I’ve seen this pop up periodically during the offseason. This whole, let’s find a rival now that teams have switched conferences. The Pitt Athletics blog got into it last week. The choices — despite technically being 13 choices in the ACC is really only limited to seven. The opponents in the Coastal Division plus annual game with Syracuse. In almost every instance, Virginia Tech comes out on top for Pitt fans.
I get why VT has been chosen. Geographically they are within the distance. There’s history from the old Big East. And Pitt has had their number, despite them lapping Pitt in the past twenty years in terms of success.
But a rivalry has to go both ways, and this one doesn’t come close right now. Heck, at best maybe third or fourth on the list for VT fans just in the ACC.
Right now for the Hokies, the rivalry list goes: Virginia, Miami and Georgia Tech. Virginia is an obvious one. No one should dispute that, despite the recent one-sidedness of it. That’s local. Battling over the same recruits. History. The stuff that matters in building a rivalry.
Miami should not be a surprise for the Hokies. They came together from the Big East. They were battling to rule the Big East before they moved to the ACC. There’s enough history to matter.
As for Georgia Tech, the games have been tough since coming to the ACC. And they have mattered. Outside of VT, the Yellow Jackets are the only team from the Coastal Division to get to the ACC Championship game (thanks to the VT blog, The Key Play for the help).
Seeing Miami on the list of teams Pitt fans think could/should be a rival is more than a bit of hubris. Pitt hasn’t beaten the Canes since a wonderful upset in 1997. Since then, Pitt has gone 0-7. The total scores of the games: 236-79. Aside from the almost, so close, what could have been loss in 2002 (28-21) it really hasn’t been pretty. The 9-22-1 overall record against Miami doesn’t even do it justice. From 1984 on, Pitt has been 1-15 vs. the Canes. At best, Miami is a measuring stick for Pitt to see where they are.
Syracuse? As Pitt fans we have barely managed to muster indifference to the Orange in football for the past forty years. UNC and Duke are just automatic in their own mutual hate. Georgia Tech? Um, I’m struggling to see that one blossoming.
For those suggesting, oh, what could have been with Maryland. No. The Terrapins were in the Atlantic. They were going to be cross-overed in football with Virginia (Louisville was placed in their spot when they join in 2014), not Pitt. So there never would have been enough meetings to make any rivalry outside the superficial Steelers-Ravens thing.
Let me be clear, Pitt-VT will probably continue to be a game that gives Hokies heartburn. And maybe in time — and I mean at least 15 years — it will move up on the list as something like a rival with VT. But that is a big question mark.
We’ve seen this dynamic at work. Penn State has been in the Big Ten for over 20 years. Despite what some Nitters will try and tell you, they don’t have a rivalry. Not with Michigan State for the Land Grant. Not with Michigan. And not with Ohio State. The games get the ratings. They have mattered enough for standings. But PSU is not their rival. They are a distant second to Michigan for MSU. Michigan is more concerned with Ohio State and Michigan State (and until it was just cancelled, Notre Dame). Ohio State is all about the team up north.
It’s the same reason we sometimes feel beaten over the head to the point of nausea with pro rivalries like Yankees-Red Sox, Lakers-Celtics, Packers-Bears, NHL’s Original Six. They are so few and far between. Football generally lends itself more easily to rivalries given the violence of the sport and the emotions they elicit, but even in the NFL the rivalries can rise and fade quickly.
This is why Pitt-Penn State was so important to restart for longer than a simple home-and-home — and why I personally believe Penn State has been so amenable to it with the passing of the one man blocking it — what makes college sports what they are. What differentiates themselves from a professional sports league. The rivalries matter. They get the fans and the participants emotional. You have to have that or else your college program truly becomes little more than a minor league franchise.
But in college, one school can have many. It’s why so many are attempted to be jury-rigged after the shifts in conference realignment. The powers in college sports know the value of these rivals. But you can’t just declare a rivalry. It’s something everyone sees right through. It has to form and it has to be mutual.
Pitt is in the ACC in a few weeks. It is much of what we want for our school. Much of what is needed. But don’t make things into what they aren’t.
in-state rivals matter … again, PItt-PSU is a no-brainer for me
Pitt will develop rivalries when they start
beating teams on a regular basis. Upsets!
We need Upsets this year. Given the
pre season predictions Pitt will not
be the favorite in most of the ACC games.
Beating the team that is the favorite
creates fan interest and builds rivalries.
so it will become are rivalrie if we beat them
they will hate us.
Right now, PSU, and like some of the other rivalries mentioned by Chas in the ACC, I doubt we will ever get an ACC rival like PSU.
(please, don’t fool yourself by even thinking PSU’ers don’t consider Pitt still a rival. I know tons of them, many in my family, and they despise everything Pitt. They like to say OSU or Michigan, and act like they don’t care, get a couple of adult beverages in them and they’ll spill their guts. Not to mention, when the series renews, if we start off beating them a few times, not to mention also, some nasty jokes from Pitt fans that will be coming their way. Not condoning it, I just know how college tailgate parking lots are.)
