One night later, and I still don’t know what to write.

As we were sitting around before the game, our friend who lives in Morgantown told us how Mountaineer fans were a little tense for this game. They expected the win, but there was an underlying sense of dread. Naturally, we dismissed what he said as nonsense.

Walking through the parking lot into the game, though, did lend some credence to what he said. Sure there were some insults hurled our way as they noticed the Pitt logo on the hat I was wearing. Standard “S**t on Pitt” and the like. Sticking with the classics. But for the most part, people weren’t particularly obnoxious or aggressive. This despite a full day of tailgating and drinking. Maybe the cold subdued them, or maybe they were actually a little nervous.

Our seats were in the final row of the section. The good news to that meant there was no one behind us who could throw crap at us. The bad news, that the wall wasn’t that high and I could mentally picture some drunk, freaked out Mountaineer fans losing it and trying to throw us over the side.

The ominous note, was that our seats were right under a flagpole with a UConn banner. Considering what WVU did to the Huskies last week and what UConn did to Pitt. Well, *gulp*.

Now, maybe it was being seated in the “family friendly” section, but the Mountaineer fans were not a big hassle. Friendly enough, and more than a few shook our hands afterwards to congratulate us on the game. Others were just as stunned about the calls the officials were making. Comments to the effect of, “the officials are doing what they can to keep us in this,” and embarrassment at such poor officiating favoring WVU. To get those calls and still not do anything with them just made it worse.

The exception to the behavior came well after the final whistle. We stayed in our seats for a while after the game ended. Part to let the crowd thin out and make sure we weren’t assaulted by any deranged, angry, drunk fans. Also to just try and absorb what had just happened. It was taking a while to come to terms with events like that. We weren’t loud. No screaming, no real gloating. Just standing about watching the fans file out in disbelief. We had been there a good ten minutes after the game ended when it got a little weird.

An older guy was just staring at us from almost another section over, and I made eye-contact. He raised his arms a bit into a shrug. I took that to be an expression of “what the hell just happened?” So I went over to hear what he had to say. Apparently I misinterpreted the gesture.

As I got closer he was just glaring at me, and just started saying, “What!” He was pissed that we were still in the stadium. In his mind, we were gloating just by remaining there. I actually tried to talk calmly at him — though it probably wasn’t going to make a difference. I never found out, since that’s when Shawn came over to throw gas on the situation.

He saw the guy gesturing and getting angry at me, so naturally he comes over and screams at the “old, inbred, toothless hillbilly to get the [explative deleted] out of here.” Yeah, as expected that calmed things down. Some other guy saw this and started yelling at us to stop picking on the old guy. To just get out and be satisfied with the win. All very silly.

What actually stopped the whole thing from getting worse — aside from the stadium being mostly empty — was the old guy’s wife coming up and yelling at him. Telling him to just leave. She was ticked. At him. Guess he has a bad habit of doing crap like this. He eventually skulked off with his wife glaring and berating him. The other guy wandered off as well. We stayed.

After that another Mountaineer fan actually came up and apologized for that and actually had a decent conversation about the game itself.

The walk back, was very subdued and depressed from the fans. Lots of silence. No comments from anyone as we went. Well, not quite. Some lady walking behind us for a while finally got up the courage to mutter, “Pitt sucks.”

In a season where Pitt has fallen short too often. Crushing disappointment and frustration. Where, there was little to say or argue too hard against that statement. Tonight, I was able to turn around and simply say, “Tonight we don’t.”