I would love to tell you about how my wife — a Cinci grad — and I have been giving each other crap about the game on Saturday. Unfortunately, my wife is a rather standard Cinci fan of her time. She only cares about how the basketball team is finally ranked. In fact when I have a Cinci home game on TV, she still mutters about how much money they wasted renovating Nippert Stadium when she was there. Needless to say, she is probably hoping Pitt wins on Saturday so that I’m in a better mood when I get home.
Not that I think many Cinci fans are that excited about their football team. Probably the same numbers that are thrilled that their mascot is a finalist in the Capitol One Mascot Challenge.
Still, how much should I make fun of Cinci fans when Heinz Field is still not sold out for Saturday — 1800 tickets left?
You want Coach Wannstedt banging on your door? He’s willing if you are a student.
Excuses of the noon start. Traffic and construction issues. Complaints about not being respected by ESPN. It has reached something of a breaking point for me. It isn’t some chicken-egg thing. The only way it changes is by the fans showing up in force and Pitt playing well. Either show up or STFU.
Final thing on the noon start on Saturday. It’s a good thing. It is a pure national game on ABC. The most important one in the time slot. All the other official conference championship games were set and contracted before the season started. I have complained and I immensely dislike the Big East’s TV deal with the Mouse Monopoly on the football side. That said, this is not one of those points where it is working against Pitt.
Root for Pitt with everything you have.
Root for Pitt with everything you have.
Plus, Texas ain’t losin’ on Saturday.
Besides, Cincy is out of the running for the NC. If Texas is upset then TCU will get the chance to play the Bama-Gator winner over Cincy.
It’s going to be cold at 7AM. Can’t wait!
But I did take some neat pics of Panther notables. And the image of Ray Graham coming right to me for a possible Jersey low 5 endures.
Here’s the thing. They want WVU to play FSU (the 2 teams Bowden coached) in a Florida bowl game (they never specified Gator from what I saw). Now the only FL bowl game that matches Big East vs ACC is the Gator.
However, FSU is only a 6 win team and all of the other slots must be filled by at least 7-5 teams before a 6 win team can go to a bowl game.
WVU being in is no problem, they were probably going to go anyways. But being as though the Gator is a solid 2nd tier bowl (just beneath the BCS bowls), would they even try to challenge this rule to get FSU in for this game?
And if not, is there another, lesser, Florida bowl game that could accomodate these wishes? Would WVU be willing to go to a crappier bowl than the Gator just to honor Bowden?
Do Bowden and FSU even have enough stroke to pull this thing off? Is this just FSU trying to weasel their way into a bowl game they don’t deserve?
Something tells me that they’ll play in the Gator Bowl, but it’s a pretty interesting situation.
“Bowden wants his last bowl game to be in Florida, and efforts are under way to try to attain a berth in the Jan. 1 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, or the Dec. 29 Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, a school official told ESPN.com.
The official also said the school was working with the ACC to try to have the Seminoles (6-6, 4-4 ACC Atlantic) face West Virginia, where Bowden was offensive coordinator from 1966 to 1969, and head coach from 1970 to 1975.”
Nick…root for Cincy. don’t need ya. I could see this dilemma a few years ago with WVU going to the National Champ and being good for the Big East. But to contemplate rooting for Cincy this year, when we have a BCS game at stake? Makes no sense
On another note, I read on Brian Bennett’s blog on ESPN that Pitt did not sell out its allotment of tickets to WVU. Does anyone know if this is true? We were sitting in the Pitt section, and it seemed like there were many more Pitt fans than 2 years ago. All in all, it seemed like a decent sized representation. I know several Pitt fans that travel all over the country to go to Pitt games but will not go to Morgantown because of the behavior of the locals, but in general it seemed like a good showing.
This is not a post to complain, but to point out that a lot of Pitt ticket buyers are also Steeler ticket buyers and it is just too taxing to do both. It is not because people don’t want to, it is a simple issue of how much personal time do you want to invest as a fan and where does that time go. Next year, and I know this will make a lot of you mad, I will be there on all Sundays and some Saturdays if I feel up to it. I bleed both black and gold and blue and gold but the pie is only so big.
I also agree with the post on coaching. This is a defining moment for Wannstedt and the program. I hope like the dickens he lets it loose and Pitt wins.
The domers did it this year, as they do any year that they visit Heinz. To a lesser extent, hoopy fans do it too.
