He's a fairly majestic word slinger, Pat Bostick, which is a good thing to be when you're a communications major locked in on multiple diplomas.

Bespectacled and earnest as he ponders his fourth year at the University of Pittsburgh, the 21-year-old completed his bachelor's degree inside of three, so you probably shouldn't be floored when he says "propellant" and "metaphorically."

Bostick is a relief, to put it bluntly.

It's a relief, in some still-urgent sense, to know just by talking with him that academics remain a part of college football at its higher levels.

"I knew I had an opportunity to take advantage of the gift that is a scholarship," he said across a conference table Wednesday. "I know it's usually a four- or five-year deal, but when you consider the plight of a college student who has to pay his own way, I just thought it was clear that I had to take full advantage of this academically. I got backed into a corner in my freshman year. I passed all my courses but they didn't apply much to what I wanted to do, maybe because I didn't really know what I wanted to do. But once I got things figured out I decided I'd really push it."

Pushed it hard enough to be earning a second degree in media and professional communication, with an eye on the university's decorated graduate school of public and international policy.

But more conspicuously, which is too often a way of saying less important, Bostick is a relief to the people with an emotional stake in the Pitt football season that arrives just two weeks from tonight somewhere in the great Salt Lake Empire.

That strain of largely unstated relief comes in the quiet comfort felt throughout Pitt's football meeting rooms and video dungeons, felt all the way to Dave Wannstedt's office. Should the Panthers suddenly find that they have a quarterback issue in untested starter Tino Sunseri, the replacement is probably among the most respected players in uniform, one Patrick L. Bostick.

"He's a winner," offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. said pointedly. "A winner."

Bostick took a redshirt last year as the Panthers roared within a couple of points of the Sugar Bowl. Sat through enough game-planning sessions and video marathons that he probably qualifies for an associate degree in X's and O's. Never backed off even a half step in Wannstedt's program, even if the football side of his life was publicly dormant.

"It was a blast," Bostick said. "I enjoy the schematic part of football and I really enjoy being part of something bigger than myself. You have to work in obscurity. You have to be egoless. It's tough for some people to be egoless. The trick is learning to see your success in the team's success."

Yet on the not terribly rare occasions when Bostick's football work has been displayed in plain sight, it was his success that often enough led directly to Pitt's. It was Bostick at quarterback, was it not, for two of Wannstedt's most celebrated wins, the political earthquake that was Pitt 13, West Virginia 9 at the end of 2007, and the four-overtime signature victory at Notre Dame a year later?

And that was Bostick, was it not, hitting Jon Baldwin on fourth-and-6 at the Irish 10 with the perfect fade that necessitated the overtime? And that was Bostick, was it not, whose urgent plunge gave Pitt the lead it would not relinquish in Morgantown?

As Pitt jammed its 2010 training camp fully into gear this week, Bostick remained at No. 2 on its quarterback depth chart, but it says here these promising Panthers are better situated at the position than many people think primarily because he's there. Bostick is what people like to call a big-picture guy, and in his view, this picture has all kinds of clarity.

"The older I get, the more I view high school not so much as a propellant to this level as just something I did," Bostick said. "I'm proud of it, but it's like [Pitt strength and conditioning coordinator] Buddy Morris always says, this is not a ladder to professional football because the rungs are getting farther apart, meaning metaphorically. There's a place for me in all of this and I think this team is going to be special.

"We know we have a great opportunity to do something that hasn't been done around here in a long time. We have the talent for it, and we know that's not enough. Effort, study, preparation, we know sometimes that's not enough. What it takes is for everyone to do better and I think everyone here understands the process. This is the most non-clique team I've ever been around. I can walk through there and talk with every single player."

In the full self-awareness of what ought to be very good college football team, it has to be a positive that Bostick gets regarded as someone worth listening to. Because he is.

Gene Collier's "Two-Minute Warning" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.