Chris Peak Breaks Down The Graham Hiring
Pittsburgh (93-7 The FAN) - Chris Peak of Pantherlair.com joined the FAN Morning Show to discuss the hiring of Todd Graham as the new head coach of the Pitt Panthers football team.
Peak said that "time will tell the story" whether Steve Pedersen made the correct decision to take Graham over the other pool of candidates. Peak said he knew that Pitt was not going to sign a high profile coach. He added that he thought the candidates Pedersen considered were either BCS coordinators or non-BCS head coaches.
Overall, Peak said he believes Graham is a good hire for Pitt. As for the overall tone on campus, he added that people around the administration are much more optimistic this time around than they were after the hiring of Mike Haywood.
Graham will reportedly receive around $2 million per year as head coach along with $2 million for his coaching staff. Peak said he doesn't know exactly where that money came from; but he suspects that Pitt finally decided that if they want to win, they will need to "pay like winners."
Peak said Graham and his assistants will have to work fast this week to get on the phones with recruits as they begin to declare by the beginning of February. He thinks that some recruits that de-committed after the Haywood situation might now re-commit to Pitt. Graham might also try to snag some of the recruits he had coming to Tulsa.
