From Blue-Gray Sky, it is all about the rivalries. This is football, so the choices are limited. The questions are a little more involved than they appear, hence the further details

1. Who are your rival(s)?
West Virginia. It is the Backyard Brawl. They hate Pitt and we look down upon them like the backwater bumpkins they are. During the games, a favorite chant is, “Hoopies rape Sheep!” 75 miles separate the 2 schools, but the cultural divide is far greater.

When old Pitt Stadium was around and I was an undergrad in the late 80s, there was a chain link fence dividing the bleachers in one endzone. This served to separate antagonizing fans who would shout obscenities back and forth throughout the games. After a while, the empties — cans, bottles, whatever projectile could be found would start getting hurled back-and-forth. Inevitably some idiot would get enraged and drunk enough to decide he would scale the fence and take on his antagonist. Almost with out fail it was one of the inebriated, inbred hillbillies. As he would scale, he would get tangled in the fence and forcibly dragged down and pummeled by the waiting Pitt fans who were equally inebriated but not as stupid. Hey, the Pitt fans still had teeth that weren’t worth losing.

2. Size up your chances in your rival games this year.
Slightly Above Average. It is frustrating to actually respect the rival’s coach, but I respect Rich Rodriguez. He is doing a very good job with the Mountaineers’ program. He gets the entire team up for the Backyard Brawl, because as an alum, it really matters to him. In recent years the series has see-sawed (4-4). Neither team winning more than 2 games in a row. This year’s game is in Morgantown on a Thursday night. Given the way family grates for most on Thanksgiving, this could be very dangerous for the fans. I expect the Morgantown police will be out gathering couches from the porches for 2 weeks prior this time.

3. If you could start up a new rivalry with another team, who would it be?
Multiple answers here.

We should be playing Penn State annually. The fact that the old man cancelled the rivalry and refuses to renew it out of spite and vindictiveness has been hashed, re-hashed many times here.
Many Penn State fans reflexively defend their coach and his pettiness by saying Pitt was the one who refused to join Paterno’s Eastern Conference dream in the 80s — even if history reflects there wasn’t much support for that dream much beyond Rutgers and Temple. In their view if Pitt had signed on, everyone else would have fallen into line. Right.

I grew up on that rivalry. Both my parents are PSU alum. I chose Pitt. Sparks flew every fall. It mattered in the state. Now it fades. Penn State fans now try to claim that they don’t need it or any rivalry game (which is a good thing since they don’t have one).

I think where the best potential for a new rivalry will be with UConn. UConn and Pitt have been going at it fiercely in basketball for the last 4 years. There is real potential for it to carry over to football if their program continues to develop.

Louisville is another possibility, but they the teams have only met 8 times. The last time being 1994.

4. Overall, what do you think the best rivalry in college football is?
I want to say the Wagon Wheel between the Zips and Golden Flashes (Akron and Kent), but I haven’t started drinking yet.

I hate to have to admit this, but it is the Ohio State-Michigan game. The vitriol and hatred is so strong. It is impressive, despite my urges not to.

5. Lastly, game trophies. What are the best and worst rivalry trophies out there?
Best: I’m partial to most anything involving symbols of alcohol. Unfortunately, Kentucky “retired” most of its trophy games titled for alcohol — Beer Barrel (Tennessee), Bourbon Barrel (Indiana).

I’m going to have to go with Paul Bunyan’s Axe — Minnesota-Wisconsin. Sure it’s a little cheesy and ridiculous. But you have to go with trophy where there is a potential to cause a decapitation and mayhem. Seriously, have you ever watched those players start swinging that thing around after the game? It’s a wonder there hasn’t been a Chris Hanson incident.

Worst: This is easy. Pick the Land Grant Trophy — Michigan State-Penn State. This one was created for them when Penn St. joined the Big 11. They made MSU their rival, because there was no other team to use. This is one of my favorite quotes to describe the players passion:

“The only thing we know about the trophy is that it leaves a big empty space in our trophy case when we don’t win,” Penn State senior offensive lineman Matt Schmitt said.

Hate when that happens.

Lamest Attempt: A few years back, the Hoopies alumni association offered up some ancient moonshine jug as a trophy for the Backyard Brawl. There was no interest.

