I look at Penn State’s attempts at “unrivaled” to market their lack of a rival team the same way I view friends that try to pretend how happy they are not to be in a relationship. Constantly spinning the positives when you can see the desperation in them to be with someone. Anyone.

In that vein, I can’t bring myself to call this game a rivalry game. A resumption of on the field hostilities, perhaps, but not a real rivalry game. I wish it wasn’t so. But it isn’t. It should be, but I don’t know that even Pitt is feeling like it can or should happen annually. Despite what AD Scott Barnes is saying.

Barnes is also hedging because of the way scheduling is remaining nebulous.

“Rivalries are in some ways a lost art,” he said.

Requirements Pitt and Penn State have in their respective conferences — the ACC and Big Ten — make scheduling the game into the next decade tricky. Big Ten schools play nine of their 12 regular-season games in the conference, leaving little room for other Power 5 teams. Meanwhile, the ACC has discussed the possibility of moving from eight to nine.

Barnes said he seeks balance in Pitt’s schedule, being careful not to “overschedule.” But he also wants a schedule worthy — in other words, tough enough — to someday attract the attention of the College Football Playoff committee. It won’t be easy, he said.

“I’m not confident in the number of available games over the next 10 years,” he said.

There have been vague proposals of resuming Pitt-Penn State midway through the decade of the 2020s. But there are no guarantees.

“Certainly, if was up to me, it would happen, but it’s a target (date),” Barnes said. “One we’ve discussed; one we need to continue to discuss. I would love to play this game in perpetuity.”

This isn’t 2000, when it was clear that PSU/Paterno was not going to play Pitt any longer. Pitt has its own scheduling issues with the ACC. The inability of the ACC to resolve the conference schedule and properly serve the overlords of ESPN for the ACC Network are keeping things fluid to say the least. I’m not convinced even if the ACC reaches a decision in October that they don’t get forced to revisit it later from some schools. It’s happened before in the ACC.

Terrifying note that Kicker Chris Blewitt has missed five of his last six field goal attempts going back to the Miami game last season. Yes, three of the misses were from over 45 yards, but one miss was from 29 and then the blocked kick last week was inside of 40.

Coach Pat Narduzzi still won’t clarify the injury status of DE Dewayne Hendrix and LB Elijah Zeise. Hendrix was still listed as a starter and Zeise remains on the depth chart.

An article on Pat Narduzzi just “fitting” at Pitt.

“No offense to some of the people who’ve been through here, but I don’t see a spread-offense type of team here. [Bill Fralic began laughing.] It just doesn’t seem to fit. Maybe I’m old-school.

“Now, I think there’s plenty of ways to skin a cat. But in an ideal world, you’d have somebody who has core beliefs that the people who are coming to the games kind of share.”

Not some Texan spread proponent like Graham, in other words. His tenure at Pitt lasted exactly one season (2011) that was notable mainly for an FBS quarterback sacks absorbed title (64) before he bolted for Arizona State where his style fits a lot better.

“Hey, if you’re going twelve and oh, I don’t think anybody cares how you do it,” said Fralic. “But that ain’t gonna happen very often. So, every time you lose, you’re just giving them another reason to turn on you, because they don’t believe in your philosophy.”

Fralic makes a great point about why the style matters at some schools. I’ve flipped a bit on this issue. I  am not wedded to a particular style, and find a lot to like in the spread style offense. So it didn’t seem like an issue to me, but that is still not a popular type of offense for a lot of Pitt fans. And I’ve seen the responses from a lot that suggest how much that colors views on coaches.

Penn State is running an up-tempo offense, but it is hardly a true spread. Like most programs — including Pitt — elements are incorporated. But a lot of it has much more of a West Coast offense style as befitting an OC that cites Walt Harris as a big influence. They still run the ball — especially with Barkley — and they use the short passes to look for yards after the catch. They are just trying to do it at a faster pace.

“We’ll be really excited to play a fast-tempo offense,” Narduzzi said. “That gives them advantages of speeding up, but it also gives us advantages … we’re not one of those teams that when someone lines up fast on you, you keep it base. One of the beautiful things that we do is when someone wants to line up fast, we can do just about anything to counter.”

But Penn State presents a difficult offensive scheme, one that Pitt typically has been unable to handle in previous seasons against various opponents.

Penn State running back Saquon Barkley recorded what Franklin called “a sneaky 100-yard (actually 105) game” in a 33-13 victory Saturday against Kent State. Narduzzi, in fact, called Barkley “maybe the best tailback in the country.”Barkley admitted he can play better. Neither he nor Franklin was satisfied with the player’s pass protection or his tendency to employ more cutting and less power running.

“Does he have very high expectations? Our whole team does,” Franklin said.

But Barkley, above or below par, is not the only runner Pitt’s banged-up defense must encounter. Trace McSorley is inexperienced, but he presents a running threat from the quarterback position — usually a plague on Pitt.

Neither Pitt or PSU looked that great on offense in their first game. The defenses looked okay, but given the opponent that was hard to judge as well.