As usual Chas, you make too much sense.

Would have preferred to see us vs Stanford or the shootout vs the Mounties.

As long as we get the strong fan turnout and a victory, the Pinstripe will be a success, if we don’t, it’s going to be a long winter.

Probably the Sun Bowl would have better from a visibility standpoint but Pinstripe it is. And by all accounts, Pitt lobbied to get it most assuredly in the hopes of replicating the Military Bowl fan interest and participation. And that is a little concerning. I know personally I was jacked for the Annapolis experience and made the trip with my son. New York doesn’t really get me all that excited about a football experience. I would probably go anyway but the Wednesday afternoon kickoff, essentially two days post Christmas, simply makes the logistics prohibitive. Family travel is going to be an issue for a lot of people who may have otherwise have considered attending I fear. I can appreciate why Barnes may have thought the Pinstripe was a great destination for Pitt fans, but he probably didn’t factor in the Gregorian effect.

Pitt will sell it’s allotment of tickets, by the way, please note one of the not so famous Northwestern grads is our own beloved Ron Cook, another reason why we need to crush them big time!!!

I understand the logic, but I think the Sun Bowl would have been better for a couple of reasons. First Stanford is a better opponent and a program with much higher profile. Secondly Pitt matches up better against a running team. Our defense is tough against the run and not so good against the pass.

If it was the Sun Bowl, I would not be attending. Because it’s in NYC and for the reason’s Chas stated, (travelable) I’ll be attending. NYC is great for Pitt alumni. About equal distant from Pittsburgh, Philly, DC and Boston … all very big Alumni hubs. I’ve attended several ACC football and basketball games now, living in NOVA, and Pitt fans do show up on the road. UVA, UMD, VT, UNC, G-Town in the BE, CUSE and Annapolis last year. All get a more than decent turnout from Pitt fans on the road. Location is key to driving attendance. Pitt fans don’t travel well to Memphis, Birmingham, TX … etc. Keep it on the east coast and Pitt fans will travel. Move it away from our Alumni hubs and you’ll have some complications.

Tossing, Have a nice time at the game. In the old days when the program was at it’s height and Pitt was playing on New Year’s day, it was a big deal. It also worked well because of the holidays. You could spend time with all the Christmas week festivities and then travel to the Sugar Bowl for the game and a few days vacation. I have conflicts this year with a son coming home for a few days for Christmas, and daughter coming in for a few days around New Year’s. I hope the Pinstripe Bowl works out well for everyone else.

Well VT was selected to the Belk Bowl. That’s not a good sign at all for Pitt if/when we are good enough to win the division. VT travels well AND got passed over by all the top ACC bowl games. That most certainly would happen to Pitt as well. Correction- that WILL happen to Pitt. We will likely not see Pitt in a truly elite bowl game again unless we win 11-12 games. That has been made crystal clear by the ACC this year. So if that’s what it’s going to take…go out and win 11+ games. Hopefully we’re not too far off.

Louisville lost its last two and was passed over by Florida State. Apparently hotel rooms, restaurant business, etc do not mean much to some folks. And if you like what happened to PSU (that 1 in 10 college grads come from)the same thing could happen to PITT. We were better off when bowls were thought of as a reward and the pecking order started at the best records to the best bowls and went down to the lesser bowls.

I think this will work out better for attendance than the Sun bowl, so great.

Chas,
Any thoughts on the Duquesne fiasco?

I’m not so sure VT travels as well as their reputation.
There were over a dozen thousand empty seats in the ACC championship game.
I’ll have 3 for NYC.

By the way (and this is a bit off topic)…I just now took notice of the fact that all of the following schools are top 15 this year (whhaaaa?): Washington (Washington!), Stanford, Hoopies, Colorado (Colorado !!!!!), Wisconsin, Western Michigan. Really folks, if these teams can do it, Pitt can definitely make it back there soon. Very strange year (putting it nicely).

JoeBro – 1 in 10 college grads come from psux?? I didn’t know that.

Oh, wait. I was thinking “Humans”. You must have included dairy cows and hogs. My bad!

It is a myth that Pitt fans do not travel. I was at the Clemson game this year and the Duke game last year and the Pitt travel contingent was impressive. Already trying to figure out what game to go to next year. Cannot not make it to NYC going to golf in SC after Christmas through New Years. If they would have been in Orlando or Charlotte I would have considered it.

