welcome to another episode of wity CFB your host Rob Shepley here and on today's episode we are going to be discussing the breaking news of Pittsburgh athletic director Heather Lake being terminated from her role atic athletic director she's been there since 2017 and by all accounts I've been talking to some insiders who cover Pittsburgh extensively and this definitely comes as a shock too I mean they did hire Joan Joan gabal from Minnesota she's been the chancellor at Pittsburgh since 2023 so there definitely has been a little bit of turnover on that regard but from all accounts she's very well liked you know she's brought in a lot of great coaches outside of football you know men's ba men's basketball has definitely been accelerating there's a $250 million uh Victory Heights program which is primarily for the what we call you know Olympic sports or you know the non-revenue sports I guess is the better terminology but Pittsburgh has definitely been expanding on that front as well and you know in general too from from the football front I mean obviously they do play at hindes field and there really isn't anywhere particularly to put a football field near near the campus but you know over the past you know four or five years so Pittsburgh has taken a lot of strides and to really try to bring that Athletic program you know up to up to standard for the ACC obviously when they a in the Athletic Conference in the Big East you know it definitely I guess in general was sort of a more of a bottom tier conference in general but they've adapted pretty well to the ACC for the most part I think a lot of people tend to underestimate that you know Pat ardi and the Pittsburgh Panthers won won the 2021 ACC Championship you know only a couple years ago with Kenny pickets last year so it's not like Pittsburgh's been irrelevant for you know since since the early 2000s with with Dave leinad and all all of those guys so I mean it definitely goes it definitely goes to show that there's definitely been an evolution in terms of Pittsburgh sports and you know and money being definitely invested in that however I think a lot of the criticism surrounding Heather like is particularly towards the nil and the fundraising portion of being an athletic director there's a lot of you know generally speaking you know as somebody who has had family who's graduated from Pittsburgh as somebody you know I I live in Philadelphia so I'm not very far away and also a lot of my family you know grew up in the Pittsburgh area too so I I really try to follow the team as extensively as possible and you know generally speaking you know I I thought she was well-liked she conducted herself well she I think did did her best to you know try to find that balance between making sure the non-revenue Olympics sports are taken care of but also trying to get as many resources and and bringing that stability into the football program as much as possible and you know going back to kind of the criticisms or Andor where you know I'm we're only speculating here because this is relatively breaking news this just happened yesterday morning so there's still going to be a lot more details coming out in terms of the reasons why but for me at least there seems to be three different reasons why Heather L got fired this sort of you know scenario too I think first and foremost the most obvious reason that would come to mind for me is that Pittsburgh in particular has been really slow adapting to the nil fundraising era of college football now again that was probably that was around the same time that this Victory Heights program started so it's obviously not good timing that a $250 million project which is set to finish in Fall 2025 just you know goes you know goes right there too I'm sure in hindsight if they could you know scaled it back a little bit and maybe put a little bit money more money towards the nil they wouldn't be so far behind but in any event Pittsburgh's always kind of had that old school you know that old school sort of mindset where you know it's a lot of ex's and those it's a lot of you know you know trying to keep the stability even when you think of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL you know the Rooney family has been running that team you know pretty much almost sense the origins of the actual team itself so it it it's it's it's definitely been kind of that blue collar traditional Focus that we've seen from Pittsburgh and you know at the end of the day you know who who knows what's going to happen to college sports you know a decade from now but you know as it stands right now Pittsburgh compared to some of the other ACC schools such as your such as your Miami or Virginia tax or you know any of those kind of schools they definitely are a little bit further behind in the nil I mean granted you have Syracuse who is really just kind of starting to get into it you know Virginia doesn't really spend too much money in that space you don't really see Duke doing too much nil particularly because a it's a basketball school and also the academics in order to get to the school is also pretty rigorous too so when you couple all that together I I definitely think that Pittsburgh definitely could have thought there was some pressure to kind of evolve and you know get to the next level in of building up those sort of Revenue programs such as football and basketball and baseball now secondarily you know semi-related is you know her contract was set to expire a couple you know a couple weeks from now so I I suppose I guess you could have you know just let it run out but since it's pretty much public knowledge of you know when the athletic director's contracts do run up it definitely calls into question you know what what the behind the scenes are now it's definitely been heavily documented that you know she's that that like has definitely interview to other jobs particularly the two biggest names that you know that stick out were she did interview for the Ohio the Ohio state job and she also interviewed most recently for the Northwestern job which ultimately ended up going to Mark Jackson who was most recently Villanova's athletic director so I think there was a you know a part of that probably said hey you know I've done a lot at Pittsburgh I've accomplished a lot I've I've helped Elevate some of the non-revenue sports this big projects coming to fruition you know Pittsburgh just you know they won a ACC Championship back in 2021 a handful of bowl games here in there and she probably just felt like hey it's just something you know doing something new and you know trying to evolve and you know get to the next stage of her career and I I guess in a sense too being an athletic director it's you know in terms of the the ups and downs or the or you know the valleys and all those sort of things that in general there is you know sort of a lot of turnover in that field where you know schools are always going to be contacting your your people and it's really ultimately up to you to make sure that you can keep them as long as you can and you know we see that in head with head coaches in college football all the time particularly the group of five schools and the top coordinators is usually getting getting poached whether it's the group of five head coaches are getting poached to become coordinators or vice versa if the coordinators feel that they should be head coaches by now sometimes they go to the group of five schools or maybe you take a more of a you know bottom a bottom tier power power four school so it really just kind of all depends in general but I I do believe in general that she was you know searching for a new opportunity so it could you can definitely argue it it definitely sort of felt it was more of a you know may maybe the writing was on the wall and you know she knew that she was going to stay anyway but at the same time too it is certainly possible that she could she will you know pick up pick up right where she got left off and you know get another job elsewhere as well and I think the LA I think the last element of it too is you know I I I briefly touched on this a couple of moments ago but I mean Pittsburgh Pittsburgh has definitely always been one of those schools that always kind of seems to adapt towards towards the end and what I mean by that is you know they definitely are a lot of you know definitely more kind of a traditional school and you know I think maybe they kind of sat back and either had a candidate that they felt could you know fill the need better or maybe there's some behind the scenes things that are that are going on but you know from from all the sources that I've spoken to she's been very well-liked you know she's done everything possible to try to get this program as you know as good as she can but you know in this day and age of college football where you know you have the nil and you have the fundraising you have all the boosters if you're not tapping into that as much as you can it's it's definitely GNA eventually become a problem where you have you know you have your basketballs your footballs your baseballs and you're hoping that the profits from all of those Sports are ultimately trickled down to be able to cover the non-revenue sports the title 9 Sports and and kind of everything filtered in too so with that said it definitely definitely sent a big shock wave particularly at the timing of it too you know you're just getting started with football season basketball you know basketball season's coming up in in a few months from now so it definitely be intriguing to see a who who they bring in but also in terms of the stability of you know those Revenue programs as well obviously I think I've said this in my preview in Pittsburgh a couple months ago but I I do believe Pat ory is a great is a great coach I think he's an excellent motivator I think at times his recruiting could be better but I think he is a well-lighted coach I do think he's somebody that generally you know recruits do want to play for and it definitely would be a little bit of a disappointment if if they did decide to part ways with him considering that he has shown you know unlike maybe the past couple Seasons he has shown an ability to to adapt by you know by bringing in Western Carolina's head head coach to run the offense now and we even saw we even saw that when they're playing Cincinnati too we definitely saw a lot more spread looks you saw Eli hordin being able to run out of the pocket and be mobile and definitely spread the field that way