I am on the record as saying this is not a “Rivalry Game,” simply because it has been on hiatus for so long that the mood is a little different. These aren’t fanbases that have affection for each other. There is all the stuff in-state, especially with recruiting. But it is hard to call it a rivalry game.

But damn if the Nits don’t do their part to make me want it so, just for the hate.

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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.

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Less than 24 hours until I hit the road to Pittsburgh. The familiar giddiness is building. A smile creeps over my face as I think about it. I’ve missed this.

Think the Pitt coaches are hammering home to the players about what nearly happened to Tennessee against Appalachian  State last night? The risk of taking a team likely, simply because they are FCS? Without any doubt.

So what’s news?

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At some point I will have to do a post on Big XII expansion, simply because it has not failed to amuse me this entire spring and summer. It is just so perfect, though, that a conference named for 12 with only 10 members would announce “6 to 8 finalists.” Yet, the list actually goes to 10, 12 or even 13.

Anyways…

The year was 1998. My first year as a season ticket holder. I wasn’t unrealistic. I knew it was going to be a struggle that year. 1997 was loaded with seniors and 1998. Well, 1998 was bad. We got an idea in that first game as Pitt struggled to beat Villanova 48-41. One of two wins that year and 0-7 in the Big East.

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Here is a detailed and in-depth look at the Panther football program under Pat Narduzzi.  It was written yesterday by Bill Connelly of SB Nation  and is a wealth of historical and present (and future) info about where we have been and the direction he thinks we are going into the 2016 season.

Here is an opening salvo to get your attention:

As fans, we have plenty of funny tendencies. If you raise the stature of our program just enough to break our heart with high-stakes losses, we will resent you for it.

It’s funny (if you’re not a Pitt fan, at least) to look back to the end of the last decade.

Under Dave Wannstedt, Pitt pulled off one of its most significant upsets, in 2007 (taking down WVU in Morgantown to prevent the Mountaineers from advancing to the BCS title game), then went 9-4 and 10-3 over the next two seasons. The Panthers went 8-5 in 2010, giving them 27 wins over a three-year period for the first time since 1981-83.

And Wannstedt resigned under pressure, hated by a large portion of Pitt fans.

But I’ll disagree – unless he thinks I am the only Pitt fan whose opinion matters I don’t think Pitt fans hated Wannstedt at all.  It was more like they were so disappointed with all the crap that went on back in 2010 and his inability to outright win a BCS bowl bid in his six years as head coach that any sort of a change was a relief.

But let’s not put binders on as this writer has – there were a hell of a lot of Pitt fans that didn’t want to see DW go at all.

Aside from that this is a fantastic read.  It is a breath of fresh air to read someone state the true comparisons between Chryst’s time at Pitt and Pat Narduzzi’s first year.  We fans are infused with a lot of Narduzzi’s energy and exuberance so we look at last season with an overly positive view.

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The Pitt News weighs in with two articles.  The first is regarding the rise in Pitt’s season ticket sales:

Pitt’s athletic department announced in a letter Tuesday morning that 93 percent of season ticket holders have renewed their subscription for the upcoming football season.

On top of that, Pitt has sold almost 10,000 new season tickets, putting the University on track to break the school record for season ticket sales — a goal Athletic Director Scott Barnes set in February.

This is an interesting fact – the excitement generated after the 2002 season when we went 9-4 under Walt Harris produce a record for sales.

Pitt’s all-time record for season ticket sales is 53,775, set in 2003. According to the letter — which both Barnes and head football coach Pat Narduzzi signed — the school expects to actually break the record in August, when the majority of undergraduate student ticket purchases occur.

I went back to look at what that might have been the reasons for that and wanted to see if there were other factors than the winning record. I think what goes into making fans excited is not just winning seasons. I have said on here many times that one of my favorite seasons was the 2007 one where everything that could be thrown in our path to stop progress was… and we still felt it was a great ending when we beat WVU 13-9.

I remember very clearly that after the dust settled on that year we fans were excited to see what 2008 was going to show us.  Of course we wanted to see LeSean McCoy in action again. That is one of the main attractions when looking forward; to see how your favorite player’s career is going to turn out is a powerful motivating factor for fans to attend games… along, of course, with that all-important W/L record.

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(Yesterday we had Part 1 of this recruiting article where we addressed a couple of pertinent question about the business.  This Part 2 continues that and we’ll have Part 3 on Thursday to wrap up…)

3.  Is it only the players who have to be convinced to go to a certain school?

The answer to this is a resounding no!  Every Pitt player’s family, mostly parents, I have talked to said that the coaching staffs probably spent as much time selling their school to the family and recruit’s HS coach as they did with the recruits themselves.

After all that is why they do “in-home” visits.  On those trips the staff doesn’t necessarily need or want to talk to the recruit so much as have the family hear them talking to the recruit.  A good recruiter will have already had many, many conversations with the player before an at-home visit. Walking into the home itself is when showtime begins.

Here is an interesting website that covers recruiting from a family point of view.  Covering in-home visits the author, a past college football staff coach says this:

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Happy Memorial Day to all who served, their families and our Active Duty members serving today.  Today is a when our thoughts should turn to more serious things other than sports and college football.  Let’s wish for safe passages to our current service members both home and abroad and give a hearty thank you very much to all who have served in the past.

