I hate Noon starts. Hate them with every fibre of my being.

That Navy game should be pretty exciting. 6 PM. Awesome.

1pm is a slight improvement over the Noon starts, but 3:30pm is ideal. Lots of time to recover from Friday night, plenty of time to tailgate.
Oh, well.

if you sit field level on the opponent’s side of the field, then you really dread the noon start with sun just beating direcly in your eyes for most of the game. I actually may opt for the cheaper endzone seats if I see there are many noon starts

Do the Pirates and their two-decade long losing streak still affect Pitt’s starting times?

Yes, the Pitt will not schedule directly against a Pirate game; in fact, note that the Pirates have a rare 12:35 start time for a home game on the 19th, thus the 6 pm start time for Navy. The Pirates have their usual start time of 7 on the 5th and Pitt starts at 1.

Note that there is a parking lot conflict and not sure what the precedent is, but I do not remember a situation where both were playing at the same time. Also note that the Steelers are playing away on the 20th and the 27th, both 1:30 starts at PNC for the Bucs.

so far not bad, no none games and a 6:00 ko for navy, i wasnt expecting that!

Two other notes about the schedule:

Steelers’ only home Sept game is their Thursday opener on the 10th and the Pirates have an open date.

And FWIW, the G20 Summit is on the 24th-25th but Pitt is at NC St on the 26th.

It’s been a terrible week so far. Water heater on the fritz and I bought a box of HIT football cards looking for a Shadie auto and who do I get?

Nemesis Mike Teel.

Is the parking situation written into a contract somewhere that allows for the Pirates to receive such preferential treatment, or is everyone in the Pitt administration missing a backbone? Starting games at noon or 1pm is a joke and leads to empty seats at the games. It is a situation that needs to be rectified and soon, my patience on this matter is running thin as I assume is the case with a majority of Pitt fans….

again note that the Steelers also avoid schedule conflicts with Pirates; in fact, they will not play on the same day as the Pirates even if Pirates play at 1:30 and Steelers at 8 … due to the all-day tailgate implication. Lots for Steeler games even starting at 8 or 9, open early in the morning for Steeler fans.

If the Steelers play a weeknight game, people who work and normally park on the north shore stadium lots cannot park there. I was previously involved in processing a parking lease for Allegheny General Hospital workers who leased spaces in the new parking garage, and the lease stipulates that no parking is allowed for the day of Steeler games, even if the game is in the evening.

Again, I have no idea what the precedent is but when Pitt and Pirates are both playing, one plays at noon or 1 and the other plays after 6 … and no one plays the same day as the Steelers.

one more thing about the parking at the stadium lots …. please note that Pitt plays there 6 or 7 times a year; the Pirates play there 81 times

The Pirates have precedence. Period. It’s part of the agreement with the use of Heinz Field. I also think that Pitt needs have their game end 2 hours before the Pirates start so that the Bucs can have room to park.

If you remember, Jeff Long promised a 3:30 ABC game for Michigan State at Heinz Field but forgot about the Pirates and had to move the game to noon.

And I’m waiting for the day the Pirates screw up an October game due to making the playoffs, ’cause you just can’t schedule for that.

And tell me again why we have a 2 games in Buffalo and 2 games at Heinz? The game against Buffalo drew 40,000. I don’t think Buffalo draws more than 20,000 to their home games.

Buffalo web site lists the Pitt game as a Game Plan telecast with a noon start.

I actually was hoping for a noon game against Y’town as I have wedding reception to hit that night and figured I could do both. I’ll still try to get in the 1st half. Navy @ 6PM is great. I’m pulling for a cold, night game against Cincy

If you had one of the breakfast sandwiches i serve for my “kegs and eggs” tailgates, you wouldn’t be complaining about noon starts.

seriously… there are more pressing things w/ the athletic dept we can bitch about. all teams, major/minor, have noon starts. at least we only have one I-AA opponent and hopefully the athletic dept can cut those out. but needing to schedule 5 OOC games will make that rough.

Joey T, I respect your opinion, but Chuck Morris nailed it for me with the first comment in this string. The intensity level of the crowds is way down for noon starts. There is just not ample time for the fans to “prepare” when we have a noon kickoff. Also the 6:00 PM start against Navy is not so hot. It should have been 7:00 or 7:30 because of the Pirates home game that day. A 12:35 game shoud be over by 3:35, the Pirate fans will then have about 30 Min to vacate the parking lots. That will leave less than 2 hours to “prepare” for the Navy game in the Parking Lots. Not to mention the traffic hassle of having one crowd leave and the other arrive at about the same time! I don’t have an official source for this policy. I just remember one year when the situation was reversed (Pitt had a Noon game and the Pirates had a 7:35 start), we were asked to vacate the Parking Lot (by Pittsburh Police) by 5:00 PM. When you have multiple facilities using the same parking lots, these things are going to occur, but I still hate it. If Pitt were to build it’s own stadium, I would not want it on the campus because there is no space there either. I would like to see it built in some place like Monroeville, on a big piece of land with giant parking lots all around it. That’s how you build game day atmosphere!

we should be able to enter the tailgate at 12:00 for the navy if you have passes, ill be pissed if we can not enter it until 4:00, if thats the case id rather have a noon ko. aside from that, what is pitt doing with the jerseys this yr, i would assume Nike would switch them up a little, although i like the unis the last 2 yrs, esp the away unis and the gold top with bluw pants.