Excellent! The Notre Dame-Pitt Game for October 11 is going to be televised on ESPN, and more importantly will be a 6 pm start time. Plenty of time for a big tailgate, and I don’t have to be on the road to Pittsburgh before 7 am.

Pat challenges Lee and I as to our opposition to the Big East’s reported plan to expand to a 16 team league.

The main problem with this planned Big East conference, is that it is still very unstable. There would still be a sum total of only 8 football programs. This is simply too small a size for a BCS conference now. How happy do you think the SEC and the Big XII would be to give the Big East an equal shot when they have 12 teams to fight through? Same with the Big 11 and the ACC. I used to think that the Big East would have a shot at keeping its exclusive bid, but now I can foresee a change to make it so that the Big East would have to share it with the Mountain West and possibly the WAC conference. This would mean a fight with 20-30 odd schools for one bid. Not so great odds.

Another aspect of the instability is that conference raiding/expansion isn’t done yet, and the Big East schools will be cherry picked. The ACC will add a 12th member in the next year, and you can bet it will be an offer to a Big East school. That school will and should jump off the sinking ship, for the safer and more lucrative deal. Higher exit fees will not be much of a deterrent. Do you think the Big East would still get a bid if Boston College, Syracuse or even Pitt was out of the mix? Who would replace that school in the Big East? Temple? Memphis? East Carolina? UAB?

There is also another expansion possibility in the Big 11. They can talk all they want about how they have no interest in expanding to 12, but sooner or later it will happen. They may be holding out for Notre Dame, and people can talk about how Notre Dame may change its tune when it’s NBC deal expires; but if you have ever talked to the alumni and boosters of ND, you know that it isn’t going to happen. They are passionate/insane about maintaining their independence. Eventually the Big 11 won’t wait any longer. At that time Pitt or Syracuse will get the call. You can bet either will jump.

The bowl money will also start to dry up with only 8 teams. The Big East currently has tie-ins (with Notre Dame) to 4 bowls. It is, to be kind, highly unlikely that the Big East will be able to produce enough teams with winning records to qualify enough teams to fill the slots. Considering how poorly most of the Big East schools travel to bowl games, the Big East could quickly lose one maybe two of the tie-ins.

Over to the basketball side. You are talking about a 16 team conference with 2 eight team divisions. That is a scheduling nightmare for a league and a bad layout. A conference schedule is 16 games. You are faced with the choice of playing every team once and one team twice; or playing everyone in your division twice and two different teams from the other divisions each year.

Then try on how the conferences will look for competitive balance (and this is how it would look according to the reports):

Football
Pitt
UConn
WVU
BC
Syracuse
Rutgers
Louisville
Cinci

Basketball
Georgetown
St. John
Providence
Villanova
Seton Hall
Notre Dame
Marquette
DePaul

No question it would look like one of the deepest and strongest b-ball conferences in the country. It would also get killed in getting teams into the NCAA tournament. Last year, 7 of these teams got in (with BC and Seton Hall just outside the bubble), and 5 from just one division. The selection committee would/could not go more than 6 if they were all in the same conference, because there just wouldn’t be enough slots to pick more than that from any one conference — even one with this many members.

The so-called lucrative TV deal for this basketball conference wouldn’t be so great when split 16 ways — not to mention the difficulty of showing many marquee games — that is unless the Big East pitches the rule saying all teams have to be shown at least once on ESPN/ESPN2.

No, the problem with this plan is that it is too small for football, and too big for basketball.

[Also published in Sardonic Views]

Inevitably it seems that I read something along the veins of this article every year.

This, I submit, is a very good thing for college football. The sport needs USC to be good. Needs Notre Dame to be strong. Needs Oklahoma and Alabama and Michigan to be competitive.
…
And the sport is stronger when those schools with the most powerful histories and traditions are strong, and not struggling. It’s fun to see an outsider charge into the big room and challenge for a championship, like Virginia Tech did in 1999, but college football’s touchstones are in places such as Austin and Norman and Columbus.

