It’s November. Just a couple weeks until the first real game of the season. Tonight, though, is the first of two exhibition games. Division III CMU ambles down the Forbes Avenue tonight.

A couple years ago, Pitt struggled against CMU badly. It also struggled against IUP for a time last year. So, no panicking if the team doesn’t blow them out of the Pete in 5 minutes or less. Granted, even the Tartans own coach doesn’t like their chances.

Wingen said there is no comparison between this year’s CMU team and the one that hung with Pitt for nearly 30 minutes two years ago.

“That team two years ago, they were very talented and a confident bunch of guys who had a lot of experience,” Wingen said. “They weren’t intimidated by the atmosphere or the opponents. We’re a little different team now. Pitt is a little different, too. They are better.”

The best thing to read, the students are already juiced for the season.

People in the Pitt ticket office compared the demand for student tickets as similar to a typical Big East opponent.

“They said it’s about even with a Connecticut and Syracuse game,” Dixon said. “I find it hard to believe. I asked him to repeat it. I didn’t think I’d heard it right.”

Of course it may just have something to do with making fun of Carnegie Mellon.

Coach Dixon plans to use the exhibition game to also give the freshmen a chance to experience the Pete (without blowing their redshirts).