We knew Penn State-Pitt was going to be a night game broadcast by the Mouse Monopoly. We just didn’t know which station. Turns out they are going big for it:

One of college football’s most historic rivalries will be showcased in primetime when Pitt and Penn State clash at Heinz Field this September 8 in front of a national ABC television audience at 8 p.m.

This will be the first night kickoff for a Pitt-Penn State game in 31 years. On November 14, 1987, the Panthers defeated the Nittany Lions, 10-0, in an ESPN televised game at Pitt Stadium that started at 7:30 p.m.

This game is going to be one of the wilder ones.

Still not convinced that it will have College GameDay as well for it. But we will see.

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Stunned. Genuinely stunned. Followed by really, really happy. September can’t roll around fast enough.

Some potential college football news dropped by the Pirates just now: Bucs move their Sept. 8 game vs. Marlins from 7:05 to 1:05 ET "to allow the University of Pittsburgh to schedule its gridiron clash with Penn State University at night."

— Matt Fortuna (@Matt_Fortuna) April 13, 2018

Two years ago, you may recall the Pittsburgh Pirates refused to even entertain the notion of rescheduling their home game for earlier to allow for an evening game.

Does it help that the Pirates are still trying to generate some positive publicity after an offseason of giving away their best players, going cheap and pleading poverty… again? Probably. Do I care? No.

I’m not sure how AD Heather Lyke did it, I just like it.

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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This is… interesting.

When teams are matched up in the B1G/ACC Challenge, there is almost without exception, an attempt to pair up teams of similar expectations.

For different reasons, a Pitt-Maryland match-up suggests pairing off two teams that could be very good or very mediocre.

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There’s a “but” involved.

Been rumored for a month or so that Pitt and Penn State would face-off in basketball this year. BUT that it wouldn’t be any sort of “home-and-home” exchange. Sure enough, it’s going to be in New Jersey. And it is the undercard.

Villanova will play Notre Dame and Pitt will face Penn State in the first Never Forget Tribute Classic at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Dec. 10, sources told CBS Sports.

An official announcement is expected soon.

The first game of the doubleheader between the Wildcats and Fighting Irish will be available on CBS while the second will air on CBS Sports Network.

Villanova and Notre Dame will tip off at Noon ET with Pitt and Penn State expected to begin their game at approximately 2:30 p.m. ET.

So it is the undercard, but goes second. That’s different, but that is CBS for you. They will make the Nova-ND their Saturday noon game, and see if people can find their cable sports channel for the second game.

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Good hate is so hard to find. Playing Penn State is important. In the grand scheme of things, they remain Pitt’s primary object of hate. But there is room in my heart to hate more than one team. And a chance to see that hate expressed against the Hoopies on the field once more is a good thing.

It was just a matter of time, and honestly having both schools changing ADs helped this happen. There was more than a little acrimony on that front as well.

Pitt and WVU will play a 4-game home-and home. Pitt hosts in 2022 and 2024. Travels to the godforsaken land of Morgantown in 2023 and 2025.

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I knew Pitt had a lot of players getting some off-season surgery, but I didn’t know it was this many.

[Pitt Coach Jamie] Dixon, who has three players out with surgeries and at least five others recovering from previous surgeries or nagging injuries, said the changes to NCAA rules also played a part in the decision.

“The rules have changed to where you could only have two players from one college team on each of the summer league teams,” Dixon said. “That sort of made it difficult with only so many Division I players available to have the kind of competitive league you are looking for.

“Hopefully, it is something we can revisit for next year, but, for this year, it just didn’t seem like it was going to be able to work out.”

Josh Newkirk earlier followed by James Robinson and incoming transfer, Sterling Smith, recently had off-season surgies.

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The bracket was released for the 2014 Maui Invitational Classic. Since Pitt will get there a little early to play Hawaii, they get an extra game. Pitt gets to start it out against the host — Chaminade. Assuming no upset (yes, yes, we all know: 1982. Virginia. Ralph Sampson. Yada, yada, yada.), Pitt moves on to face BYU or SDSU in the semis. Given the recent past, I would expect it to be SDSU.

I’m not sure if it is just a few people getting negative or just a conditioning thing, but I actually saw some complaints about Pitt’s bracket on Twitter and message boards. Mainly that it is a negative to have the game against Chaminade because it hurts the RPI. And a little unfamiliarity/little too casual in dismissing a team like SDSU. The Aztecs have been one of the best teams in the Mountain West. They were a #4 seed last year, going out in the Sweet Sixteen to Arizona. Odds are, if it is Pitt-SDSU in the semis, SDSU will be considered the favorite.

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I’m back. A bit of traveling for the holiday week(end). Try to get back into things Monday night and the storm that ripped through our area knocked the power out for a good 12 hours or so. The power outage wasn’t the worst — except to my 12-year old daughter who found her tablet useless without wi-fi. Especially since it happened at night and we were able to sleep through half of it.

The worry was all the contents of the fridge and freezer. Well, it was the worry of my wife. Within the first hour of the outage, she’s ready to declare everything in the fridge is doomed. Followed by the ice cream in the freezer. By the morning, she’s planning to toss everything from the freezer. Lose power for more than 24 hours and she is considering a new refrigerator, because who knows what may linger in the old one.

Keep in mind that the minute we lose power, she all but padlocks the doors to the fridge so none of the precious remaining cold escapes.

