Noon. Seriously…. noon. WOW. We really do suck don’t we. What are they trying to do?? Forget tailgating. Forget the students showing up.

At least Eastern Michigan is at 6PM so we can actually enjoy the college football experience on one saturday this fall. Then we’ll quickly be back to Wednesday night football with Navy. I’m losing all patience.

The Grambling game at Noon isn’t that bad but MSU at noon? I guess we’re scheduling strangely to get on TV so I can’t complain too much but I would have loved to have a few more night games so as to create more buildup.
Also does anyone know if Fox Sports Pittsburgh shows the basketball and football games? I am thinking of upgrading my package. Thanks ahead of time.

Wait a minute. Noon’s an odd start time, despite it being a traditional kickoff time for years, but 6PM isn’t?

I’m just saying 3 or 4PM would be better than noon for a game like that. Considering the stadium isn’t located on campus anymore, noon is not ideal for a low interest game like Grambling.

Alot of the student fans that don’t really care about the games will either (A) sleep in and not bother going down or (B) get down in time to tailgate all afternoon and never make it into the stadium.

Horrible home schedule this year. there will be nobody at the Grambling game regardless of when its played. At least it wont be on tv to embarrass the university or fans.

I agree with Dan35. If there is no hope whatsoever that a TV network will pick up the game, then at least make it a good tailgating game. Even 1:30 or 2pm would be better than NOON.

I’m loving the 6pm EMU start time.

Fox Sports Pittsburgh shows a lot of the early (Nov./Dec) basketball games that are ESPN+ regional broadcasts, so if you’re already getting those it’s just an overlap.

No football games, though.

No doubt they don’t want to rain on the Pirates, seeing the juggernauts they are…..

noon starts are pretty normal, and i bet most students show up to the grambling game. we are Fairweather U, it should be a nice day, and we’ll be 1-0 (hopefully). when i was there that was usually enough to get the students at the tailgate parties pretty early.

i bet that game sells out easily, everyone ive talked to wants to go just to see grambling’s band.

Matt, grambling will sell out??? You are smoking some good stuff my friend.

Matt, you must think Grambling is going to bring 30,000 or so fans?

You know, I kid and mock as much as anyone, but unless it’s obliteratingly bad weather, we always get at least 30,000, even with teams like this. That’s not terrible, especially considering it’s been nearly thirty years now since we were truly an elite program (!). And we’ve usually sold more than the number of attendees. The problem is that such a number looks worse than that in our cavernous stadium, as it did in Pitt Stadium. I’m absolutely NOT saying it’s good enough, or good at all. For a program that wants to be considered Top-25 caliber every year, it’s bad. Just that it’s not really much worse than many mid-pack schools from the more ‘impressive’ conferences. And our National TV ratings tend to be decent. If this program could just get off it’s butkus and put together a lightening season (and sustain it, like hoops has)… the fanbase is there and it’s hungry.

i thankfully dont live in pittsburgh anymore, but from what i hear from pitt fans up there, people seem to be excited to see the grambling band. we’ll see how it goes, but with good weather id be shocked, SHOCKED if attendance is under 45k.

i wasnt around when we were an elite (11-1, 10-2 a season) program, but from what my dad tells me even back then we wouldnt sell out pitt stadium every game, just for nd, psu and wvu. compared to michigan and ohio st our attendance doesnt look like much, but as far as city schools go, its fairly impressive. miami, tcu, south florida, ucf, houston, rutgers, bc, ucla and ariz st are all schools in/near big cities, and none of them are filling stadiums every week. the only one i can think of in a city that does is USC. so overall, the attendance isnt as bad as it looks.

USC has trouble filling up too…..for the little games anyway, even with as much success as they have had lately.

HOLY CRAP!!!! USC plays in the Coliseum which holds 92,000+ Are you actually comparing pitt attendance to that??? Listen, matt is going to be shocked!!! No way there will be over 45,000 for the Grambling game!!!
He also said “people are excited to see the grambling band” – this is college football people, not a freakin band competition. It is a SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS when the highlight is to go a see a band………

I attended Pitt in the early 80’s (my first year coincided with Marino’s last). The crowds definitely weren’t SRO and you could see pockets of empties in the endzones for many games, it’s true. But that said, the crowds were still significant, 50,000+ most of the time. Considering the frenzy of Stillermania still going on, plus some really challenging (read “crappy”) economic times for many in the area, not too bad.

And contrary to even my romanticized memory, while there were more ‘name’ schools on the schedule when we were independent, there were dogs then too (The service academies when they were bad, Louisville when they were bad, Temple, Rutgers, etc.).

In this area, the competition for the casual football fans who didn’t go to college is huge, and they are key. Alumni alone aren’t enough for us. We’re competing with Penn St, WVU, ND, Ohio State for allegiance. Urban kids also tend to like Miami, Florida State, USC, Michigan, etc. more than you’d see in rural areas.

And of course, the association with the Steelers may help us in recruiting and lower our operating costs, but the overwhelming fan lust for the Steelers hurts us more than anyone will admit. Non-Pittsburghers just can’t imagine. Many football fans in this area are in total Steeler mode starting the minute they leave work on Friday. Many reserve every fall Sunday completely for the Steelers, from morning through dusk, and then evening news higlights and “Sports Showdown” shows. That cannot be discounted. For that reason, all the ‘honey-do’ stuff must happen on Saturdays (as a Pitt season ticket holder and Steeler game attendee when I can, I can attest to the challenges to fitting both into my fall weekends).

Plus, I truly tip my hat to the students who attend despite the inconveniences of having to get to the North Side (and especially the drudgery it appears to be to wait for buses to return, especially when the weather stinks).

All of this makes a 65,000 seat venue about 15,000 too many for us.

There is a 7PM Pirate game the day of the Grambling game. At least Jeff Long appeared to check their schedule this year, unlike last year with the Michigan State fiasco. The only other conflict would be…hmmm….that Weds. game in October versus Navy could run into a Pirate playoff game, I guess…..

I know we’re all hurtin for Pitt football coverage and today we’re in luck. CFN’s pitt preview is out.

link to cfn.scout.com

Thanks Chris, that was a good wednesday afternoon read. I noticed they listed Jeff Otah as a senior, is he a senior already? seems like he just got here.

Sam, yes USC plays in a mega stadium…..but they are 1. Very good and 2. Have a city about 50 times larger than ours. The point was city schools have trouble filling.

[…] a while now and he’s yet to do something that really gets him in our good graces. TrackBack URI |   6comments […]