Arrington: PSU-Pitt series "I love it .... a beautiful thing"
- Thread starter grg78
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I graduated in 70 and of the 10-12 friends I still keep in regular contact with, none want to play Pitt. Five of us are from Pittsburgh. The choice is not between Temple, or Buffalo, and Pitt. It's between Texas, or LSU, and Pitt. To make room for Pitt we have to give up a candy ass game. Sure Pitt would be a better opponent than Temple, but I can name 20 nationally known teams that would draw more interest, at home and nationally, than Pitt. We are a national team. Pitt is a regional team. Let's go out and get the best opponent we can. That is not Pitt.
To be fair, nc's are not an exact science and obviously not a solid comparison method, psu was undefeated in 94 remember...
Probably the greatest streak of futility going these days is Pitts 33 straight years with 3 or more losses, that is the definition of irrelevant..
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anon_is9z1n0h3zblb
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P5 teams that are better opponents than Pitt, by conference, for our one remaining home and home each year:
PAC-12: All of them, A trip to the west coast is a much more attractive game than Pitt, even if it's Oregon St or Washington St. Although I couldn't really argue with people that put Colorado on the same level as Pitt.
Big-12: Everyone but Iowa St, Kansas and WVU. Wouldn't mind WVU dropping off our future schedule either.
SEC: Everyone but Kentucky. Vanderbilt would be on this list also if it wasn't for Franklin.
ACC: This is the only conference with a sizable number of teams that are as sucky an opponent as Pitt. So, no Wake Forest, Syracuse, BC (not really as bad as Pitt but tired of playing them also), Virginia (unless they finally give us the trip to Happy Valley that they owe us).
Add Notre Dame, Boise St (although that will never happen) and maybe Air Force or Colorado State, and there are 60+ years of home and home games available that are more attractive than playing B5.
There are also teams, such as Northern Illinois, that we would never do a home and home with that would have more interest to our fan base than Pitt.
Duh. We've been over this. It isn't about playing Temple, Buffalo, or Army over pitt. It's about playing LSU, fsu, Alabama, etc. over all of them.
So far I haven't seen any of those elite teams (LSU, Notre Dame, Alabama, etc.) popping up on our future schedules. If that happens I'll change my mind... however, if we are going to be fed the type of teams that we have been playing for the past 10-15 years... I would rather play Pitt than any of them (Temple, Army, etc,,,)
It's what we as alumni and fans want and expect of the athletic department, but we obviously have no control over it. We aren't satisfied with Temple, Army, or Buffalo, but we aren't satisfied with pitt either. We desire better opponents.
pitt is no better for the schedule than Temple, Army, or Buffalo. Just because Penn State had a rivalry with pitt over 30 years ago doesn't make pitt a good opponent now. Penn State needs to schedule better opponents.
I guess you don't understand how college scheduling works? Those games were scheduled long before he became coach.
As someone said before I had a chance to read this post, PSU technically was NC in 1994 if we are going by Pitt Standards. Regardless, your point is not relevant to the topic at hand. The point is that Pitt fans want to recognize history when they talk about national titles, but ignore it when talking about where to play against PSU. When PSU won their last NC in comparison to Pitt is completely irrelevant.
I'd much rather play Pitt than SDSU, Buffalo, Army or Temple. Maybe alternate the series between Temple and Pitt each year but one of them should be on the schedule. I hate, hate our schedule of OOC recently. Just awful and no I don't care about "getting the wins". Everyone who travels to SC and pays hard earned money wants to see a game they care about watching. And if your care about 107,000 strong you should care about this issue long term. It will support the program's attendance long term even if you think Pitt is unworthy. There will be interest. Just look at the number of threads it generates each year.
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anon_is9z1n0h3zblb
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Once again, having Pitt as our home and home is not "instead" of the teams that you name, especially now that our 1 for 3 with Temple is over. Why do people continue to bring up a false equivalency to argue their desire to resurrect a non-rivalry that is now ancient history? If Pitt wants to come to Happy Valley as a pay day game then you can compare to Buffalo and Army. And SDSU is a better game than Pitt.
I bet some people here still get a woody over the Lambert Trophy which is even less relevant than Pitt football.
I agree, playing a good team nationally makes sense for recruiting purposes nationally. We need to be able to pull in top players from all over the country. We are doing great in our region, but could do a lot better nationally.
I hope you're not holding your breath waiting for Bama, LSU, Oregon, Notre Dame, Texas, and USC to show up on the OOC schedule. Because you won't live long enough to see it. V Tech and WVU are as good as it's going to get. If you think otherwise, you haven't listened to what Franklin has said.