JR has the fastest way to get new rivals. Become a winning program. This would entail beating some teams every year (Va.Tech 4 in a row now I believe), and also getting to the point where a game in the coastal means going to the championship game. Especially if this happens several years in a row.
Also, with winning, playing the same team in the championship game to see who goes to the BCS game. Again, especially if it happens a couple years in a row.
Also, some sort of player, coach incident or a fan incident, or a bad call that cost someone a game.
One will develop with someone over time.
If we don’t elevate our program and stay mired in mediocrity, then who really cares anyhow??
Winning is the key to all things good.
Believe me though, for the most part, they hate us. Part of their hate is the “oh Pitt, they don’t even matter” mantra.
Trust me, I had two drinking age nephews that had this mantra, then they started getting lubricated, I started talking to other people besides them about the JoePa scandal, and how Pitt’s academcis is passing PSU by.
They were right over, with the hatred (mind you, family fun hatred, but none the less, hatred of Pitt).
Add a few losses from Pitt in the next few years, and some scandal humor, tee-shirts and buttons in the parking lots, and it will pick right up.
Fear the same for Pitt in ACC, since we have little if any meaningful tradition with any of these teams, and the other teams have years of tradition and natural in-state hatred to build upon.
If Pitt/PSU becomes a home-n-home for 10 to 16 straight years, it could be the best chance either school has to having an annual rivalry game, even though it will not mean anything within each teams respective conference.
Its too bad that all the acrimony between Pitt/PSU resulted in Pitt and PSU not being willing to join the same conference way back when, and the “see nothing, do nothing” joke of a man/coach showing his pettiness and arrogance by ending one of the greatest rivalries in college football just to be spiteful.
LOL!!!
but i think the post was abought the ACC
and there it will VT.
This is why I am advocation for a renewal of the PSU-Pitt rivalry on an annual basis
Pitt is in the same position in the ACC as PSU was in the B10. Thus, I am an advocate of renewing the rivalry.
the ACC will be VT it said in ACC dont have one
i thought that was the the main point.
i must have read it wrong you and outhers can talk
abought any thing you want to. you can even change the subject . i was just saying in acc i think it will be VT.
stadiums in the ACC heinz field came in at nummber 8 out of 14 dukes stadium came in last.
As for Va.Tech, may not be a rival, but we beat em’ again down there this year, their fans gotta be saying “damn that Pitt” or worse to themselves!!!
LOL
FS is in a different div.
Just because Pitt thinks of VT as its rival, does not make it so, it only works if its mutual.
I love having them on the schedule as I have degrees from both and now have a reason to visit old haunts every two years.
his voice.
in football stoops showing how to recruit.
For Kentucky almost next to no football history at all in the last 50 years. And before that is was minimal when Bear Bryant was there before leaving for Alabama.
I don’t care how good your product is, how amazing it is, how it’s the best thing since sliced bread. If you can’t close, all those amazing features are about as useful as tits on a bull.
College football recruiting is ultra-competitive, it’s not some product sold by only one company with a gov’t contract sewed up.
Hoping that someone is going to call you, isn’t going to cut it. Unless you want a roster full of MAC type recruits. Yes they will call and will want to be at PITT.
We need to start beating the snot out of some of these teams. To the point that fan base hates us.
Which a lot did back in the 1975 thru 1984 era.
Not many are going to hate a 6-6 team that even loses to D2 teams. More like, laugh at them.
So when you get up a few TD’s, you keep scoring and win by 40 points. The reason why all the other Big 10 teams hate OSU & Michigan so much, is that they’ve lost by huge scores to them, for decades, well since the late 1960’s.
15 this year they will reach 15 before we get are second one at this rate.
I say this from the heart. The PSU was a very serious scandal.
I’m human. I most likely will not toss the first stone.
However, when I hear the first “Shit on Pitt” in the parking lot, with a couple brews in me, I most likely will volley back, “how’s it feel to be known as Tight End U. now?”.
And, I’m pretty mild mannered, so I can only imagine how ugly it could get.
If the PSU fans show remorse and respect to Pitt, I will let them go unscathed.
We all know PSU fans though, and they just can’t help themselves.
Take the high road sounds good, but sometimes, you just gotta get on the low road fast lane.
It will be up to them. No mouthin’ off, I will keep mine shut.
Again, we all know them too well.
Can’t wait!!
DW would have cleaned up in recruiting with what’s happened to Ped State and Wvcc the last several years.
We would have been the winning program with stability. What an incredible lost opportunity.
That can only be laid at one person’s feet.
Did not our idiot Ad know that something huge was about to hit the fan at Creepy Valley.
However there will be enough of his cult like worshipers in the stands and the parking lots to still work up a good visceral hatred, I would imagine.
