Former Pittsburgh Panthers head coach Todd Graham was introduced as the Arizona State Sun Devils head coach today at a press conference. The reaction from the Pitt area on the move to the ASU job hasn't been very flattering, including the play-by-play of the press conference on Twitter by Pittsburgh Tribune-Review sports columnist Dejan Kovacevic.
Listening to Graham presser, it's at least assuring to know there's one institution -- ASU -- dumber at hiring football coaches than Pitt.
Graham at ASU presser: "It's the first job I've ever taken that has benefited my wife." ... Good God. New rule: Only way Steve Pederson keeps his job is if he can get ASU on Pitt's 2012 schedule. Home game, of course, just to annoy the wife.
Graham to Pitt players: "I reached out to them only way I knew how. I didn't want them to hear about it on the news. Wouldn't be right." Graham said he plans to "return to Pittsburgh" to talk to the Pitt players in person. I'll bet that's well-attended.
"The only thing that me and my family would endure all this, go through all this, would be for Arizona State University," Graham said at the press conference. Shortly after, Kovacevic tweeted a quip about the Pitt players filing a restraining order if Graham ever wanted to talk to them. He then signed off Twitter, noting that listening to Graham "turned his stomach." That's not hard to imagine watching a press conference by a coach who just a year earlier preached the same thing in his introductory Pitt press conference, integrity, discipline, loyalty.
The method in which Graham left the university after a very disappointing season has certainly left a bad taste in the mouths of alumni, fans, and even the local media. The reaction by Kovacevic isn't isolated.
For more on the Pitt head coaching search and the Todd Graham resignation, check out SB Nation's Pitt blog Cardiac Hill.