PITTSBURGH - When Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko sees the 650 area code pop up on his cell phone's caller ID display, he knows immediately who is on the other end.

It's Walt Harris, calling from Stanford University to check on his protege and friend, to discuss football and, specifically, playing quarterback. A year ago, Palko ran Harris' West Coast offense at Pitt; now, the two maintain a West Coast-East Coast relationship.

Palko, who enjoyed the best sophomore season statistically of any quarterback in Pitt history, hopes it's a coach-player relationship that will continue even though the coach no longer is his coach.

"We're very close, and we got closer as we had more success because the trust factor was there," Palko said. "I talk to him once or twice a month and we stay in touch. He'll always be a good friend of mine because of how close we were, and I wish him the best."

Despite taking Pitt to five consecutive bowl games and six in eight seasons after inheriting one of the nation's worst Division I-A teams in 1997, Harris was pushed out at Pitt late last year. His former agent, unhappy with the lack of contract extension talks for Harris, may have sealed Harris' fate by suggesting Pitt could never be one of college football's upper echelon teams.

Curiously, those remarks came only a few weeks before Pitt upset Notre Dame and West Virginia during a late-season surge that sent the Panthers to the Fiesta Bowl, one of the BCS bowl games. Knowing he wouldn't be back at Pitt, Harris took the Stanford job but still coached the Panthers in the bowl game.

Athletic director Jeff Long, who thinks Pitt can be a top-tier team on a consistent if not an annual basis, subsequently hired former Dolphins and Bears coach Dave Wannstedt as Harris' successor. Wannstedt is a former defensive coordinator in the NFL and at several major colleges and thus won't have the daily relationship with Palko that Harris did. Harris served as his own quarterbacks coach.

Palko was rough and unpolished at the start of last season - he threw for only 49 yards in the season opener against Ohio - yet by season's end was one of the nation's top passers. His 3,067 yards as a sophomore surpassed the 2,876 Dan Marino had during his Heisman Trophy-caliber junior season in 1981, and Palko was the first to throw five touchdown passes against Notre Dame. He finished with 24 touchdown passes and seven interceptions, an unusually low number of pickoffs for a first-year starting quarterback.

Harris, a former New York Jets quarterbacks coach, clearly played a major role in Palko's rapid progression. As a result, Palko values Harris' insights and ability to teach, and plans to tap his knowledge whenever time permits.

"Coach Harris and I went through some rocky times early in my career, you know, personality conflicts, but I think it's because we probably have the same kind of personality when we came into it - we both want to win," said Palko, himself the son of a successful high school coach. "We both have hard heads and thought we were right all the time. But I had to understand it's going to take time."

That's why Palko will always have time for Harris and, he hopes, vice versa.

"You have to play phone tag sometimes because of the three-hour time difference," Palko said. "But I'm sure we'll call each other. He's going to be fine out there ... but I still want to check in."