Joe Starkey’s ESPN.com Big East Notebook (Insider subs.) doesn’t offer much but he notes the home attendance average for each team with 1-3 home games left.
- West Virginia — 60,535 (+1762 from 2006), 3 games remaining
- USF — 51,075 (+20,853), 2 remaining
- Rutgers — 43,682 (+2569), 1 remaining
- Louisville — 39,935 (-1547), 1 remaining
- UConn — 37,487 (-1452), 2 remaining
- Syracuse — 35,397 (-1865), 2 remaining
- Pitt — 34,141 (-9164), 2 remaining
- Cinci — 28,859 (+8486), 2 remaining
Wow. Who knew Pitt’s attendance ranking would appear to have a good shot of matching the likely spot Pitt finishes in the Big East?
This is bad news for the athletic department. Point to 2008 all you want as the season, but attendance usually doesn’t get the bounce (or drop) until the year after — Louisville seems to be the lone exception to this. The Pitt Athletic Department has a lot of heavy lifting to do if it wants people to show up next season.
The school can keep honoring the past great teams all it wants. And seemingly over, and over this week it’s the 1982 team — and I would swear some variation on this was done just a couple years ago? After a point though, it would be nice to see something worth remembering in the present.
It isn’t the lousy home schedule this year. It may not have helped, but fans had little hope if the team that was beaten horribly to end last year was going to be worse this year. Next year the schedule may be improved — but it still looks to have two MAC teams in the non-con (which is a marginal improvement since it means no officially 1-AA teams).
Q: Do you have any idea what the non-conference schedule will be for next year? I’ve heard that Central Florida is pulling out of the game scheduled for next year . Do you know the replacement?
ZEISE: It isn’t finished yet but it is getting close. Apparently they are working on a deal to play Bowling Green — the game that was supposed to be played this year — as well as closing in on a deal to play Buffalo. And yes, Central Florida has opted out of the game which means the home schedule next year — assuming both of the aforementioned deals get done — would be Buffalo, Bowling Green, Iowa, Rutgers, West Virginia and Louisville and the away schedule would be Notre Dame, Navy, Syracuse, Cincinnati, South Florida and Connecticut.
Great. Pitt has been punked by UCF. That feels good.
Starkey can point to an attitude change by the players. That’s great. I don’t want to put it down, but that only goes so far and can only be sustained so long. The players and the fans need the wins soon.
The poor attendance won’t directly affect any coaching shake-up at this point. It will be a subtle underlying thing. If the fans aren’t showing up and they don’t believe in the progress to put the money forth, that will have an affect. Because, you just know that Wannstedt is going to point to the progress and “improvement” on the defense. And that the O-line is “improving.” That staying the course with the present coaches is best. If the changes, though, aren’t made with DC Rhoads and O-Line Coach Dunn, that isn’t going to help.
