PITT-Penn State Could Be Top 5 Rivalry

42-39…..You say that around any group of PITT fans and you will most likely get a loud “LETS GO PITT!” chant going.  Say that score around a group of Penn State fans and anger will soon follow.  And yet, when you hear the leadership of the Penn State Athletics Department speak, it sounds like they don’t view PITT as a rival.

Barbour told reporters back in May that “the Power 5 slot” in PSU schedule is filled thru 2025, which would apparently be the next time the PITT-Penn State rivalry would be played after 2019.  And that just isn’t right in my opinion.  PITT-Penn State could be a Top 5 Rivalry across the country and be played every year just like Florida-Florida State, Auburn-Alabama, North Carolina-South Carolina and Texas-Oklahoma.  I would not hesitate mentioning this rivalry with those four because it means just as much to college football fans in Pennsylvania, as well as Nationally, as any of them.

But, every time Barbour speaks you get less optimistic that it will continue beyond 2019 without a break.  Looking at the Power 5 teams Penn State has scheduled, Does Virginia Tech and Auburn bring out the passion like PITT does among their fan base? No, probably not, other than they are big schools that will get a little national coverage.  Now, Penn State plays West Virginia and that will for sure get a lot of National coverage because it’s the same situation as PITT.  West Virginia, PITT and Penn State fans obviously dominate this region and the fan bases want to have bragging rights over the other two, but when they don’t all play each other it’s kind of hard to do that.

I understand why you have the smaller schools on Power 5 School’s schedules, but does a game against a Sun Belt Conference team for example get the Power 5 School’s fan base going?  No offense to the Sun Belt Conference, but no probably not.  Power 5 school’s should be allowed to schedule 1, maybe 2, but lets stick with 1 smaller school, cupcake as fan bases like to call it, on their schedule.  If Power 5 school’s played each other outside of conference more often, the team that wins those games would put themselves in great position for the college football playoff and the team that loses has a lot of work to do to make up for that loss and stay in the conversation.  And that would make college football even better for the fan bases and more profitable for the school’s.

Just take a look at last year’s “Keystone Classic”, PITT defeating Penn State kept them out of the college football playoff, no matter what excuse a Penn State fan comes up with to try and say otherwise.  And Penn State had to play from the outside looking in the rest of the season to get back into the conversation of being selected to the playoff.

But still, the famous line you hear coming out of Penn State leaders and their fan base is that they are “Unrivaled” (or “PSUnrivaled”), which is the biggest load of crap you will hear from any college or professional sports team ever.  Maybe, and I emphasis Maybe, they could of said this back in the 1980’s and it would of still been questionable, but they definitely can’t say it now because they just aren’t as good as they were back then.

The next line you hear came directly from Penn State Head Football Coach James Franklin when he was hired and said they would “Dominate The State.” Now, let’s take a step out on the ledge and say that wasn’t aimed at Temple, sorry Owl’s fans but it just wasn’t.  That was a shot at the University that call’s Southwestern Pennsylvania home and we all know it.  And we know that Pat Narduzzi may not make direct reference to this publicly, but we know that this motivates him when out recruiting across Pennsylvania.

Barbour also told reporters back in May that, “I wish our fan bases could treat each other with a little more respect, and that’s something that Scott and I were working on, and I know that Heather and I continue to work on as well. It’s a great state for college football.” Now what could she possibly mean by the “I wish our fan bases would treat each other with a little more respect” comment?  I was at the game last year at Heinz Field and you would think that since it was the 1st time the teams had met in 16 years that the fan bases would be a little more rowdy and disrespectful toward each other.  But, in fact I didn’t see anything close to disrespectful among the fan bases.  Also, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary between the fan bases that you wouldn’t see at any other college or professional sporting event.  Yeah, you had some chants back and forth between some groups of fans before the game and you had the dueling chants in the stadium during the game and all that did was enhance the fan experience at the game.

Now, could she be referring to the group of PITT fans that came to the game with “Joe Knew” shirts on.  Ok, if I was in that group of fans and looking back on that, probably shouldn’t do that again.  But, like I said, I was there and what I saw from both fan bases was respect and just wanting to see their team come out with the victory.  It was nothing different than what you would see from fans in any of the other rivalries I mentioned at the beginning of the article.

What I really want to see in the near future is PITT, Penn State and West Virginia play each other every season.  And from a PITT fans perspective, I would say open up the season against West Virginia in September and close out the season against Penn State in December.

Point being, what I saw/heard leading up to the return of the “Keystone Classic” last season and what I have heard since, this rivalry needs to be here to stay because the fan bases of both schools want it.  It gives one fan base bragging rights for an entire year and the other fan base has to stew in the loss until they get their next shot at them in the next season.  Penn State’s leadership needs to wake up and realize their fan base wants it every year and PITT’s leadership, led by AD Heather Lyke, and fan base is ready to make it happen.

And finally, obviously both schools are making money off of it because they both restricted the game to season ticket holders only and won’t allow fans to just purchase the game as a single.  So, Money and Passion are two key contributors in anything done by college athletics departments and that is what this rivalry provides.

I’m curious to see what fans think of the rivalry? And how they would make PITT, Penn State and West Virginia play each other every year? Is it as simple as one team will play the other two in September and one team will play the other two in November-December?