Pitt doesn’t kick off until 6pm. That seemed good up until last night when the rains came and temperatures plummeted. Now it looks to be raining on-and-off all day and into game time. Temperatures in the 50s. That’s what it will be like — at best — for most of Pitt’s home games that are back-loaded into November. So excited to get an early preview.

Still looking forward to heading down for the game. Much shorter drive than going to Pittsburgh. Not much for tailgating, but it is Akron. Hardly a destination city. Probably still better than being in the Muni lots for a Browns game.

Revenge is being downplayed a little. Not as much as it was with Youngstown State, given the recency of the Akron embarrassment.

You can’t help but talk about it, but the coaches, the way their mentality is, it’s just this game,” Orndoff said. “To us, there’s no other game after Akron. It’s all Akron right now. We’re not thinking ahead to Iowa or whatever. Right now it’s just Akron, 2015.”

The one wrinkle that makes tonight a bit different from last week, though, is that Pitt will be on the road against the Zips. This will mark the first time Akron has played host to a power-five conference team since Syracuse in 2010. That factor, plus the desire to double-down on the 2014 upset, could make for a good atmosphere.

As it stands, the Zips have sold and distributed almost 21,000 tickets for the 28,000 capacity stadium. Ticekts still available and with the weather, I’m betting there won’t be a shortage of people trying to unload them.

To say Akron needs this game for attendance is putting it mildly. Last year their total attendance was 55,019. To be fair, the Zips were not helped by ESPN MACtion putting 3 of their home games on a Tuesday night.

Akron is expecting lots of runs regardless of who is in the backfield.

“It forced them to put [Ollison] in and he got 207 yards, so it looks to me like it didn’t do a thing to them,” Bowden said of losing Conner. “I don’t think it changes their style. I don’t think it changes what they want to do. We knew we had to stop him last year. We figure we’ll have to stop this guy this year, so I’m not sure. It’s just a different jersey number. I don’t think it changes anything they want to do to us.”

Grice said one of the keys to stopping the run is for the Zips’ defensive ends to protect the edge along with the linebackers being there ready to clean plays up.

“We see them do a lot of tosses, so it’s going to be big on our defensive ends to hold the edge and linebackers to [come through],” he said. “We do pretty good with that, so as long as we stay true to ourselves and stay on our keys, we should be fine.”

And Pitt could have an advantage against UA’s defense. Former offensive line coach John Peterson now serves in the same position with Pitt.

“I would have to say that’s a disadvantage on us. We know how he likes to coach and block and all of those things,” Grice said, “so of course we’re going to tell our guys to watch this and watch that. But he knows us as a defense so he can tell his guys what our tendencies are, who to key on and all of that stuff.”

This is the final game in a 2-for-1 deal Pitt had. Akron took a significantly lower payout to play in Pittsburgh for Pitt to come here for that game. Oklahoma had to pay Akron $1 million for one game this year. Until the ACC goes to a 9-game schedule, don’t think that Pitt will never do another similar deal with a MAC, C-USA or even AAC team at some point in the next decade.

6pm on ESPN3.com for those of you not making it to the game.