Every year it sets my teeth to grinding.

Part of it is the sheer arrogance in believing that college football and tradition only belong in certain places that are still producing winning teams. I don’t read any stories about the grand old days of when Fordham, Columbia and the Ivy Leagues ruled. What about poor old Rutgers, one of the true founding schools of college football? Haven’t heard much about missing the great old Southern Methodist University teams.

Part of it is the elitism in denying that college football doesn’t or shouldn’t become that big in other places — that they are less worthy for some reason. Sure schools like Virginia Tech and Florida State have built top-tier programs, and they have created rabid and fanatical fans, but that doesn’t mean they have any right to be treated like Nebraska, Penn St., Oklahoma, Michigan, Ohio St., Texas, or Notre Dame. Why, the nerve!

Mainly, though, it annoys me because what it is really just a chance for sportswriters to get lazy and pretentious. Who cares about really analyzing and writing about a present team, when you can just bask in the comparisons to teams of yore. Or to write about the great old traditions. They write their flowery prose with dreams of dime-a-dozen sportswriting awards, and fantasies of a Pulitzer dancing before them. Never noticing that they are writing the same generic piece that has been written dozens of times before in dozens of cities before.

And when things go south, the same writers quickly turn on the “storied programs” by bleating about how overbearing and unrealistic and arrogant the fans, alumni and boosters are in daring to compare today’s situation to the days when Bryant, Schembeckler (sp?), Hayes, Rockne, Osbourne and so on strode the sidelines. As if.

Spare me.

For yet another perspective on the Pitt win over Texas A&M, it is time to look at what is being said in Texas.

Well, here’s the positive spin on allowing 5 touchdown passes:

Here’s the good news: You can’t call Texas A&M’s secondary untested any longer.

Most of the blame for this loss went on the offense blowing it in the red zone.

Texas A&M enjoyed lots of big plays, gaudy stats and momentum-building moments in the first half Saturday against No. 17 Pittsburgh. Everything except lots of points on the scoreboard.

So the Panthers capitalized on the Aggies’ inability to capitalize by running away with a 37-26 win in front of 79,116 at Kyle Field.

Though some knew who was really to blame.

A remarkably mediocre defense, [former head coach] R.C. Slocum’s legacy to A&M, buckled in the second half again. Two quarters from an upset, the Aggies allowed four second-half touchdowns in a 37-26 loss to No. 17 Pitt at Kyle Field.
…
On defense, the Aggies have nothing close to their skill level.

Given A&M’s tradition and recruiting base, that should not happen. Blame it on the talent drain that began on Slocum’s watch.

Of course part of the problem seems to be a second consevutive game where there is a total meltdown in the second-half.

Four games into the season, A&M’s finishing kick has been more like a kick in the teeth.

Continuing a season-long trend, the Aggies melted in the second half Saturday. This time, No. 17 Pittsburgh overmatched Texas A&M and eased to a 37-26 victory before 79,116 at Kyle Field.

The Aggies were ahead 13-9 at halftime, but that lead vanished in the third quarter. The Panthers had two consecutive 80-yard drives to start the quarter and added a third touchdown after an A&M turnover to go ahead 30-13.

Pitt quarterback Rod Rutherford passed for five touchdowns, three of them to Larry Fitzgerald. Although the Aggies had 544 total yards, they were outgained 295-241 in the second half and outscored 28-13.

In four games, Texas A&M (2-2) has been outscored 83-44 in the second half. In the Aggies’ last three games, it is 75-27. Both Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh had long drives to open the second half, setting the tone for a defeat.

Give the sportswriters in Texas credit. They didn’t sugarcoat the loss. They didn’t make excuses. They came out and wrote that Pitt beat A&M .

I was reminded about how useless the college football polls are once more. Oh, I think they are mostly accurate in the top 5, but after that, it’s a joke and a crap shoot depending on the team’s “name” and the “name” of the team you played that week. Pitt beats Texas A&M in College Station and moves up one notch in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll (to #18) and two spots in the AP Writers Poll (to #15). Fair enough, I suppose, though I wouldn’t have minded seeing Pitt get a little more of a bump for winning in College Station.