Would go except it is a weekday. Why couldn’t they schedule a supposedly Tier 1 holiday bowl game on one of the weekends??? (I know I know…ESPN.) Friday would have worked for us.

At least it is a very beatable opponent, not a trap bowl game like last year. Hope the ‘Big O Show’ doesn’t get too rusty in the month off.

H2P

I wrote the other day or last week, that we would know if it’s SOP or not, by Pitt’s Bowl destination and more importantly who we got as an opponent.

Weakest Power 5 opponent we could have got. It’s not even a BigJoke team you can really hate on.

This reeks of …….

Perhaps Herman should have hired a Bowl Search Firm.

Not as weak as past bowl games….

link to triblive.com

Yea but Pitt is ranked #22 this year.

And has the #10 scoring offense in the country.
We’re coming off beating the #2 team in the country, and then a 56 point game and 76 point game.

Bowls like high scoring, exciting games.

Or at least they do with other teams not named Pitt.

Most people are at work at 2pm on a weekday.

So it won’t even be viewed by most ppl in America.

So we got this great offense, which destroys this media myth of Pitt being a running boring type of offense, etc. etc.

And most people won’t even see the game.

So a bad bowl all the way around. Venue, opponent, time of day and day of the week.

herman gets an F. Anybody could have landed this bowl bid since it’s the lowest Tier 1 bowl bid the ACC has.

Game in Bx boro, hope Krauser makes it to the game.

At least we will be on the evening news highlights. Maybe interviews with Conner. H2P

Not a fan of landing in NYC for this year, would have lived to played against mcaffrey and Stanford in the sun bowl

However if pitt gets 10,000-15,000 ppl to NYC our reputation might be viewed as getting better

If pitt continues this momentum better bowls are ahead

Pitt is so close to breaking out, I really feel we’re gonna be playing for big things soon!

Pinstripe is 40-50 minutes away. If it turns out to be a “warm” day, I’ll go. (See there are a lot of good things with global warming.)

Grab a sandwich at the Carnegie Deli before it closes forever. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and take a ferry ride back to Manhattan maybe further north. Check East River ferry schedule.

I haven’t been to the new Yankee Stadium yet.

I’ll settle for stadium hot dogs.

Anyone have any info on reasonable bus trips to the game?

@ Savannah Panther, I know that we’re Pitt fans & that we are supposed to hate all things PSU but your previous comment was uncalled for and really requires a blanket apology.
I feel compelled to offer my personal apology to the rude comment offered from my blog colleague Savannah Panther associating PSU alumni & farm livestock. I sincerely hope that no dairy cows or hogs were unnecessarily offended by such a thoughtless comment.

@ Emel, you portray yourself as a grumpy old man with all of your protestations. There are benefits & deficits to every bowl matchup, all the way up to the big ones played on New Years Day.

SOP, is dead and buried for good going forward in this current Narduzzi Era IF, IF we take care of our own business and dominate the lessor opponent in the B1G’s also ran team, Northwestern.

We’ve beaten our rival early on, came back after a two game losing skid to shock the world against Clemson, ended up on a three game winning streak, now ranked in the Top 25, prepared to ascend even higher in the final poles with a bowl victory & you’re grumbling about SOP $hit. SNAP OUT OF IT!

The only thing that matters is that Pitt wins going away at 9-4 riding a four game winning streak. That my friend, when you look at the SOS that Pitt had to deal with for this season, is what a successful campaign looks like!

Right now the only remnants of SOP that I see surrounding this program is in the entrenched obsolete attitudes of some of the individuals in our fan base.

Hail to Pitt! Knockout Northwestern!

Guys – this team won two Yuge games this year – penn state and Clemscum. Our bowl opponent, no matter who it was, couldn’t possibly top those two victories…

We (myself included) need to stop complaining about the bowl game and focus on whipping the wildcat’s tail. Some of us (me included) think the B1G Joke conference is overrated. This is a chance for Pitt to put 50 points on a team from a conference that prides itself on D.

HTP!

It is what it is. The Pinstripe Bowl is where they are going. The positive is that a lot of Pitt fans will be able to make the trip. Personally I would have preferred the Sun Bowl with the match-up against Stanford, because they are a better team and a better match-up for the Pitt defense who are good against the run. I get nervous about our defensive secondary facing good passing teams. The most important thing for the Panthers going forward is they get a win. Winning 9 games and finishing the season being ranked can do a lot for the perception of the program and pay dividends as they approach signing day

I’m not a fan of New York. I have avoided going there whenever possible. Any other city and I would be making plans. Best of luck to those that are going and thank you for showing your support.

