Submit your Pitt football question

Q: I must admit, this team looked as good as they have at any time since Dave Wannstedt became the head coach. And just when I thought Wannstedt would take his foot off the gas, the team kept pouring it on to run USF out of the building. My question is -- do you think that Wannstedt finally gets it, that he has to keep scoring to put teams away?

Jim Raible, Irwin, Pa.

ZEISE: Well, yes, I think the N.C. State game showed him two things -- you can't shut it down with a lead and also you have a good offense, so you don't need to. The whole evolution of this team and offense has been trust -- the better the offense performs, the more trust the coach has in it. And the more trust he has in it, the more he's willing to let it open up and fully realize how good it could be. This team is too good offensively to be afraid to let it continue to be aggressive and I don't think that we will see that conservative shell again this year.

Q: Towards the end of the Walt Harris era, Pitt could not stop the run and could not run the ball consistently. But Dave Wannstedt has made both offensive and defensive lines a team strength. From the talent on the roster, I think Pitt is in a position to continue this trend. After this year, the offensive line will graduate John Malecki, Robb Houser and Joe Thomas. Can you predict the offensive line starters and depth chart for next year?

Steve DiTommaso, Cranberry

ZEISE: No, I really can't in its entirety and I'll tell you why -- the center position is not going to be known until the end of spring at the earliest. Obviously Alex Karabin is the leader there but I have a feeling he'll have plenty of competition and the guy who emerges might not even be on the roster right now. As for the other spots -- Chris Jacobson will step in for Joe Thomas but the other guard spot is still up in the air. Ryan Turnley is listed right now as the back-up to John Malecki but there are a few things that coaches could do -- they could move Pinkston to guard and use Greg Gaskins at left tackle or just plug Gaskins in at guard or move Lucas Nix in to guard and use Greg Gaskins at right tackle. At any rate, I think the line should be pretty good again next year provided the center spot gets sorted out.

Q: If it wasn't for the meltdown against NC State, would we be talking about contending for the national title right now?

John Romesburg, Brevard, Pa.

ZEISE: We'd be talking about a top ten team, but the Panthers would likely be behind the other unbeatens just because they started out unranked. However, if they were undefeated and won their last four games -- they would need some help with a couple of teams losing -- but yes, their strength of schedule in the final three weeks would help push them ahead of a number of the other undefeated teams. But the real thing is this -- Pitt controls its own destiny to get to a BCS bowl and that is really what the focus is. The program is close and it is on the rise but now it needs to finish.

Check out Ray Fittipaldo's Pitt B-Ball blog and Paul Zeise's Pitt Stop videos about football exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.