Q: I feel like Pitt should take a serious look at just spreading it out with Greg Cross at quarterback and let the playmakers on the offense do exactly that, make plays. Pitt has plenty of players with big play capability, and I feel like Notre Dame would have a hard time running with them. What do you think?

Charlie Haley, Lancaster

ZEISE: Notre Dame has athletes with speed, size and everything else as the one thing that Charlie Weis has done is recruit well, so I don't think Pitt will be able to "out-athlete" the Irish. That being said it wouldn't shock me if we saw a little bit of Cross this week if Stull can't play or is held out of the game because I don't know that Pitt will be able to score enough points with Pat Bostick running the conventional offense the entire game. I think if Bostick is in the game, Notre Dame will be able to key on LeSean McCoy, which means he could find some tough sledding. A few series with Cross, however, might be able to open some things up for McCoy. It really all depends on what happens with Stull.

Q: At the Navy game, Wannstedt burned Pat Bostick's redshirt by letting him come in and "mop up" as they say in football. Then we see him again in the Rutgers game. All this tells me is that the Head Coach wasted a scholarship by bringing Greg Cross here. Third and one and Bostick throws an interception when you could have had Cross or McCoy run for the first down. What do you think?

Bobby Pukk, Pittsburgh

ZEISE: I agree -- I didn't think that Cross would be the starter when he came here, but I figured he'd be used in some capacity, especially when we watched him run through the Panthers defense throughout camp. But he has not been a factor save for one touchdown run against Iowa. It is one of those head-scratching decisions because Cross was a junior college player, meaning, he only has two years of eligibility and those kinds of players -- especially at the skill positions -- are usually not brought in to sit on the bench.

Q: Watching Pitt on Saturday against Rutgers revealed this was not a Top 20 team at all. Have the recruiting classes been overrated by the media?

Michael P., Hillsborough, N.J.

ZEISE: I think at the end of the season we can reasonably determine who the top 25 teams are -- but until then this is all silliness in a lot of ways. I mean, Texas Tech is 8-0 and has beaten nobody -- so they are in the top 10? You think three weeks from now after playing Texas, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma -- they'll still be in the top 10? The season is 12 games -- not five games, not eight games, -- 12 games and at the end of 12 games, after your record is revealed AND we see the caliber of the teams you've beaten, that's when we can start putting together a top 25. If Pitt is 9-3, I think we can safely say that they are a top 25 team -- but one week does not make or break anything. There are way too many ups and downs throughout a season when you deal with college kids that there is no way you can assess a team based on one game.

Now, as for whether or not the recruiting classes were overrated, I will say this: Recruiting in general and by its nature is going to be overrated. I mean we have an entire internet-based industry that is built on ranking and rating recruits -- many of whom they haven't seen play. And believe me -- I respect the work of guys like Chris Peak at Rivals and Dale Grdnic at Scout and I understand what they do and why they do it, so this is not a shot at those kinds of web-sites. It is just a fact that those web-sites have made that information so easy to get to and, for the most part, for free. There is a lot of hype around kids who may or may not be worthy of it because the bottom line is this -- nobody knows how good a kid will be in college until he gets there because there is no way to project how a guy will respond to being hit by other guys who are just as big or bigger, just as fast or faster and maybe a few years older. There is also the emotional part of it. How does a kid handle being away from his parents and not being the star of his small pond any more? So recruiting and recruiting rankings to me are very much overrated and in turn what happens is kids come into college with certain expectations on their shoulders that probably aren't fair. A great example: Corey Davis was rated higher as a linebacker prospect coming in than Scott McKillop, but McKillop has obviously been a far, far better player and has an NFL career ahead of him while Davis didn't make a very good adjustment to college life and was kicked off of the team.

So that being said, a better question than "Are the recruiting classes of Team X overrated" because my answer will almost always be yes and I've just explained why --- is to say "Do you think the Panthers have as many good players as we believed" and I am going to tell you this -- there is not a shortage of good players on this roster. In fact, with these skill position players, especially now with Nate Byham, Jonathan Baldwin and LeSean McCoy at their respective positions, and an offensive line that has been pretty good, there is no reason this offense shouldn't have more days like Saturday against Rutgers when they moved up and down the field. Defensively, I think there are some holes but the front four is as good as advertised, McKillop is a very good middle linebacker and I think Greg Williams football knowledge is catching up to his athletic ability. The two young safeties also are pretty good and I still believe that Aaron Berry is a very good cover corner, so the pieces are in place on that side of the ball as well.