One personal note: When you think of our service members and the missions they undertake remember that what our citizenry sees publicly is the tip of the iceberg of what their responsibilities and duties really are. It truly is a 24/7/365 job and let us also appreciate that at any moment their phone may ring and they could be on a flight within the hour to anywhere in the world to keep us safe and healthy.

Bravo Zulu to all!!

But hey- we are also Pitt football fans on this Memorial Day so here goes –

Everyone loves talking about the upcoming Pitt -Penn State game that will be played at Heinz Field on September 10th.  It will be a noteworthy game in many ways – first time the teams met since we beat them in 2000; a PSU coach who may be on the hot seat sooner than later; bragging rites for recruiting the state of Pennsylvania, and last, but not least, in Pitt fan’s books – James Conner’s return to playing in a big game.

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Pitt announced yesterday the start times for the first two games of the season (and the Thursday night game hosting VT, but we all knew that was going to be a 7pm game).

The season opener against Villanova will be at 1:30 and shown on ESPN3.

The September 10 game against Penn State will be at noon and shown on ESPN or ABC. Disappointing, but not too surprising.

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Let’s hope we see a scene similar to this tomorrow night with Tyler Boyd being the subject:

The Post-Gazette’s Sam Werner weighs in with an article asking if Boyd could be the only Pitt player drafted this year.  Here is the depressing part:

Beyond Boyd, tight end J.P. Holtz and cornerback Lafayette Pitts figure to be the next most likely candidates to hear their names called this weekend, though it’s likely one or both will have to wait to try to catch on with a team as an undrafted free agent.

Holtz played in all 52 games over his four-year career, starting 48. He said NFL teams have approached him about possibly switching to fullback and he has no objections.

“I’m willing to do whatever I need to do to make a team,” he said after pro day.

Pitts also didn’t miss a game the past four years and started 51. According to Brandt, he clocked in at 4.44 seconds at Pitt’s pro day and should have plenty of offers from teams after this weekend if he isn’t selected.

If Boyd is the only Panthers player chosen, it would mark the second consecutive year Pitt had just one player chosen. Offensive lineman T.J. Clemmings was the only one to go a year ago. Pitt had three players chosen in 2014, which broke a three-year streak of having no draftees.

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Well, to start off… due to popular demand we have started a “The Pitt Blather” Facebook page.  Here is the link for that.  I did it on a whim. Actually that isn’t true, I did it because we had talked bout it six months ago and I figured “How hard can it be?”

Honestly, you won’t see any more content on there than you do on here.  I set it up sp that it is more of an advertisement for new readers so the can become commenters and we can then cut some of the commenters on here that are pissing us writers off.  You know who you are and start packing up your laptop and get ready to move on.

Just kidding I think. What I’ll do is when we have posted a piece up on here I’ll copy the link and post it for the Facebook readers to use to come over here to read it.

I also asked that if any readers want to comment on and discuss the offense then to please do it on the Blather site itself.

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Well, you know the players had fun out there.  I think the fans did too – as long as you kept the realization that is was a glorified scrimmage foremost in your mind.

As we talked about on here earlier, the way the Captains conducted the draft we fans were never going to see a full 1st team out there so neither the Blue team nor the Gold team was anything like what we’ll see going into or coming out of fall camp.

But it was a beautiful day for Pitt football and I have to say to anyone who professes to be a big fan and then decides that there are “better things to do than watch a glorified scrimmage” then too bad for you as you missed out on a great Saturday afternoon of football and having a blast with other Pitt fans.

Watch this and then we’ll address some points that I took away from the scrimmage…

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I can’t complain over Pitt’s seed or opponent.

Pitt is a #10 seed in the East Region. They will play #7 Wisconsin in St. Louis at 6:50 pm on Friday on TNT. TV viewing-wise, that is remarkably convenient.

Pitt is a slight underdog against Wisconsin.

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Pitt and the rest of the ACC officially released the 2016 Football Schedule today. While opponents have been known for a while, the dates have not. Let’s take a look! (more…)

 It is getting close to crunch time.

The all-important recruiting Letter of Intent Day (LOI Day) is fast approaching; February 3^rd is the date this year with April 1^st as the last day the National Letter of Intent (NLI) can be signed for players to qualify for the 2016 recruiting class and football season.

Pitt is pushing hard for verbals from Central Catholic’s 4* Safety Damar Hamlin, a and Khaleke Hudson a 3* Athlete from McKeesport.  Both are local guys who Narduzzi very much wants to land for several reason, not the least of which is that they are local kids and both are being recruited by Penn State and other top name programs like OSU and Michigan and have many other prime offers.  If Narduzzi lands these two guys other recruits will sit up and take notice for their future choices.

On the other side of this is the angst we have about kids who are already committed to Pitt being actively recruited by other programs up to and sometimes including LOI Day. Such as highly sought after 3* Henry Miller of Kissimmee, FL. He’s a CB who will serve us well in two ways: first he’s a good play and we need CBs but secondly, he’s a Florida recruit and if you want your program to grow into a solid winning one those Florida kids with their speed are good ones to land.

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