Now, take Purdue which beat a pretty bad Notre Dame team, at home. They move from being unranked in the ESPN poll to being #23 (the AP had them at #22 and kept them there). How about Minnesota hanging on to beat a Penn State team that had only beaten Temple and Kent State in Happy Valley: ESPN — from #20 to #16; AP #24 to #21. Tennessee, who was at home needed 2 or 3 overtimes to beat an unranked South Carolina team, moved up a notch. Florida gets some incredible luck to barely beat Kentucky and moves up in both polls from #25 to #24.

On the other side, TCU beats a bad Arizona team and falls 4 spots in the ESPN (#17 to #21) and 1 notch (#19 to #20) in the AP.

I’d say they don’t matter, that only the BCS when it is released is what counts, but these two polls count 50% towards the BCS rankings.

I did not see the game.

Those wonderful ABC regional telecasts decided that the Cleveland area should be subjected to the Notre Dame-Purdue spectacle. I probably could have found a bar with a dish and enough TVs that they could have spared a monitor for me, but then I would hardly have been in any condition to evaluate the game by the end — after the first half, I probably would have been seeing red, and drinking like it. Instead I watched Notre Dame lose and contented myself with the knowledge that I was serving as advanced scout on Pitt’s next opponent; while waiting for updates and occasional calls to Pat and Shawn regarding the game.

I did end up catching ESPN College Game Day Scoreboard at 7pm and the late edition.

The early edition was illuminating for the, shall we call it, effusive praise of Walt Harris — especially by Mark May (Pitt alum) and Kirk Herbstreit. The phrase “offensive genius” was bandied about by the two of them.

The late edition with just Mark May and Trev Alberts to comment was more rational. Mark May, while still praising Pitt, really had some questions about the Pitt defense. He pointed out that the Pitt D has allowed almost 1100 yards over the last two games. Let me also point out that except for the opener against the Golden Flashes, Pitt has allowed at least 20 points. Statistically, it seems clear that Pitt could have easily lost this game but for the turnovers. Texas A&M lost the ball 4 times on fumbles and interceptions to Pitt’s 1 interception. Otherwise, Texas A&M ran and passed for more yardage (kind of reminds me of when Pitt lost to ND last year).

Tight End Kris Wilson, was again underutilized –only 2 receptions for 33 yards.

At first, I was a little annoyed for Pitt to have a bye week this soon — after starting the season a week late — but given injuries to several starters — Brockenbrough, Miree, Claude Harriot, Lewis Moore and Justin Belarski — this looks like a good time for a break.

I’ve got to say, that this was a very important win for Pitt, not just because of their rebound from last week’s loss and the fact that they actually made some second half adjustments. No, because this game meant more than last week’s game. Last week’s loss actually doesn’t look so bad insomuch as it was perceived nationally as just part of a fantastic weekend for the MAC. Pitt was just one of several top teams that lost to MAC teams that day. Toledo actually looked respectable (up until they laid an egg against the ‘Cuse).

No, this game was important, because it was a game Pitt could have lost and wouldn’t have been a big shock to lose in College Station to a decent A&M team. This was the kind of game Pitt needed, a win on the road against a quality team.

UPDATE: Looks like the issue of the defense is being picked up as a concern.

Absolutely stunning. We just crushed Texas A&M 37-26. And one question just keeps racing through my mind…

When the hell did Walt Harris and his coaching staff start making effective halftime adjustments?

I mean, at halftime, we were trailing 13-9. Texas A&M had pretty much dominated us all afternoon, aside from a few flashes of brilliance from Larry Fitzgerald. Pitt Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoades apparently forgot to prepare our defense for the option (I mean, who the hell would have ever suspected that a Big XII team would run the option?). Worse yet, Rhoades apparently forgot to teach anybody how to tackle anything. On the offensive side of the ball, Rod Rutherford was way off target — frequently missing wide open receivers. To be honest with you, I had pretty much given up on Pitt at that point.

