Game for Saturday against VT in Heinz Field has been announced.

3:30 pm. ESPNU coverage.

Here’s the bad.

Pitt’s offense is utterly, completely and without a doubt. Completely one-dimensional.

Pitt’s defense cannot stop a good passing game.

Pitt is still not even bowl-eligible at 5-4.

Now the good.

That single dimension of the offense is really, really good.

Pitt likely doesn’t face another passing offense as good as even Duke’s over the remaining three games.

Pitt is 4-1 in the ACC and alone in first place in the ACC Coastal Division.

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(For Immediate Release)

CLARIFICATION ON TV CREW FOR NEW ERA PINSTRIPE BOWL

(Bristol, CT) Due to the number of questions, ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports, wishes to address the surprising number of questions that were directed to the ESPN Media Zone with regards to the announcing crew of the New Era Pinstripe Bowl. Following the press release of the announcing crews for all of the 2016-17 college football bowl season, there was much reaction to Mike Golic and Mike Golic, Jr. serving as co-analysts in the booth with game caller Ryan Ruocco and sideline reporter Paul Caracaterra.

The combination of the co-host of ESPN’s morning radio show Mike & Mike in the Morning with his son is in no way a stunt or nepotism. Mike Golic is a well-respected voice in sports and we feel that Mike Golic, Jr. is a rising star in the broadcast of college football.

This decision was made with the full support of the New Era Pinstripe Bowl organizers and sponsors.

“When ESPN approached us with the idea of Mike Golic and his son working the game from the broadcast booth, we were very excited,” said Pinstripe Bowl Executive Director Mark Hozman. “The idea of two Notre Dame alum and partisans talking about Northwestern and Pitt seemed ideal.”

“Northwestern is located in a suburb of Chicago,” Hozman continued, “The epicenter of Notre Dame subway fans. The idea of not being able to escape Notre Dame references and discussions of Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly for even one game has to be a tremendous incentive to attend the actual event to avoid hearing such sparkling conversations.”

“For Pitt fans, Mike Golic only reads quick summaries of teams in the AP top-10 to effect a knowledge of college football. This year, that includes Penn State, who we fully expect him to confuse with Pitt during the game.”

“You don’t want to hear these morons? Buy a damn ticket,” added New York Yankees Chairman Hal Steinbrenner.

I have no big complaints about Pitt going to the Pinstripe Bowl. Well, other than 2pm on a Wednesday.

The Sun Bowl would have had the amusing storyline of the epic 2008 game against Oregon State, and a “name” opponent from the Pac-12. But it is not a bowl game for travel (for any ACC team), and the whole “Pitt doesn’t travel to bowl games” gets reinforced.

The Russell Athletic Bowl would have been a solid destination game in Orlando. Plus the storyline of the Backyard Brawl would make it extra compelling nationally. The downside, though, would be Pitt’s pass defense against Holgorsen’s offense. That allegedly came into play in the bowl officials calculations. Which I would love to take offense to, but… I just can’t.

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I was trying to decide what I wanted to put up on a rainy Sunday afternoon (at least rainy here in MD) and saw a great Sports Illustrated article written in Oct 1962 by a previous Pitt Chancellor, Dr. Edward Litchfield, about the national debate if Grant-In Aids (athletic scholarships) were a good thing to have on college campuses.

This intro below is a personal bit about why this article strikes my fancy.  The article itself is the other audio bar.

Here is the body of the article – excuse the small mistakes if you will, I’m not a professional at this.  I especially like the contrasts between Litchfield’s descriptions of Pitt athletics then and today’s state of college football.  There are some great points made here – especially some timeless ones that hold true today.

Hope you enjoy it!

“Camel Driver” – try putting that on a kid today!  I also love that we stole almost a whole opposing team –

Far back in 1903, for example, out-university felt mortified to have been defeated two straight years by the football team of little Geneva College. Football in those days seldom made much money at the box office but many colleges recruited passionately, simply because they found defeat unbearable. In the wake of our losses to Geneva, corrective action was deemed imperative and there seemed only one surefire way of seeing to it that we beat Geneva the next year. We took it.