As I warned, I have more to discuss on the newly released non-con for basketball. I’m going to compare it to last year’s non-con. This was last year’s non-con with the RPI of the teams from 2003-04 and how they ended in 2004-05

2003-04 RPI ————- Team ————–2004-05 RPI
322 ——————— Loyola-MD ————- 315
321 ———————– Howard ————— 322
249 ——————- St. Francis – PA ———– 203
234 ——————— Coppin St. ————— 151
217 ——————- Robert Morris ————- 224
216 ——————– Bucknell —————— 64
189 ——————— Penn St. —————- 227
162 ——————— Duquesne ————— 259
47 ———————– Richmond ————— 150
45 ——————— South Carolina ————– 90
32 ———————– Memphis —————– 109
————————————————————-
184.91 ——————– Avg. RPI —————– 192.18

Not only was it a bad schedule to before the season started, buy it looked even worse at the end. Readers who have endured by rants over the past season know how much I hated that schedule.

Here’s the 2005-06 Non-con with the RPI from the end of this past season:

Team —————– RPI

St. Peter ————— 164
Robert Morris ——— 224
Maine —————– 174
St. Francis (NY) ——- 261
Auburn —————- 137
Duquesne ————– 259
Penn St. ————— 227
Vermont ————— 26
Coppin St. ————- 151
South Carolina ——— 90
Wisconsin ————- 14
—————————–
Average RPI ———– 157

Obviously, the simple raw numbers suggest a better non-con. Other important features. No games against a team in the 300s. Image-wise alone, this is important. Last year, Pitt scheduled 6 of its 11 non-cons against teams with an RPI above 200. This year, only 4 and 3 of them — Duquesne, Robert Morris and Penn St. — are natural games for Pitt to play.

The variance between the best and worst has shrunk as well. Last year 32 to 322, a range of 290. This year, 14 to 261. A range of 247. No this is not Indiana’s non-con of last year.

It’s an improvement. Maybe not a vast improvement to where I would like, but it is progress. From a perception standpoint alone, it is much better. Pitt is getting more games against teams that may not be upper-tier but are teams that can play and occasionally surprise — Maine, Vermont, heck even Coppin St. was a lot better than expected last year.

On the issue of lack of away games, that is still a work. Pitt only plays away from the Pete twice, and one of those is just down the road at Duquesne. To some degree, the athletic department has been upfront about needing to play a lot of home games to help pay for the Pete. Consider, though, that the school will have at least 3 away games next year — Auburn, Wisconsin and Penn State. For most upper-tier schools, there are usually only 3-4 away games.

At least there are signs of finally understanding this.

Time for the Levon Kendall in Canada post.

Canada broke away from Greece in the 4th quarter to win 73-61. Kendall led Canada with 14 points. Once more, no box score to be found so no real context to put it in or to know how he did on the other numbers.

This is just a tune-up for the FIBA U-21 championships in Argentina that starts next weekend.

That seems to be the response to the new Pitt basketball non-con as reported in the papers.

With Pitt’s non-conference basketball schedule receiving as much scrutiny as any team in the country the past several years, there was a movement within the athletic department to upgrade the level of opponents so the NCAA selection committee would have less ammunition to downgrade the Panthers when it came time to seed NCAA tournament teams.

Pitt’s non-conference schedule, released yesterday, addressed some strength-of-schedule issues, but another aspect of the schedule that has drawn criticism remained the same.

That other issue is the fact that Pitt has only one game that takes them out of Pennsylvania, nay, out of Pittsburgh.

Apparently AD Jeff Long actually got involved in the scheduling to try and raise the level of opponents. (An implication that Coach Jamie Dixon wasn’t going to change the approach to non-con scheduling?)

The other story focuses heaviest on the New Years Eve game against Wisconsin.

Technically Pitt’s schedule has 2 Big 11 teams, 2 SEC teams an A-10 team and a good mid-major opponent. If you didn’t know the foes, it would seem like a pretty rugged non-con.

A brief update on the pursuit of Darrin Walls, the Woodland Hills Senior from Pittsburgh. Pitt is not leading for his services, but he isn’t writing them off. Pitt remains in the list of 5. He has scheduled an official visit to Florida, which would appear to lead. Then it is ND and Michigan. USC is 4th, recruiting hard, including the daily handwritten letter thing. Pitt is at the end, but not out of it.

“I really like Pittsburgh a lot and I’ve been looking at them more and more lately especially with their recent commits.”

As long as Pitt hangs around there’s still hope.