But then a completely different Panthers squad emerged from the tunnels after halftime. Apparently Harris had finally watched the tapes from the Texas A&M/Virginia Tech game last Thursday, and had realized that the Aggies had trouble defending the run. Despite the loss of starting tailback Brandon Miree, the Panthers started successfully ramming the ball down the Aggies’s throats (especially with Polite). This forced the Aggies to leave our receiving corps in man-to-man coverage, and shortly thereafter, Texas A&M’s wheels just fell off under the aerial attack. The Panthers scored 21 unanswered points in the third quarter, and easily held off a comeback attempt by the Aggies in the fourth.

I have never seen such a complete mid-game turnaround by a Pittsburgh Panthers football team. We went from being dominated to dominating in the time that it took Texas A&M’s camouflage-wearing marching band (dorks) to get on and off the field. Walt Harris and his staff on the offensive side of the ball outcoached the living hell out of Dennis Franchione at halftime… and this despite Harris’s long-standing record of stubbornly making literally no halftime adjustments whatsoever (to my frequent and bitter frustration).

(Just in case I’m painting too rosy of a picture here, however, the Panthers’s defense continued to reek AFTER HALFTIME. I’ve never seen a team miss so many easy tackles. And I suspect that if we hadn’t knocked Aggies Quarterback Reggie McNeal out of the game, they would have continued to successfully run the option against us. I have been very disappointed in the job that Paul Rhoades has been doing for us all season long. This game only reinforced that. Of course, to be fair, Rhoades had lost both Claude Harriot and Lewis Moore to injuries for most of the game.)

But the crux of this whole game was and is that Larry Fitzgerald is Almighty God… er… well, at least a half-diety like one of Zeus’s illegitimate children to some earth-bound Greek slut. Even Musberger couldn’t shut up about him. That Willy Mays basket catch for a touchdown in the midst of three Aggie defenders was the most freakish thing that I’ve seen a receiver do since Cris Carter retired. Fitzgerald must have finished the day with at least 135 yards, although his official stats have not been posted yet. This kid, who seems classier than I’ll ever be, has got to be a legitimate Heisman contender now.

So as far as my picks for this week went, I got the Pitt game way wrong (and I couldn’t be happier about it). I think that I’m going to have to throw in the towel on the Toledo/Syracuse game too. The Rockets are currently down 27-7 in the 4th quarter. Perhaps that win in the Glass Bowl was a freak after all. Ether way, I refuse to believe that Syracuse anything-but-sucks this year.

But my Minnesota Golden Gophers came through for me by sticking with their running game and powering the ball down Penn State’s helpless little throat when it mattered in the fourth quarter (Minnesota 20, PSU 14). Nevertheless, the Nittany Lions showed some heart in this game, and that scares me. After most of Penn State’s tailbacks and wide receivers proved worthless yet again, Quarterback Zack Mills got hurt, backup Michael Robinson came in, and suddenly the Lions had a legitimate scoring threat… a running quarterback like Michael Vick… albeit a slower, white bread version. Either way, the Lions came up JUST short yet again.

So I went 1-2 on the day, taking my season record to .500 (9-9). I might take the week off next week, as I’ll be on a cruise ship on my honeymoon. Besides, both Pitt and Ohio State are idle. In any case, I sincerely doubt that anybody really cares.

Hail to Walt Harris for finally learning how to make halftime adjustments. Hail to Pitt for a legitimately impressive win. And Hail to good swift asskickings for Paul Rhoades (AGAIN) and for Texas A&M for having the stupidest traditions in college football (just because you take yourself way too seriously doesn’t mean the rest of the world isn’t laughing their asses off every time you end a cheer with “OOP!”).

