So, yes. Joe Starkey noticed the poll I ran just after the Freeh Report and  a week before the Paterno statue was removed. Just part of his overall piece he wrote why Pitt should play PSU.

The topic lit up the airwaves, where the overwhelming sentiment was to renew at least for the two games. The blog PittBlather.com received more than 600 replies to a poll asking whether fans still want to see Pitt-Penn State.

The No. 1 answer (29 percent) was yes, depending on “what steps Penn State takes in light of the Freeh Report.” That was followed by 25 percent saying yes unconditionally and 21 percent saying absolutely not.

Now, Joe Starkey did me the unnecessary courtesy of e-mailing me several days before his column with some questions about the poll, and letting me know he was planning to mention it. (Not the content of his column, just that he was going to mention it.) So I knew something was coming.

Do I agree with what he said? That Pitt should play PSU “first in the name of collegiality”? No. To put it bluntly, screw that.

Playing the game to guarantee a sell out? Um, isn’t that just about the money? That’s not far removed from the reasons Penn State’s powers did what they did with pretending Sandusky wasn’t doing obscene acts with minors in their own football building. That’s the worst reason to play.

Overall, I am still undecided about my feelings on those games in four years. My impulse is still to play. The history. The connections within my family. That all means a lot, and comes into play. It colors my perspective rather strongly in favor of playing PSU.

But when I think about the actions by the powers at Penn State. All to protect the legacy of Paterno. To protect their reputation. To protect their cash cow. It becomes a bit harder to justify resuming playing PSU. Even for only a couple years.

A few links/stories not directly related to Pitt but putting out there.

Northwestern has been Under Armour-ized. It’s not good. It’s not Maryland bad, but in the Big 10 it is radical.

Want to see how a lot of teams will probably (or should) schedule in the ACC when they go to a 9 game schedule? Virginia Tech is a good example.

The 2015 Akron game that was listed on Tech’s website under future schedules has been canceled.

The Hokies’ nonconference schedule in the next few years looks like this:

2013: vs. Alabama in Atlanta, vs. Marshall, vs. Western Carolina

2014: vs. William and Mary, at Ohio State, vs. Western Michigan

2015: vs. Furman, vs. Ohio State, vs. East Carolina

2016: vs. Wisconsin, vs. Liberty, at East Carolina

By being pushed back, the East Carolina series would have one more home-and-home cycle in 2017 and ’18.

The Hokies also are scheduled for a trip to Wisconsin in 2017 to satisfy that home-and-home agreement…

Every year has one marquee non-con. VT relies a little heavy on local 1-AA foes for an extreme patsy for my tastes. The third game isn’t bad. Especially with the always dangerous ECU team out there.

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Still no Pitt basketball schedule. Most of the hold-up has been presumed to be because of the quest to find a halfway decent team to play at home after Pitt foolishly counted on playing in the SEC/Big East challenge. It also seems that the Preseason NIT hasn’t quite figured out the way they want to set things.

The other holdup is the preseason NIT, a four-game event. Pitt will play two of the following teams at the Petersen Events Center: Robert Morris, Fordham and Lehigh.

Given Pitt’s annual series with Robert Morris, I am guessing event organizers will do everything they can to make sure RMU is one of those teams to play the Panthers.

If the other team is Lehigh, the Panthers will be in for a tough game. Lehigh upset Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament in March and returns its best player – C.J. McCollum, who decided to return to school rather than enter his name in the NBA draft.

If Lehigh is the opponent it could end up being one of the most important games of the year. Teams in the preseason NIT have to go 2-0 in pool play to advance to the semifinal round at Madison Square Garden.

Should Pitt be upset, the Panthers would not get to play two of the following three BCS opponents (Michigan, Kansas State and Virginia) at the Garden and instead would have to settle for two more games against mid-major or low-major teams at the Petersen Events Center.

That could be disastrous for Pitt. It would be entirely possible then that the Panthers would not play one BCS conference opponent in non-conference play.

Yes, it’s a risk for Pitt to play Lehigh, but given the rest of their non-con it seems worth it. Pitt will need bumps to its non-con and Lehigh — beyond simply the games at MSG — would help. Just something to add to the urgency.

Need to clear some tabs. Too many building up and I know that it will only get tougher to get to in the coming weeks.