What Franklin said makes sense now. Maybe not so much three or four years from now. The strength of the Big Ten is also a factor to consider. Right now it is on the way up, so there is less need to play a difficult OOC game.
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anon_is9z1n0h3zblb
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In 2016, our conference schedule has Maryland, Purdue, a fading Iowa, Indiana and Rutgers. Bottom feeders all. There will also be Minnesota who may or may not be able to keep up their success of an amazing record of 2 years in a row of winning records. A non-conference schedule of Temple, Kent St and Pitt, of which Temple will probably be the best of the three teams because the only two playmakers on Pitt will most likely be gone to the NFL. So, our hopes of not being laughed at by the selection committee ride on OSU, MSU and the hope that Michigan can also turn it around.
2017 may or may not be better for conference scheduling in that we swap out Purdue and Minnesota for Nebraska and Northwestern, but not by much. And our OOC schedule actually gets worse in that we trade Temple and Kent St for Akron and Georgia State, two of the worst G5 teams.
2018 Wisky and Illinois replace Nebraska and NW, but we still keep Iowa for the third year in a row. But Wisky will at least give us a decent team from the West. Appalachian St and Kent St join Pitt in OOC.
Every year we play at least 3 stiffs in our division and 3 teams in the significantly weaker west division. The strength of the B1G being enough to make the playoffs is a fallacy to bolster weak arguments. OOC scheduling counts. Just ask Baylor.
Well, there you go. This will help our national recruiting. http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/082815aaa.html
It would be a guaranteed 107k strong every time they play in SC. We are getting much less than that when we play the teams we are playing now.
As far as I am concerned, 1994 was a national championship season. When was the last time Pitt had a team that good? As far as that goes, when was the last time Pitt had teams as good as 2005, 2007 or 2008?
That was Tradition. The Pitt - Penn State game was the only rivalry game PSU has ever had. I miss it and it goes back to probably being a generational thing. The guys that are under 50 years old never saw how great it was to have a real rivalry game.
You've got to be kidding.
I guess you've never heard of "guarding the lion" and the history behind it. While technically every team you play is a rival, the Pitt/PSU game was only good for about 6 years while Pitt was cheating. Anyone who went to a PSU game at Pitt saw how terrible it was to have a "real" rivalry game. Penn State has had more good games recently with Ohio State than ever with Pitt. Is it Rivalry with OSU? I don't care, it's all semantics.
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I'm 62. I couldn't care less if Penn State ever plays Pitt again.
It's more like seeing the chick you went out with for years at the supermarket and realizing that even though your wife is nice you should have never stopped having a relationship with the lady in shop rite.
Dude it took Penn State years before it finally got the upper hand in the series. Learn your history before you fly off the handle. You hate Pitt. I get it.
That just makes you a real piece of shit for thinking about your wife that way.
Topic predicable as weather..at least once a month and still worthless for true PSUers.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I want to see them play for my selfish reasons. I just like these kind of games.
Yo where did that come from. Relax man there was no need for that. You are taking this too far. We are just having a discussion here. Also don't shoot me with some morality play like you can label me because I used a hypothetical. There was no need to say that EPC. I know you have no love for me but that was below the belt.
PSU has four conference home games in 2019. Idaho and ASWP brings the number to six. To make seven, it's either another tomato can or the home end of a two game series with a good opponent. Scheduling ASWP long term just reduces flexibility in bringing other teams on board. Bad enough when there are only three non-conference games with which to play and you want it reduced to two!?!
All my buddies in the southeastern part of the state which is said to not care about the rivalry want to see it renewed. Some people want it and some people don't.
Calm down man, I obviously know my PSU history better than you, including the 96 games against Pitt. Just because Pitt was the better team at the start, obviously they had the upper hand for a while. Another irrelevant pointless diversion by you, because Pitt leading the series back in ancient times doesn't mean any of the games were actually any good. Please stop wasting our time, you have a hard-on for Pitt, we get it.
I'd rather beat Pitt than play games vs Idaho, Georgia State, Temple, UMass, Buffalo, Akron, etc. I'm not saying replace an opportunity to play LSU, Texas, etc. (which isn't happening anyway) with Pitt, I'm saying replace these crap games NO ONE wants to watch with Pitt. At least a good number of people want to see that game.
If you think bringing in Idaho preserves some sort of chance of starting up a series with USC, you're nuts. Just wait for the announcement of a MAC team. Or, when all else fails, we'll just schedule Temple again.
The caveat, as I've always said, is Pitt has to accept a 2 for 1, otherwise it won't work for us.