I’ll never forget it. It was a sunny Saturday in early November, 1999. I was sitting with Pat, Chas, Harlan, and John in the group’s seats high up in old Pitt Stadium. The Panthers were getting their butts kicked by the Miami Hurricanes, if my memory serves me right. But this story isn’t directly about Pitt.

As unbelievable as this seems today (just four years later), Penn State was then the second ranked team in the country — heading towards a seemingly inevitable clash with Florida State for the national championship. About 130 miles east-northeast of Pitt Stadium, the mighty Nittany Lions were in Beaver Stadium hosting a massive underdog: the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.

The surprisingly pesky Gophers, under the direction of Head Coach Glen Mason (one of my favorites), avoided a knockout punch all day long. Finally, down 23-21 with less than a minute left, the Gophers converted a hail mary fourth down play that brought them into field goal range. Mason skillfully ran the clock down, and the Gophers kicked a field goal with no time left. The ball fluttered past Lavar Arrington’s outstretched hands and through the uprights.

The #2 ranked Nittany Lions lost, 24-23. One hundred and thirty miles to the west-southwest, Pitt Stadium erupted in such a loud cheer that the Panthers had to blow a time out in order to figure out what was going on. I, myself, yelled my head off, scaring the crap out of the little girl who was sitting in front of us.

The front page headline in the next day’s Altoona Mirror read “10 AND… OH NO!!!”

That 24-23 upset loss to lowly Minnesota knocked Penn State football into a tailspin from which it has yet to recover. Since that fateful day in 1999, the Nittany Lions have gone 22-22. This tailspin, coupled with Walt Harris’s stunning rebuilding effort, is why our own Pitt Panthers are now the foremost college football program in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I never would have believed that it could happen back in 1999, and neither could any of you.

Tomorrow, the Penn State Nittany Lions will host the Minnesota Golden Gophers in Beaver Stadium for the first time since that fateful day in 1999. So wherever you are tomorrow, take a moment and savor what all has happened to Pitt football since then.

I know where I’ll be. Sitting in Beaver Stadium rooting for the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

Hail to Minnesota and Glen Mason

First off, this post is only a response to Chas’s two posts below entitled “Who tossed the bleeding man into the shark-infested waters?” and “Retro Jersey Notes.” So our readers (like we have any) should read Chas’s two posts (ESPECIALLY “Who tossed the bleeding man into the shark-infested waters?” …it’s a damn good piece) before reading this post.

Now, let me me get to Chas. I agree with the vast majority of what he has to say, but would like to clarify a few points. For instance, I fully agree that the Big East should not try to continue as a mega-conference with different schools playing football and non-football sports. All that I would clarify beyond what Chas said is the reasons why: such a conference would have no identity, would thus continue to get raided by other conferences, and would continue to dilute football profits across less profitable non-football-playing schools like Georgetown or St. Johns.

Let’s continue.

“Lee is worried that Boston College will be poached by the ACC, well the ACC is apparently shooting a little higher.”

The ACC’s arrogance here is outright laughable. Notre Dame wouldn’t join the Big Ten to play football when invited in 1999 — despite the facts that (1) ND sits right in the middle of the Big Ten’s turf, (2) ND matches the Big Ten’s academic standards, (3) ND’s own faculty strongly recommended that the school join the Big Ten, and (4) ND has ancient rivalries with several Big Ten schools (e.g., Purdue, Michigan State, and remember that Notre Dame football was only born when a few guys from Ann Arbor, Michigan, showed up in South Bend to show the locals a new game that was sweeping the country). But Notre Dame is supposed to seriously consider joining the ACC? Right. Whatever.

If Notre Dame EVER plays football in any athletic conference, it will be the Big Ten. But I sincerely doubt that they’ll ever do even that much. The Irish are simply too proud of their independent status.

By the way, remember how the ACC pointed out with pride, when Miami and Virginia Tech joined the league, that it wouldn’t even have to change it’s logo: it would just add two new dots to the map. So tell me, where the hell does Indiana fit on your map? Exactly what about Indiana says “Atlantic Coast?” Can I vacation on Indiana’s Outer Banks? This is the most blatant money grab since… well… the last time that the ACC tried to expand.