We lured to our campus most of the Geneva players and the following season, 1904, defeated Geneva 30-0. During the balance of the decade Pitt football teams lost only 13 of 71 games. Now what sort of boys were they, do you suppose, that could be proselyted so frivolously? Because many of them have passed on, we were able to trace only 17. Of that number, four were physicians, five dentists, two attorneys and one a Ph.D.

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I had plans once, man. Dreams. I was going to the Military Bowl. An old friend and I were going to drive to the game today, with our kids. Then drive back the same night. Two middle-aged dads, four kids ranging from 7 to 13.  What could go wrong?

Well, both of us getting the requisite time off from work had some fits and starts. By the time we got it worked out, the tickets had been sold out through Pitt a few times over. Looking into aftermarket options to get a block of six tickets proved more than a little cost prohibitive.

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The disadvantages of playing in the Military Bowl are obvious.

Considered a second tier bowl, by all standards.

Daytime, weekday game: Monday, December 28 at 2:30pm.

Being passed over by the ACC tier one bowl partners for teams with lesser records — two of whom Pitt beat head-to-head.

Opponent that is not from one of the other four major conferences.

An opponent that is hardly a rare occurence for Pitt in Navy.

Playing virtual road game in the bowl by facing Navy in Annapolis.

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Pitt-Houston. Interim coaches all around.

Noon start on a Friday on ESPN. Hope you took an extra day off from work. That or you are like me trying desperately to get the work done as early as possible and get home just in time.

Pat Narduzzi will be on hand for the game. He was asked after the Cotton Bowl, and made it clear that he would be attending.

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Hope everyone had a good one. No Pitt coaches appeared to have been arrested on the final day of 2014, so that is always a positive way to end the year.

It is nice to feel like we are starting the new year with some sense of optimism and hope. Hopefully the hangovers are at a minimum.

I’m feeling pretty good this morning and enjoying a mid-morning mimosa. Would have preferred a Bloody Mary as the morning drink, but mixing them up is too time consuming and I’ve yet to find a mix that I really like. If this is the biggest problem I have today, I think 2015 is off to a good start.

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There are many advantages of being in a major conference. The TV money is usually listed at the top. Don’t forget the backing of that major conference when it comes to shoehorning a team into a bowl.

Plenty of mid-majors were bowl eligible. Some with better records than a bunch of 6-6 teams from major conferences that had more eligible teams than tie-in bowls.

Pitt was among those in the 6-6 mediocrity. Still, they get to have one more game. The seniors get one more chance to notch a victory. The coaches get to have more practices and start preparing even more underclassmen for 2015.

Pitt is heading to Ft. Worth for the Armed Forces Bowl.

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Year one in the ACC was a mixed bag for football and basketball. The teams finished about where they were expected before the season began. How they ended up there, made it feel like it could have been better.

What isn’t in dispute is that the money was a lot better right from the start.

Pitt’s annual share is about $17 million.

After almost a full year in the new conference, where has that money gone? Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson said he decided to put it in the hands of the people who knew best what various sports needed to be successful.

“Basically, what we did at this point with additional revenue is we’ve let the coaches put that into their recruiting budgets and their travel and competition budgets,” Pederson said in a meeting with reporters earlier this month.

“We tried to make sure that our coaches had enough money to recruit the way they felt they needed to recruit, and so they got significant increases in their recruiting budgets — some cases more than others — then also in their travel and competition budgets so that they could go to meets and games that they needed to play or bring teams in here that they wanted to play.”

The money also has, at least partially, allowed Pitt to make capital improvements to facilities for its flagship sports. This summer, the men’s and women’s basketball team areas in Petersen Events Center are undergoing a renovation. The football weight room at Pitt’s South Side facility also is getting a significant expansion.

And I’m sure some is being set aside for the eventual increase in the total cost of scholarships if the stipend or other methods are passed for the major conferences.

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I have to start with this, because I swear, I may have written or read something exactly like it after the UNC game.

The Falcons fell behind early thanks to breakdowns in all three phases of the game, then forged an impressive second-half comeback, only to see the University of Pittsburgh kick a field goal with 1:17 left and claim a 30-27 victory in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.

Hell, if Pitt had lost this game we could have pointed to key breakdowns of our own in all three phases of the game.

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Are there still reasons to angst? Oh, hell yeah.

Do I care for at least a day?

No. No, I do not. Tonight and tomorrow, I’m going positive.