My only concern was how soon the water from the storm would get into the ground and into our basement. Every time there’s an outage I think about how I really need a battery back-up for the sump pump. And every time the power comes back I put off the move.

Anyways…

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Pitt tends to wait until August to put out its basketball schedule. Most of us rely on piecing together the non-con by leaks and releases from other schools.

As you may recall, Pitt posted a need for a home game at the end of 2014.

The lucky team that accepted was  Florida Gulf Coast University.

FGCU has added a travel addition to its non-conference schedule, visiting Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Dec. 30, to go along with a previously announced game at Xavier on Dec. 28, FGCU athletic director Ken Kavanagh said today.

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With 31 total games permitted each season, FGCU and other A-Sun schools have 17 non-conference games to find. Xavier, which is paying FGCU $95,000 with other compensation for the one-time game, and Pittsburgh are one-year deals. Schools can accept up to four “guarantee” games, although FGCU is planning to cut that number to three this season.

Have to imagine Pitt is paying close to the same amount for that game. Kind of a shrewd scheduling by FGCU to put those road games back-to-back. An extra night in a hotel instead of an additional flight.

Be honest. You really weren’t sure that the road game at FIU would be shown anywhere but on some pirated stream. Instead, it will be a game on FoxSports 1. Yes, they are still a real channel despite airing Big East basketball games. A noon game, but it counts.

To remind every one, this is FIU. They are not the school that fired Carl Pelini for alleged drug use or whatever the allegations now are. That’s FAU. No, FIU is the school that had rising coaching star Mario Cristobal and inexplicably fired him after a rebuilding year to eventually hire… Ron Turner.

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Credit and curses to J.D. for noting this site. It’s a Craiglist or want ads for basketball games. Rather than individually calling each school, you can post your wants and needs for a game. Specify the date and/or the kind of opponent you want and hope someone gets back to you on this.

For example, UNC-Charlotte posted this gem: “Looking to buy a game for the opener. Competitive $$$$ – RPI 200 and below. Please call or email. Thanks.” They want a guarantee game with an opponent that won’t ding their RPI too much.

That “200 RPI or better” caveat is very common in the ads for a lot of major conference and high mid-majors looking for guarantee games.

Then there are the really sad ones. The ones looking to be bought. Like Alabama A&M looking to have practically their entire non-con on the road:

Hello Coaches! I hope you all enjoyed Dallas as well as the very exiting NCAA Tournament. We are looking for some games to fill our buy dates. They are as follows: Nov. 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, Dec. 14,-23, Dec 29-30. Please help us out in this endeavor. Thanks Coaches!

It’s never been easy, but it is a different kind of rough being a player for a HBCU these days.

Pitt has posted their remaining need:

As you can see, Pitt is looking to fill a final home game right before the New Year. Pitt has a bunch of challenging road/neutral site games. And like many other programs on the list, they need a home game to fill that has to start at home.

So who wants to spend the rest of their day coming through the list to find Pitt a game?

Well, the rumor this morning was that Pitt might get Ohio State. Really, though, that didn’t make sense since Pitt hosted last year and so did Ohio State. Pitt had to be going on the road for the Big Ten-ACC Challenge. My main concern was another dog game where Pitt ends up with Rutgers.

Instead Pitt gets a team that has a blue-blood reputation and a still hateable coach in Tom Crean.

The refurbished ACC and Big Ten will stage some high-profile matchups in their annual challenge series in the coming season, highlighted by national championship contenders Duke and Wisconsin clashing in Madison on the second night of the event.

In other notable matchups, Syracuse will visit Michigan, Ohio State will travel to Louisville, Indiana will host Pittburgh and North Carolina will welcome Iowa to Chapel Hill, sources confirmed to SI.com. Maryland, which left the ACC at the end of this past season to join the Big Ten, will face longtime rival Virginia to College Park.

Pitt’s non-con schedule is definitely taking a step up this year. With Indiana (who should at least be a fringe NCAA Tournament team) on the road and the Maui Classic. Plus you know Coach Jamie Dixon will find a game in NYC or nearby as he likes to do.

The downside is that the home non-con will probably remain lackluster with that many neutral court and a solid road opponent.

I’ll understand if you were wringing your hands over Pitt’s non-con schedule again after this past weekend. The non-con has not gotten better looking. Not after Cinci went down big to Xavier. Penn State showed why it doesn’t get basketball respect after losing to Princeton at home — by blowing an 18 point lead with 6:34 left. Duquesne lost to Robert Morris. Heck, Fresno State and Albany lost over the weekend.

So no matter what computer metric you use (KenPom, RPI, Sagarin…), Pitt’s non-con strength of schedule is down near the bottom.

It’s the reason why Pitt is still unranked despite piling up a 10-0 record. Stanford is presently the best win, and while nice, provides no boost. And thanks to getting blown out by Xavier, the same can be said for today’s game with Cinci as far as potential impact — assuming a win.

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So this is a nice addition to the future football schedule.

Pitt and Oklahoma State will play a home-and-home football series during the 2016 and 2017 seasons, the schools announced today.

On Sept. 17, 2016, the Panthers will play at Oklahoma State in Boone Pickens Stadium.

The Cowboys will visit Heinz Field in Pittsburgh the following season on Sept. 16, 2017.

I do like that the dates of the games are 9/17/16 and 9/16/17. But then I’m a little tired and at this point easily bemused.

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