“This is not good. While I don’t think Notre Dame is going to the ACC, it could be using it as leverage against the Big 11 to keep the majority of its NBC football money if it would join the Big 11.”

Notre Dame certainly could be doing that. But like I said, I don’t think that Notre Dame really wants to join either the Big Ten or the ACC. I’ve said it hundreds of times before, and I’ll probably say it again: the ACC’s 12th member will probably be Boston College, the Big Ten’s 12th member will probably be either Pitt or (more likely) Syracuse, and Notre Dame will rot in the wilderness by itself.

“It now appears that the last grasping hope for saving my beloved school from eventual college football irrelevance is a complete shake-up/revolution in the BCS system.”

The prospects of the Loyal Big East Football Conference retaining our seat at the BCS banquet are admittedly growing dim. However, I personally think that we could still do it with the help of a few upper-tier Mountain West and MAC schools. Besides, maybe… just maybe… Boston College is so pissed off at the ACC that it won’t bolt after all.

As for the “Retro Jersey Notes” post, I absolutely loved the Sports Illustrated piece on retro college football uniforms. I think that Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Tulane, and especially Miami should return to their retro unis right away.

However, none of these old uniforms are as cool or as unique as Pitt’s old uniforms were. All I’m asking is that our team come out in the old unis for a game or two.

Finally, Columbus just went up another peg in its battle for supremacy with Pittsburgh. It just landed an arena football team. The Buffalo Destroyers will be moving to Columbus this winter.

Hail to Boston College’s Staying Loyal to the Big East This Time and to the ACC’s Having to Settle for Southern Mississippi or Some Other Crap School

I forgot about the Brandon Miree vs. Dennis Franchione angle of this game.

Quick recap, Miree was going into his sophomore season at Alabama as the projected starting RB. Franchione took over as head coach, and changed the system — knocking Miree down the depth chart. Miree asked out of his scholarship to transfer, Franchione (who later skipped out on his contract with Alabama to take the Texas A&M job) wouldn’t let him. Miree went over his head to the AD and eventually got his release. He ended up transferring to Pitt.

Miree isn’t saying much about the matter, but you have to hope he uses it as motivation. Of course, it would help if he got the ball enough times. He is averaging less than 20 touches a game.

Who will Time of Possession favor? Franchione likes to control the pace of the game. Against VA Tech last week, A&M held the ball for just over half the game (30:43) — the first time this season they “won” the time of possession battle. Yet another reason for Pitt to mount a successful ground attack this week.

The Big 12 beat reporter for the Dallas-Fort Worth Star Telegram picked A&M over Pitt 24-21.

Otherwise, there isn’t much of a buzz leading up to this game. Not too surprising since both teams lost last week. Gosh, can you imagine all the attention this game would have gotten if both had won? Damn.

I forgot about the Brandon Miree vs. Dennis Franchione angle of this game.

Quick recap, Miree was going into his sophomore season at Alabama as the projected starting RB. Franchione took over as head coach, and changed the system — knocking Miree down the depth chart. Miree asked out of his scholarship to transfer, Franchione (who later skipped out on his contract with Alabama to take the Texas A&M job) wouldn’t let him. Miree went over his head to the AD and eventually got his release. He ended up transferring to Pitt.

Miree isn’t saying much about the matter, but you have to hope he uses it as motivation. Of course, it would help if he got the ball enough times. He is averaging less than 20 touches a game.

Who will Time of Possession favor? Franchione likes to control the pace of the game. Against VA Tech last week, A&M held the ball for just over half the game (30:43) — the first time this season they “won” the time of possession battle. Yet another reason for Pitt to mount a successful ground attack this week.

The Big 12 beat reporter for the Dallas-Fort Worth Star Telegram picked A&M over Pitt 24-21.