Pitt may have a new basketball commit after this weekend. Jamel Artis out of Baltimore has indicated he intends to give a verbal after the Peach Jam in South Carolina. Which just happens to be an event Coach Jamie Dixon is attending.

Though Pittsburgh will soon be an Atlantic Coast Conference institution, Artis did indicate “I always wanted to play in the BIG EAST,” when asked specifically about the conference. Jamel on criteria for choosing a school: “Honestly, guys I can trust — coaches and players. Guys that play hard every night, that are going to give it a 100%. And I just want to win…win a championship.”

Artis considers himself a “point forward”, and for good measure, as he possesses significant passing ability for a player standing 6’7” and weighing 220 pounds. Of dropping dimes, the East Baltimore product that calls that city’s Belair section home said “I take a lot of pride in that. That’s one thing I do best.” In addition to finding people, Artis can hit mid-range jumpers, solidly pat the rock, and has a decent feel for the game.

He also understands conditioning is an issue — Jamel laughed and agreed when asked if the food at Vermont Prep packed on a few extra pounds. He cited three other points of needed improvement, as “I have to stop clutching” his jump shot, and “I have to rebound more”. In terms of lateral quickness, Artis revealed “I’m quick at times, but I can get a little quicker.”

His own description of himself and this scouting report from ESPN.com makes him appear to be exactly the kind of player that has developed and thrived for Coach Dixon.

Artis is a long athletic wing that can get to the rim with slashes in transition as well as in the half court set. He is a good ball handler, rebounder and multiple position defender as well. He must get stronger and extend his shooting range but has very good upside.

Artis has gotten a good amount of interest but not a lot of offers.

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Pitt and Penn State are scheduled to play a home-and-home pair of football games in 2016 and 2017. A possible thaw in the long-standing stalemate in what was once a great annual rivalry game. Add in the fact that the Big 10-Pac-12 annual cross-over plan that was scheduled to begin in 2017 has now fallen through. Well, you could make a pretty good case that Pitt and Penn State might actually be able to resume the annual in-state rivalry game.

This home-and-home came about before the Penn State cover-up of the Sandusky molestations came to light. A cover-up to protect the image of the football program at Penn State. Now, Penn State is promising reforms. Changes, in no small part from the recommendations of the Freeh Report. But as Dan Wolken notes, how can there be real change when Penn State begins their new season in seven weeks?

That creates a question for Pitt and Pitt fans. Should we still want Pitt and Penn State to meet in football? Do we want to play a program where the leaders so willingly betrayed its self-righteous ideals to protect the image of itself. That it not only hid a pedophile right within in its midst, it gave license the beast to continue to use his relationship with Penn State football to bring in more boys to victimize.

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I repeat my feeling that Pitt was really, really foolish to count on the Big East to give them a game in the SEC/Big East Challenge. I don’t care what vibe they got from the conference. What assurances they thought they had. It was poor planning, and coupled with Big East incompetency entirely avoidable.

As such, they have been scrambling for a month to get a good (power conference with NCAA Tournament chances opponent) home game in a very specific window (right around the first weekend of December) of the non-con. Needless to say, it hasn’t gone so well. That leaves Pitt looking to find a mid-major of quality.

So, um, the Horizon Leauge, huh?

Pitt is still trying fill a major home date after not getting an expected home game in the Big East-SEC Challenge. The Panthers would be wise to lock in a home game with Horizon League favorite Valparaiso. There have been talks between the two and Pitt may not get a better RPI game on the nonconference home schedule.

I guess the upside is that Pitt probably wouldn’t have to give a return game.

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An aspect of the coming playoffs and how the top four teams will be determined will be the strength of schedule (SOS). Some are bigger proponents of how large it’s impact on the rankings should be than others.

There is a belief that if SOS is a significant enough component, then teams will schedule better in the non-con. At this point a lot of comparisons are being made to how the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee uses SOS in their evaluations.

The question really is, how much can and will teams increase their SOS when it comes down to controlling only 3 or 4 games on the schedule. And if so, just how much will SOS really be factored into the evaluations and rankings of the top-four teams by a selection committee.