Emel – what are you talking about? This is the bowl everyone wanted outside of a backyard brawl in the Russell. With Miami bowl eligible that was always a long shot.

Tons of Pitt fans because of the 95 corridor and Pitt alumni bases all along it. The opponent sucks but bowl committee was looking at brand recognition not records. Northwestern has a big NYC presence. Should be a fun atmosphere in the stadium.

Stanford is the better opponent but the Pitt admin made sure to push for NYC as a return favor for taking the lower tiered bowl last year. This was more a Pitt decision than a bowl decision. Neither UNC or Stanford will travel well to the Sun either so the opponent didn’t really matter and despite concerns about Pitt traveling to games, Pitt actually shows well on TV. Pitt games produce good viewership ratings.

When Pitt starts winning the Coastal then we can get mad if Pitt gets shafted. I didn’t see that happen this year.

Too many are worried about respect. Pitt has been one of the most mediocre programs of the last 30+ years … they haven’t earned respect … yet.

My concern with the bowl isn’t the who or where, it’s the when. Pitt has struggled coming off of extended breaks under Narduzzi. They lost to both ND and Navy last year after “bye’s” … and the two games after extended breaks this year, VT and Miami, were two of our more disappointing games. The looked rusty in all 4.

Good points TT, I’m also worried about the extended layoff. Some coaches do wonders with extra time, so far Narduzzi has not. We certainly don’t need another Navy. Don’t see it being that bad unless Canada takes another job in the next few weeks.

Emel is like a dog with a bone, never stops beating a dead horse. At least he seems to have given up on the fake news story.

It is time to get over the BS and prepare for the Bowl and recruit some great players.

We had a very good year by Pitt standards but respect will only be earned if we keep getting better.

Northwestern is no pushover, they beat Iowa, lost to Western Michigan by a point, and fought hard in most of their losses. Not a team to take lightly.

While Narduzzi knows Fitzgerald the opposite is true and Fitzgerald has taken Northwestern the perennial bottom feeder of the Big Ten and turned them into a pretty good middle of the Big Ten team with some very good years.

He is a good coach.

Hopefully some our defensive crash and burn was because of tired and beat-up players and the long lay-off will help them get healthy.

It would be nice to see Jarrett in his last Pitt game.

I wonder About Hendrix, Zeise, and Maddox. Whitehead is still in a cast as far as I know.

Hendrix and Zeise may be eligible for medical redshirt years, but not sure if that plays in.

TT & GC – good points again re Northwestern. And not only have PN’s teams tanked after layoffs (especially the horrendous performance against Navy last year), but this year they face possibly the big ten’s third best coach, which could make things interesting. I’m not sold that PN has a problem with regard to layoffs yet, way too early in his tenure, but if we get outplayed again vs NW, then I think we probably have an issue.

Dane Jackson hasn’t been consistent, but he’s made some higher level plays this year and seems to be coming on, I’ll be very curious to see how he performs against NW. And year, sure would be nice to see Jarrett play- this is one guy I’m going to miss next year. I really hope we’re working hard to replace him with 2 big bodies they can slowly work in…

I love Narduzzi and I’ve been patient and tolerable of the defense unlike many on here because I think I see his vision. My one concern is the bye week issue. His teams have not come out crisp after breaks. Offense, defense and special teams. All three phases have been lethargic. In my opinion, that’s on the coach and can’t be pinned on personnel and something that has to be addressed … hopefully for this bowl game.

With our defensive secondary nobody can be tak n lightly by the Panthers. We better be lathered up and ready go come 12/28 because a loss in this bowl game will be an open invitation to the naysayers to trash Pitt and discredit all that they have accomplished for this season.

Nothing could be better for Pitt’s final recruiting push than a decisive win over another Power 5 opponent in our bowl game and a top 20 spot in the final polls. Narduzzi must impress on this bunch the precarious situation that Pitt currently finds itself in. Pitt’s national perception is just beginning to change, the final impression must be a positive one to maintain the momentum that has been created by these Panthers since their win over Clemson.

A 9-4 record, a top 20 ranking, lots of post season award recognition for both players & coaches must not be tarnished by losing the final contest of this successful season.