Otherwise, there isn’t much of a buzz leading up to this game. Not too surprising since both teams lost last week. Gosh, can you imagine all the attention this game would have gotten if both had won? Damn.

Seems Sports Illustrated is talking about retro college unis. They cover 10 schools who they would like to see go retro — but Pitt isn’t one of them. Go get them, Lee.

You can sound off to them here. I don’t know what they were thinking with the Marshall, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma — which didn’t exactly have radical shifts. Iowa State they conceded went through dozens of changes and just settled on the worst example they could find. The Va. Tech was particularly bad.

I have to admit, though, I kind of liked the old Miami helmet.

Well Lee, it just looks to be worse than you thought. The Big East is going to do the worst thing possible.

The Big East plans to invite four Conference USA teams to join the league in 2005, keeping the conference intact after defections of its two biggest football programs threatened to split it in two.

Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville and Marquette will be invited in November, a source close to the expansion plans told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Wednesday.

Yes, that’s right. The Big East will stay united as a Mega-Mess-Conference. Two divisions, eight teams in each, sixteen teams total. The divisions would be split into basketball/football and basketball only.

It will be one hell of an unwieldly basketball power conference. As an 8 team, football conference, though, it will absolutely blow (the lack of archived links is Blogger’s fault).

Lee is worried that Boston College will be poached by the ACC, well the ACC is apparently shooting a little higher.

The ACC is having discussions with Notre Dame about becoming the league’s 12th member, with concessions to allay the school’s concern about giving up its lucrative independent status in football in the near future.
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Meanwhile, Notre Dame has had membership discussions with the 11-school Big Ten, too.

Sources close to Notre Dame say the Big Ten hasn’t pushed the football issue as hard as the ACC, though it also would ultimately want Notre Dame to become its 12th football member.

This is not good. While I don’t think Notre Dame is going to the ACC, it could be using it as leverage against the Big 11 to keep the majority of its NBC football money if it would join the Big 11.

Getting back to the Big East decision to remain united. Why? Why? Why? Why? I’ve tried to be somewhat optimistic. I’ve tried to believe that Pitt and the other Big East football schools would finally understand that it is untenable to be a split conference.

But no. They have apparently drunk the kool-aid and are willing to create an unwieldly, geographically stupid, bloated league stretching from Providence, Rhode Island to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am disgusted, demoralized, despondent and depressed. No sir, I don’t like it.

It now appears that the last grasping hope for saving my beloved school from eventual college football irrelevance is a complete shake-up/revolution in the BCS system.

Shit.

In a move that surprised me personally, the NCAA has informally rejected the Atlantic Coast Conference’s request to waive the rule that requires a conference to have at least 12 teams before it can stage a football championship game. On Tuesday, Clemson athletic director Terry Don Phillips said “We got back word that the championship committee was overwhelmingly against waiving the current rule.”

I had personally thought that the NCAA would approve the ACC’s request in order to limit any further conference raiding of the type we all had to sit through this past summer (I would cite some of our previous discussions on this topic, but for some reason, our archives no longer work. Chas?). But no. So then Terry Don (Y’all can refer to me as Lee Charles) takes a few seconds of his life that he’ll never get back to point out the blatantly obvious next step.

“I think (adding a 12th team) would be where we need to go, if in fact we want the championship game.”

I think we can assume that the ACC does, indeed, want that lucrative football championship game. So brace yourself, fellow Pitt fans. Here we go again. So who is the ACC’s first target for their 12th team? Potential Big East member Louisville? UCF? South Carolina or some other SEC team? I don’t know for sure. But Terry Don does drop a hint.

“I think people continue to have affinity [for Boston College],” Phillips said. “I don’t know how they feel about us after what’s happened.”

@#%*@#% great. The chicken-fried, NASCAR-lovin’ bastards are looking at raiding the Big East yet again. Assuming that (1) Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese handles this situation as competently as he has handled everything else this year, and (2) Boston College thus leaves vapor trails bolting to the ACC, where does the Big East go from there?