We are Ped State !
Course Instructor:
S. Pederson
Of all the ACC teams and specifically the ones in the Coastal Division (Pitt’s division), Pitt has a Bowl Game history with Georgia Tech.
And it was in an era when the bowl schedule was NOT filled with 8-4, 7-5 or 6-6 teams. Meaning all the Bowls in that era were relevant games.
11th ranked Pitt met 7th ranked Georgia Tech in the 1956 Sugar Bowl in a game that had the racial overtones of the era. As this game was played a month after the famous Rosa Parks bus incident in Montgomery, Ala. Pitt was bringing the first racially integrated team for the first time ever to the Sugar Bowl and the deep South. Georgia’s Governor of the time threatened to boycott the game and the game turned on a penalty call on Pitt’s star black player.
Why nobody in Hollywood ever turned this into a movie is amazing.
To top it off Pitt and Georgia Tech met again in the following years Gator Bowl.
Here’s your history lesson for the day:
I think to find a rivalry and create a rivalry that we all like, we choose a school, and then consistently make fun of them over a long period of time until they think we’re complete asshats.
Once they think that, we’ll have a rivalry, they’ll want to see the asshats (aka us.) lose, and get beat down hard. We still make fun of them, but they hurl insults back now… and TA DA, rivalry?
So, I think we need to choose who we want as our ACC rivals and have at them. It’ll take commitment on our part, we might have to take a few field trips (or fund students to), to prank this school in an offensive to them (yet all in ‘good fun’ to everyone else) type manner.
Well if we’re going to prank anybody.
I nominate ….the Dukies.
Don’t think it would take much to get the whole student body and most of the alumni to get a nice hate going with those pricks. haha
He is now working out under the direction of formaer NBA star Jon Lucas, and the following is an exceprt from the article:
“The one piece of this whole process I don’t like is the automatic deference to any player from a Power Six league over a player like Zeke. Going from college to the pros is a transition for anybody. It just does not compute. They are crazy about Steve Adams from Pitt, and Zeke plays rings around him. Yet [Adams] is a top guy.”
Nonetheless, it still proves that much of the NFL draft is about potential, not about the currenst skill level
Now considering the bad things that have transpired with them, my question is how are they out recruiting us in our own backyard??????? And please let’s not be calling for SP’s head on a platter for this current lack of verbal commitments on our recruiting scene as of today. Since Pederson just got a 5 year contract extension, I would have to think that Pitt’s administration has given him a pretty solid vote of confidence concerning the performance of his duties.
Let’s hope that the football coaching staff can begin to reel in some prospects before much longer to keep the natives from becoming even more restless. Pitt MUST have a stellar recruiting class in 2014 or else we are going to be in some deep doo doo come the 2016 football season. And that season, my friends, will be the one that gets HCPC’s coaching seat very hot if he fails to bring home a successful winning season.
I’m getting nervous.
With the proximity of the schools, the history and the fact that people have kids at both schools, people on streets and in neighborhoods go to both schools, people working together that went to both schools…….
the rivalry will easily be renewed. Especially if they continue to play every year.
Also, the fact that both alums and students argue about which is the better school, with PSU always looking down on Pitt, and Pitt pretty much passing them by, won’t take much to start.
Not to mention the scandal barbs.
No worries friend, it will be heated quickly.
The Sporting News, or SI, or when of the major sporting magazines just had an article about a year or two ago, on the top ten rivalries that should have never been discontinued.
And that should be resumed.
I forget where we were, either 3 or 4, but the Pitt-Penn St. game was near the top.
Pitt-WVU was also in the top 10.
Oklahoma-Nebraska was 1 I believe. Miami-Florida was in the top 10, I believe they’ve played each other a few times like Pitt-PSU over the years.
Texas-Texas A&M, Clemson-Georgia (think they’re playing this year) etc. etc.
So, does your average Joe or Jane care, no.
But, avid college football fans know there is a history and that they should be playing.
***The article was after a lot of the expansionpalooza, and took into account rivalries that were going to go away***
ND-Mich was top. Coming to an end in a year or two.
Trying to think who else, oh, Kansas-Missouri.
I will try to find it. Hard to Google it, can’t remember which publication.
Will post when found.
Miami vs. Florida
Miami was beating the crap out of Fla., like 42-7 or something.
Florida thought it was going to the Orange Bowl with a victory. So, the Florida fans all had oranges on them to throw on the field after the game.
With a couple minutes left, the Florida fans started throwing the oranges at the Miami players and coaches. Howard Schnellenberger was the Miami coach. Really firing them at all of them.
Miami has the ball on about the Florida 20 yard line, with 30 seconds or so to go in the game.
Clock is running down, game over.
Schnellenberger calls a timeout with 3 seconds to go.
Sends the field goal unit on, and kicks a field goal!!!!!!!
LMAO. That’s a rivalry.
