The River City Rivalry might actually take on full-fledged meaning after today. Especially when you factor in how good the Cinci basketball team is looking. That, however, is something for another day. This is about beating the Bearcats today.
Hopefully the open thread will be light because so many people are at the game. Those of you stuck outside of the ‘Burgh can carry the load.
I’ll be tweeting during the game as usual.
Will Face ACC Team on Dec. 26 in Charlotte
From a big picture perspective, I don’t know that Pitt will ever travel well. At the very least, it would require a run of great years and a return to national prominence. The fan base here is so diluted with the Steelers and Penguins fanatics that its hard to convince people there is an alternative unless the team is near the top. They want a consistent winner and if they can’t get it with Pitt football, they’ll find it somewhere else. Pitt basketball has been a beneficiary of this mentality lately.
There’s a lot of apathy in the fan base, too. Granted, I’m one of them, but for reasons stemming more from frustration and bitterness than anything else – I just had to get away from it. I would offer that much of the apathy stems from the fact that Pitt is (like most city campuses) a commuter school. There are a LOT of students that attend Pitt that leave campus as soon as their last class is over. They don’t take part in anything extra-curricular and many have never been to a game a Heinz Field. Pitt has just never had that close knit, campus feeling; it’s gotten better over the last ten years, but I’m not sure it will ever be able to compete with the smaller, campus-centric schools in terms of game attendance.
Lastly, there’s not a ton of money in Pittsburgh. Sure, there’s some wealth, but the upper-middle class is smaller here than schools near other, larger/growing/trendy places. It’s still a working-class town mentality, and its hard to get people here to travel to visit family, let alone for a college football game. Steelers fans are the obvious exception to this, but beyond that, people don’t even like to cross rivers around town for a night out.
Sucks, but that’s the way it is. If Pitt would have won the last two games, I might have been tempted myself to head to New Orleans or Miami, because I would have had them time and could have made the schedule work. Both cities are a blast, win or loose. The Car Care bowl is logistically impossible.
Bottom line is that 10 teams play for the national title every year – and ANY BE team will NOT be among them unless all 10 of them falter and the BE team goes undefeated. By evaluating success by national championship is unrealistic.
Did Pitt make money this season overall from football? That is what the Golden Panthers and the Administration are looking at. If so, the program is successful. That is what college football for 100+ programs in division 1 are all about anymore.
Having the best talent? Are you serious. Pitt obviously has some great skill position players but did you watch the secondary all season? And Pitt wasn’t even in the top 25 going into the regular season.
Pitt lost to a below average NC state team. The losses to Cincy and WVU sting and are both games that could have been won, but you still can’t complain about ending up 17th in the country after the regular season.
go grab ’em gentlemen.
I will be there rooting on the Panthers. It will be fun to shut up all of the Tarhole fans(and The local newspaper here).
Iam excited about the future and proud to be a Pitt Fan and Alum.
Might go to Charlotte–definitely wouldn’t go to Alabama.
Mark, I was mad, but I’m not going to remain mad and be a jerk about it forever because, at the end of the day, it’s a game and being a fan of it is fun.
We’re in the Car Care Bowl. Yes, it’s not the Sugar Bowl we’d hoped for. But I don’t care what any of you say, it’s better than the effing Papa John’s Bowl.
What happened the last two weeks is behind us now, nothing we can do about it.
Let’s make the most of what we have, and root our boys on as they try to get a 10 win season. There’s a lot of teams that would love to be playing for a 10th win right now, and I’m gonna have fun cheering for the Pitt Panthers in their attempt to do so.
If you want to keep bitching and bemoaning the state of the program over stuff that’s over, that’s fine I guess. I’m for one am going to enjoy our last game as fans with this group and leave it at that.
Maybe that’s why RU didn’t get the Charlotte Bowl…their fans are utterly classless and boorish.
Buck up, all…Hail to Pitt!
PS. I thought Jarred Holley played a heck of a game. He had to be so many places at one time he couldn’t be at all places at one time. And his absence on special teams hurt the special teams coverage. Let’s not forget he’s a redshirt freshman and will be anchoring the defensive backfield for 3 more years.
