I'm sitting around tonight watching ASU throttle Illinois in Todd Graham's second game in Tempe. Everything the Sun Devils do seems to work. As I watch this blowout and marvel at the high octane offense that Graham and Norvell have been able to put together, I can't help but wonder what went wrong for Pitt.

Truthfully, Graham's lack of success last year was not all his fault. He had to deal with a roster that fans probably felt was more talented than it really was, the shambles of a recruiting class lost due to other coaching changes beyond his control, and most notably, probably, a roster that fit the offense he wanted to run like square pegs in round holes.

Still, Graham is gone and seems to be having the type of success we could only dream about at Pitt after seeing his offense sputter time and time again last season and after two of the most disappointing losses in recent memory for the current Panthers to FCS school Youngstown State and Cincinnati.

So what's so wrong with Pitt? Why is it that time and time again we shoot ourselves in the foot as a football program? Is ASU really that much more talented than Pitt? Are we ever going to be able to turn this around?

After two very disappointing games, I'm far from ready to throw in the towel on Chryst. I think he's most definitely the right fit for this job and I believe that given time he will be a successful coach at Pitt. Still, I think that in the last few days I have realized that his tenure as a coach at Pitt is perhaps more important than any we have experienced in a long, long time.

At this point, Pitt still has some name recognition with recruits. McCoy, Fitzgerald, and Revis are all stars in the NFL and at least lend some credence to the notion that our program is capable of landing top talent and helping them advance to the NFL. Still, these players aren't going to be around forever. At some point, after enough losing, Pitt could easily become an after-thought to the very high school athletes necessary to turn this program around - that is if you don't already believe that's where the program is at.

We fired a relatively successful coach who brought in respectable recruiting classes and are on our third full-time coach since then. Even though we really only have one season post-Wannstedt, we have an abysmal record in this time period and it looks like it will only continue to get worse as the season progresses. How we do in the next three years is going to say a lot about where this program is headed. We really can't afford for Chryst to flop or for Pederson to get trigger happy again.

We're a long way from Marino and Dorsett and someday soon we'll be drifting away from Fitzgerald and McCoy as well. If we can't produce in the near future I feel it's going to be a lot more difficult to get that star bright again.