My guess is, to pieces. At some point, the monster conference that mostly lies to our west (at least, all of the decent teams lie to our west, Lion Fan) is gonna get championship game envy too, and start hunting for a 12th team. Pitt, WVU, and Syracuse will all be considered, and as I’ve said many times before (where the hell are our archives?), I suspect that Syracuse will be selected (although Pitt will certainly make a strong bid).

But even if the Big Ten decides not to expand past its current 11 members (and there are many within the conference who don’t want it to), I doubt that a Big East Football Conference composed of Pitt, WVU, Syracuse, UConn, and Rutgers could invite in enough nearby Conference USA members in to maintain its BCS conference status. I suspect that we’d have to invite some far flung members in as well: perhaps Brigham Young, Colorado State, San Diego State, Northern Illinois, Toledo, or Marshall.

Although this might help us to maintain our BCS conference status, it would make us into the new Conference USA — a shapeless, sprawling mess that’s always under attack from other conferences who wish to expand.

So in conclusion, I don’t think that this is a good thing for alma mater, dear old Pittsburgh.

Hail to Good, Swift Ass-Kickings for Mike Tranghese (for not reforming the Big East Football Conference by now to make it more attractive to Boston College and everybody else), the ACC (seriously, why did you chaw-chewing idiots stop at 11 members this past summer?), those idiots in the Glass Bowl who damn near killed themselves ripping the goal posts down, and whoever is behind these vanilla flavored colas (THEY SUCK!!! OK!?)

Thanks to a 3-1 comeback last week, I now have an 8-7 record against the spread for the season. Let’s take a look at the games that I’ll be watching this Saturday while packing for my honeymoon.

PITTSBURGH (pick ’em) AT TEXAS A&M: Aggies’s quarterback Reggie McNeal nearly carried Texas A&M past Virginia Tech by himself last Thursday night in Blacksburg. Thanks in part to his offensive line, McNeal can both run and throw with the best of them. Pitt has trouble defending quarterbacks like McNeal. Heck, Pitt has trouble defending anybody who can throw the ball these days.

Kyle Field is a helluva place to get well after Toledo busted out a family-sized can of whoop-ass on the Panthers last Saturday, and Walt Harris has never been one to quickly turn around a team anyways. So I’ll take the Aggies and hope to be wrong.

TOLEDO (+4) AT SYRACUSE: Chas was right. Toledo gets no respect. Syracuse is half the team that Pitt is this year. I’ll take another dose of the MAC attack, please.

MINNESOTA (-2.5) AT PENN STATE: Da… da… da, da, da… PENN STATE SUCKS!!! This little ditty, once popular in Oakland (but not so popular since it actually became true), has never held more water than this season. The Lions are in the midst of a massive rebuilding effort, especially along their offensive line. I was not impressed by their half-assed victories against Kent State and Temple (they only looked decent at times during their loss to Nebraska).

Minnesota, on the other hand, ain’t half bad this year. They got a very high powered offense (that’s admittedly easy to overrate since they’ve only played patsies thus far). I pick the Golden Gophers to finish no worse than the middle of the Big Ten pack.

Sure, the Gophers are going to win this game. And it is a lot more probable that they’ll win by more than 2.5 than less than 2.5.

NORTHWESTERN (I’m still waiting for the @#%*@#! line) AT OHIO STATE: I might wait until tomorrow morning to pick this one, as I’d like to see a real line. I’ll edit this post then.

Incidentally, Neil Rudel weighed in on the Toledo loss in today’s Altoona Mirror. He blamed it on stupidity within Pitt’s athletic department: Pitt never should have agreed to appear in the Glass Bowl. Personally, I think that Toledo is good enough of a MAC program to deserve at least one home game every few years. Besides, Rudel’s indictment smacks of the same rhetoric that was used to justify Penn State’s avoiding Pitt a few years back. Either way, Rudel’s piece was a very paternalistic, condescending waste of newsprint that isn’t even worth reprinting here.

Hail to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, easily the funniest thing on these days