I don’t care if it was “only” a MAC team in Detroit that Pitt just beat. I don’t care if it was “only” a minor bowl game. It was a win.

Pitt was undermanned on its offensive line as it was for most of the second half of the season. Pitt lost its starting QB for the entire second half. Devin Street couldn’t go. Pitt had an officiating crew that did its best not to call penalties  that might have gone Pitt’s way for most of the game (two offensive linemen blatantly tackling Aaron Donald and no call?).

There were the key breakdowns in special teams and defense that we have come to expect. The offensive line couldn’t pass protect — per usual.

Yet, Pitt came away with the win.

James Connor did everything he could to carry Pitt to a victory. Chad Voytik got through the shakes to show why he will be the starting QB. Tyler Boyd is Tyler Boyd.

Pitt was a 7 point underdog by kickoff. Still, the Panthers came away with a win and it didn’t have to happen in Birmingham.

There’s 7 weeks of angst for signing day. Plenty to worry over for the team up to and through spring practices. But, I’m going to enjoy this for a little while.

Man, getting home in time will be tight. That means keeping this brief so I can get crap done to make this work.

6pm on ESPN.

Focus continues to be about ending the season with something resembling positive energy.

A few weeks back, Pitt coach Paul Chryst said he was talking to redshirt senior nose tackle Tyrone Ezell when Ezell recalled the Panthers’ most recent bowl win, a 27-10 victory in the BBVA Compass Bowl against Kentucky to end the 2010 season.

Ezell was a redshirt freshman on that team and told Chryst what it felt like to end the season with a victory, the sense of accomplishment and positive momentum heading into the offseason. It’s something that the freshmen, sophomores and juniors have not experienced, with the past two seasons coming to an end with a 6-7 record and a loss in Birmingham, Ala.

The Panthers have a chance to put a positive cap on the up-and-down 2013 season today when they play Bowling Green in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.

“There’s a big difference in our room between going 7-6 and 6-7,” Chryst said. “There’s a lot of reasons. The senior class, they want to finish it out right and I think they want to send the young guys into next year with some momentum. Every team’s the same way. Bowling Green’s probably got the same mantra. We’re looking forward to going up, getting one more chance to play and our goal is to play the best game we’ve played to this point.”

Not that anyone is implying the effort was less than 100% in the past two years in Birmingham. Well, maybe it’s being implied a little.

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From a storyline, perspective this bowl has all three.

Merry Christmas everyone.

I still don’t have a handle on this day. I’m Jewish, which meant Christmas was just a really dull day other than watching NBA games on TV. The wife is Christian, though, so there has been a shift in how I have to treat the day. I’ve been doing Christmas with her family or just her and our kids for 17 years (Holy crap! It really has been that long?). You would think I would have a better approach by now. Yet, I still find myself looking at what movie theaters are open and something else to do. At the very least, I shouldn’t let myself whine about it any longer. Yeesh.

Okay. Time for a media run-through. There’s a bowl game tomorrow evening.

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It’s been over five years since Bowling Green upset Pitt to start the 2008 season. Yet some of us still remember that loss vividly. Quite a set of bookends to what otherwise should have been a very positive year. Start with a loss to Bowling Green at home. End with a 3-0 shutout in El Paso. 9-2 in between. Amazing how easy it is to forget that 9-2 part.

For Bowling Green, this is also a return to Ford Field, where they upset Northern Illinois in the MAC Championship — and cost the MAC a lot of cash by knocking NIU from an at-large BCS spot.

So far Bowling Green has sold roughly 7,500 tickets for the bowl game, and the Falcon players said they hope a large crowd of BG fans will have the same effect it had two weeks ago.

“The first drive of the MAC championship game, the D-line couldn’t hear my calls,” Lynch said. “It was a mess that first drive; it’s loud in there.”

Goble confirmed Lynch’s words, adding, “I messed up a call because I couldn’t hear what the linebackers were saying. We didn’t need to bring any ‘juice’ to that game.

“And it was exciting to see all the orange. In fact, that will be one of my favorite football memories: Being able to go up to the stands and [interact] with fans that were leaning over the brick walls.”

Not sure what Pitt’s ticket sales are doing at this point, but I’m guessing Bowling Green might have a slight edge in crowd.

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