In college basketball non-cons are mostly set in the off-season — by the coaches. That allows coaches to judge how their team will be for that season and adjust their non-con accordingly as harder or easier. It’s a dozen or so games with more flexibility to who to schedule and how much it can impact the SOS. A team can be “rewarded” or “punished” for playing a hard or easy non-con by the selection committee by their seeding or what happens to them on the bubble. There are enough teams in the Tournament to allow that kind of flexibility.

College football is not that way. Games are set years in advance without really being sure of the team’s ability on either side. It is set by an AD who is mainly concerned with filling key home dates and getting people to attend.

Any committee that is picking the top-four college football teams does not have the luxury of significantly rewarding or punishing a team based on their non-con SOS. There isn’t enough wiggle room for that.

Your power conference programs — and realistically that is where this is focused — want/need to have 7 home games for budget reasons almost every year. Assuming for an 8 or 9 game schedule, they generally need 2-3 of their available non-con games to be at home. The power conferences are going to need just as many guarantee games as before, worrying about how it impacts the SOS seems relatively minor.

The rise in 1-AA patsy games is a direct result in the number of teams that have to put together a profitable home schedule. The costs of paying for a guarantee game have risen noticeably because of the demand. The choice to get 1-A guarantee game these days is to either pay a lot or pay less but go on the road in a 2- or 3-1 deal. There’s a reason Pitt is going to Buffalo and Texas Tech will be playing at Texas State this year. The 1-AA option is simply a way to slightly increase the supply. To bring down the costs

The ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 all do the 9-game conference schedule, in no small part because they want to bring down the costs (and scheduling headaches) for all conference members in how many games they need to get on the non-con. The Big 10 effectively has 9-games with it’s coming partnership with the Pac-12, while improving its SOS.

In theory the Pac-12 is positioned best to benefit from a strong SOS component, because they only need to schedule 2 more games after the conference and Big 10 match-up. And with only 2 games needing to be scheduled, they can afford to pay for guarantee games against low but not horrid teams.

The reduction in demand from Pac-12 schools should increase the available supply of teams from (whatever is left of the) WAC, MWC and part of the Sun Belt. That will likely be eliminated as teams make a greater effort to avoid 1-AA opponents and obvious SOS ding. Most teams still will not exceed  1 good non-con.

The 2004 Auburn Tigers — often cited as the classic example for the need of a playoff — had a non-con of The Citadel, Louisiana Tech and Louisiana-Monroe that year (11-game schedule at that time). That, more than anything else, cost them their spot in the BCS. Playing patsies including a 1-AA team — and yes, there were reasons their schedule ended up that way. Yes, they ran the table in the SEC that year, but that wasn’t exactly the strongest year in the SEC. Only Georgia and Auburn finished the year with 2 or less losses. That was the SEC with a coaching line-up that included Croom, Shula, Zook, Cutliffe, Nutt. Tennessee was the only other SEC team to finish in the AP top-25. The Coaches Poll somehow put 7-5 Florida at #25 at the end. And yet, with the four-team playoff, Auburn would have been in the playoffs despite their non-con schedule.

The bigger impact on SOS will be the conference. The SEC, these days, can count on their conference to supply the punch to the schedule that will allow most of the schools to stick to a scheduling pattern that won’t look too different from their present one. Same with the Big 12, in no small part because of their 9-game schedule that allows them to play everyone in their conference.

The Pac-12 and ACC, may have other concerns. Both are not strong conferences in perception or in terms of most conference ranking evaluations. Both are dragged down by a couple really bad teams and a wide swath of mediocrity. As mentioned, though, the Pac-12 has taken a big step in dealing with that with their deal with the Big 10.

Obiviously, it’s been a bit worse in the ACC with FSU and Miami down in the mediocrity pool as well. Even in the ACC, there has been an adjustment. Moving to the 9-game conference schedule, was a start. FSU, Clemson and GT all have non-con rivalry games. Miami and BC regularly play at least one good non-con. As does Pitt and Syracuse. Even the other seven have made it a point to play one BCS program each year — which included the Big East. Losing one patsy game will help the overall SOS.

In the end, I don’t see SOS — especially non-con SOS — being that big a factor in the selection of the top-four teams. Playing 1-AA teams will be reduced — and that is a good thing. I think the contracts will rise in how much teams pay for guarantee games — and getting out of those games will likewise include a larger buyout. Otherwise, don’t expect much change in the schedules by teams under a 4-team system.