As Coach Duzz preaches, “we have the knowledge, we have prepared, we’re ready to make a play & WE WILL WIN”

No other option will be tolerated. Hail to Pitt! Nunchuck Northwestern!

This is a good bowl for Pitt. Like Doc says, win the damn game and get to 9.

Every bowl game unless a playoff game is bad if you ask me….need to blow up the entire bowl system.

For Pitt though is should work out well….I think they’ll get a good turnout since many Pitt fans like going to NYC….just remember the crowds for Pitt at Big East.

I agree playing NorthWestern stinks..if you use USAToday rankings they are the 57th ranked team in the country…but blame the ACC for that and their weak bowl tie-ins. It’s pretty much the bowl Pitt belongs in with their record.

But Pitt wins jumps up a few more spots in last poll and hopefully is ranked in top 25 next preseason.

Then the Pitt/PSU game Sept 2017 will be two ranked teams……Penn State will easily be top 10 to start season..maybe top 5.

The amusing part about all of the bowl selection bellyaching is that it could/should have been much worse.

With Michigan getting into the Orange Bowl, that opened up the Citrus Bowl to the ACC (Louisville) which it is normally not open to and having Notre Dame out of the picture, we should have been two slots lower and assuredly in a Teir 2 Bowl.

Oh and for the record, the Russell Athletic is NOT a Tier One bowl game. It is a priority bowl like the Orange (and Citrus) when available.

Like it or not, we will have to win the Coastal and be 9-3 or to get to escape ACC Tier Jail. And regardless of some people’s post-truth opinions (aka opposite of facts), Scott Barnes has pretty much nothing to do with it. All he can do is whine about it (like we do).

PSU OC Moorehead is a hot commodity. He interviewed for Purdue and will certainly interview with Temple for a HC gig.

Is Artis still suspended?

gc – I understood it as a one game suspension.

The bowls are to make money for the local businesses. Maybe the NCAA who sets up the BB tourney should set up a FB tourney/bowl ranking.

I’m warming up to the game and I like the idea of going 2-0 this year against the B1G. It’s nice to be playing a Power 5 conference team in a bowl game and actually being favored…I don’t care what the team is. And most news sources believe that the B1G is the best FB conference this year. This is a great opportunity for us folks, believe it or not.

Northwestern hasn’t won a bowl game since 1949….we can’t be the team that ends that drought. We never do well going into a bowl game against a Power 5 conference opponent and being the underdog. When was the last time we won such a bowl game? Yeah….let’s play Stanford on the left coast with a ton of key injuries on defense…

I’m also glad that more of us are warming up to the necessity of going 9-4 and staying ranked going into LOI Day and next season for the pedo game.

@PittPT, one of the guys on the POV posted this about bus tours to the game:

link to paulsontours.com

Robert Morris 37 Duquesne 33 at the half at PPG Paint Center. Could Pitt be no 3 in the city? I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks, Jackagain . ..checking it out !

I agree. Barnes can lobby all he wants but in the end he has little control over the outcomes. Pinstripe is the best fit for Pitt. Like a warm winter glove. You’ll need that if you plan on watching them in the City.

Final Robert Morris 64, Duquesne 60. You make the call.

Pitt football #1 in Commonwealth
Pitt basketball #8 in Commonwealth (behind Dukes, Robert Morris, Pedos, Temple, Nova, St Joes and IUP)
Who says we’re a basketball school?
Football pays the bills
Too bad the Pete is half empty when we could have used that space for an OCS and Rec Center

Let’s not lose our heads, Artis is back tomorrow.

So Clemson’s defensive coordinator wins the Broyles Award over Pitt’s offensive coordinator. Got it. #43-42

They always give these awards to big shot ranked teams.

Northwestern and Pitt both played Duke, northwestern beat them 24/13.

The Robert Morris games was a let down for Duquesne, maybe?

Seems like a grassroots contingent are getting it together to rally support for attending the Pinstripe Bowl. Just read an article directed towards Pitt’s current students challenging them to get off their butts during the holiday break for a NYC road trip to support their Panthers.

Also seeing independent bus trips springing up to go to the Bowl not associated with the University’s sponsored trips. Bitch all you want but compared to Birmingham, Alabama I’m pretty sure that this host city might have a few more attractions available to the visiting Pitt fan, yah think?

There is an awesome Francis Picabia exhibit running through the new year at the Modern; ‘Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction’. Go see some Dada/Cubism/Surrealism..

Hail to Pitt