Wannstedt back at Pitt

The first coaching job Dave Wannstedt wanted may turn out to be his last one.

Wannstedt was hired at alma mater Pittsburgh on Thursday, a week after taking his name out of consideration because he wasn’t yet ready to get back into coaching after leaving the Miami Dolphins in early November.

Following his initial talk with athletic director Jeff Long on Dec. 13, Wannstedt remembered one of his first staff meetings as an assistant on Pitt coach Johnny Majors’ staff in 1976.

“I was at the end of the table, and I was a little upset — probably because he made me make the coffee,” said Wannstedt, a former Pitt tackle who once blocked for future Heisman Trophy winner Tony Dorsett. “I said to myself, ‘Someday I will be the head coach at Pitt.’ I’ve thought about that for a long time.”

Now, the former Dolphins and Bears coach takes over a program that isn’t quite at a level with that 1976 national championship team, but is vastly improved from the one predecessor Walt Harris inherited in 1996.

Majors went 12-32 during his second and less-successful stay at Pitt from 1993-96, but Harris has since taken Pitt to six bowl games in eight seasons and is 25-12 over the last three seasons. The No. 19 Panthers (8-3) play No. 5 Utah (11-0) in the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl, Harris’ final game before leaving for Stanford.

Cincinnati takes down Marshall

Gino Guidugli returned from a broken throwing hand and passed for 231 yards and two touchdowns in Cincinnati’s 32-14 win over Marshall in the Fort Worth (Texas) Bowl.

Wearing a padded glove on his still very swollen right hand, which he injured on Nov. 20, Guidugli completed 24 of 36 passes on a bitterly cold night.

After his only interception, which Marshall (6-6) returned for a score, Guidugli completed 10 straight passes and 14 of 16 in the second quarter. He threw both TD passes in that stretch to put Cincinnati (7-5) ahead to stay.

The Bearcats overcame a 2-4 start to finish with a winning record for first-year coach Mark Dantonio, the former Ohio State defensive coordinator.

The bowl was their last game as a Conference USA member before moving to the Big East next season.

Leinart named AP player of year

Matt Leinart found a comfort zone this season.

No longer worried about losing his job, the easygoing Southern California quarterback became the unquestioned leader of the Trojans. He performed the job so well in his second year as a starter, he also became the Associated Press player of the year.

“A year of experience opens up so much,” the Heisman Trophy winner said. “You’ve been around. You’re a veteran. You’ve been playing for a year. You can get so much better in a year or so.”

Leinart has completed 66 percent of his passes for 2,990 yards and 28 touchdowns, guiding the top-ranked Trojans to an Orange Bowl matchup with No. 2 Oklahoma and last year’s AP player of the year, Jason White.

Big Ten wants replay for everyone

The Big Ten’s experiment with instant replay went so well the conference is asking the NCAA to approve its use on a permanent basis for all of Division I-A. The Big Ten hopes its proposal will be heard by the NCAA Football Rules Committee at its February meeting.