Well a 3d straight night game was probably out of the question.
It will be a noon start which sucks for tailgating. That said, no excuses for the place not to be packed. To decide whether Pitt goes BCS bowling or not.
The good news for those who can’t attend, is that it will be a true national game. ABC and apparently no split map crap.
But I guess that the real reason for the snub is that nationally, the Big East is pretty much viewed as the WAC of the East. I hope that Cincy fans will understand when their 11-1 ‘Cats end up in the Meineke Bowl.
I wish the BE would have said we a 3:30 KO and what ever station airs the game so be it…
But its always screw the fans and bend over backwards for the tv.
The fact is that TENS of THOUSANDS will leave their homes before 7 am to pack Beaver Stadium for a noon start even when PSU plays Coastal Carolina. For many reasons, Pitt cannot expect to draw what PSU does …. but a noon start is not one of them … it is purely lame rationalization.
It’s not the time of the game, it’s the fact that 25% of the classes I attended had people 10-15 years older than me with kids and a full time job. Their connection to Pitt is just not that strong.
I will be there bright and early at 7:00, wish we could get in the lots earlier then that!
Right on Mike! I would love to get into the lots at 5am!
Also, the local media coverage of Pitt sports is, generally, pathetic, and so the city does not embrace Pitt football (or basketball, for that matter) the way they do the Pens and Steelers. Whether Ryan Clark would play in Denver got more coverage over two weeks than Dion Lewis, Jonathan Baldwin, and Dorin Dickerson have received altogether this year.
Yes, Pitt hoops puts butts in the seats at the Pete, but outside of the hardcore hoops fans/alumni, the remainder of the region doesn’t give two sh#ts about Pitt basketball until well after the NFL playoffs are over. And they definitely don’t have a strong connection to Pitt football. They want winners. They want championships. The Pens and Steelers have provided that. Pitt football has not.
Maybe if Pitt can get back-to-back BCS bowls, that will change, but until then, even “big” games like Cincy will be hard to sell out.
OSU is going to get spanked out of S.Cal by Stanford or Oregon. The ONLY thing ‘the machine’ cares about is how many OSU fans will travel to Pasadena and clap like seals for the parade and zombie themselves into the Rose Bowl for their ass-whooping.
HTscriptP
For all of you “shut up and deal with it” people, I say chill out and have some consideration for those of us coming from hours away. Fans can (and should) be able to voice their displeasure with the start times if they rob from the pre-game experience.
Personally, I don’t enjoy leaving my house at 6AM to get into my lot in time to have 20 minutes of tailgate enjoyment, then have to pack up and head to the game early enough to manuever parking lots that are tore-up like an Iraqi warzone…just in time to make it for the first drive.
3:30PM is an acceptable time to start…especially considering the magnitude of the game and to help cater to the fans. I don’t think that would have been too much to shoot for from the higher ups…seems like they simply rolled over to ESPN/ABC.
Regardless, we will be in our seats…just-in-time to watch the improtant experience = a Pitt Win!
They may be clapping like seals, but let’s face it – they’re filling stadiums much larger than Heinz, regardless of whether the team is winning or losing – not just when they pull their first 10-win season in 25 years.
ESPN360 never allows you to see games that are available in your local market. Since the game is available nationwide, it won’t be on ESPN360. If for some reason it were on ESPN360 that would block your internet access to it if you have a local channel that is carrying it.
And wbb, actually the year we beat WVU, OSU was already sitting at 1 in the country, it was LSU that benefitted from our upset of the Mountaineers.
Somebody commented above that the Big 10 should have their automatic invite revoked and that the Big 10 was unmarketable. Since the BCS inception following the ’98-’99 season, there have been three seasons in which the Big 10 didn’t send 2 representatives to BCS games (’00-’01, ’01-’02, & ’04-’05). I just don’t think you can make the blanket statement that it’s an unmarketable conference – especially when the argument has always been that the Big 10 doesn’t play quality football. If both were true, then you’d never see more than 1 Big 10 representative on an annual basis.
But my point is still the same, OSU was in regardless of what we did against WVU (due to Mizzou getting crushed by, I believe, Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game). But it was LSU, who had 2 losses, that really benefitted from us beating WVU.
Georgia didn’t play in the SEC title game so they didn’t move into #2, same deal with Kansas and the Big 12, and VT had the same record as LSU but had been crushed by them earlier in the year.
I just remember going into the game and hearing that LSU had the most to gain by us winning and that those other teams were longshots.
Now that I’m looking through the rankings, 07 was a whacky-ass year in cfb. That was the year USF even made an appearance at #2!
The noon start will provide plenty of positive TV coverage for the winner all day long and a replay extravaganza for star performances. It’s opportunities like this one along with the sustained success of the Pitt basketball program that have given us name recognition across the country and probably contributed to the results of the cnnsi.com poll where Big East fans claim Pitt to be their biggest rival by 5% over West Virginia. link to sportsillustrated.cnn.com
Let’s Go Pitt
