as a team. We thought we could show up and win. You can already see what a different team we are. Guys are leaning on each other.

"This outside running and running the steps sounds corny, and it is tough, but we're learning how to push ourselves. We're learning how to push each other and we're really building some good unity and camaraderie. You hate Fridays for one reason, but, for others, you kind of look forward to them."

Wannstedt said he has been impressed that the players have rallied around each other. The results of the conditioning program are obvious. Last week marked the seventh Friday, and every player -- including the linemen -- made all 10 trips up and down the steps with little problem.

"The first Friday, it was ugly," Wannstedt said. "Guys were puking, they were falling out. It was freezing cold, and we had guys who had tears frozen on their faces. Now, it is almost not any fun anymore because they are all in such good shape. But that was the goal.

"And next week, we're going to reward them with some fun. I'll have an obstacle course or something set up, and we'll have a little competition. They've worked hard, they deserve to enjoy themselves a little."