The good news. Pitt basketball continues to do well off the court with the student part.

For the second consecutive year, the University of Pittsburgh men’s basketball program received Public Recognition from the National Collegiate Athletic Association for ranking among the nation’s top-10 percent of all 336 men’s basketball squads based on its Academic Progress Rate. Announced by the NCAA on Thursday, the honor takes into account academic progress, graduation and retention rates over a four-year period between the 2007-08 and 2010-11 academic years.

Pitt and Notre Dame are the only two Big East men’s basketball programs ranked among the nation’s top-10 percent in APR score in each of the last two years. Over the last 11 seasons, Pitt has led the league in overall wins (295), league wins (129), NCAA Tournament appearances (10) and conference titles (six).

The Academic Progress Rate is a measure of classroom performance related to all participating NCAA Division I athletic programs. It is considered to be the NCAA’s “real-time” snapshot of academic progress, graduation and retention. Schools who fail to reach the NCAA’s minimum score can receive penalties that include loss of scholarships, public admonishment, restrictions on practice and competition and even expulsion from the NCAA.

Under the direction of four-time National Coach of the Year Jamie Dixon and Director of Academic Support Services Mike Farabaugh, the Pitt Basketball program has consistently ranked among the best Big East Conference performers in the APR. During Dixon’s nine-year tenure, over 80 percent of his men’s basketball players have graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. The Panthers have also earned a Team Academic Achievement Award for Most Improved Academic Team in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

“Graduating student-athletes will always be the No. 1 priority for our program,” Dixon said. “Once again, this is a tremendous honor for our university and a great reward for all of the hard work and dedication that our players have put into their studies.”

No worries about facing a post-season ban like UConn is having to face this year.

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I actually try to be fair to the Big East. Really, I do.

Earlier after Pitt got left out of the SEC/Big East Challenge, I went on record saying that Pitt really shouldn’t have been counting on the game for a couple reasons. The most obvious being the fact that Pitt is leaving the Big East for the ACC coupled with the lawsuit recently filed. It’s not like the Big East is (or even should) be going out of their way to help Pitt.

The other reason being that if Pitt was counting on the SEC game to be a marquee game that was foolish as well. The way the Challenge works, any SEC team that had a home game last year, would go on the road this year. That meant the opponents could have been (in order of desirability): Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi St., South Carolina or Tennessee.

Kentucky was never going to happen. No way the Big East would let the biggest name go to the departing Pitt and have that be talked about during the game. Tennessee has been Pitt’s opponent in this the last two years. Safe to say they would be out.

That means — at best — Pitt could have gotten a 50-50 shot at a good (Alabama) to potentially good (Georgia) opponent or crapped out.

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ESPN has announced the match-ups for the SEC/Big East Challenge. Prepare to be awed.

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I hope you are not surprised by this predictable outcome. New PSU Head Coach Bill O’Brien generated plenty of pixels of media coverage and cheers from the Penn State base at saying he wants to restart the tradition and play Pitt annually. As I wrote a little over a week ago, I didn’t see it likely to occur. And that was even without taking into account the Pac-12-Big 10 deal to have annual games between the conferences that will be home-and-away. Effectively giving every Big 10 a quality non-con game every year to to with 8 conference games.

That leaves only 3 non-con games left. And we know from past Paterno deflections, Penn State needs to have 2 guarantee home games every year. Soooo… Gentlemen. Start. Your. Hedging.

Penn State has four non-conference games, and O’Brien says he’d like to play a neutral site game (The Meadowlands and Washington, D.C., are possibilities) to begin the season against a traditional or new rival (such as Alabama or Notre Dame). Moreover, in 2017, the Big Ten and Pac-12 are expected to begin an annual non-conference game between the conferences, further crowding the schedule.

That leaves two non-conference games remaining, and both of those must be moneymakers for the health of the program. In other words, they must be guarantee games against teams that can’t expect a return game.

“We’ll see what happens,” O’Brien said Monday. “I’d like to find a way to make it all work out.”

O’Brien has spoken at length since arriving at Penn State about the desire to play Pitt annually, but admitted Monday it may not happen because of logistics.

O’Brien is overpromising on the schedule, because PSU fans are tired of a non-con schedule that might have one good team every other year at home and at least two patsies. That’s not changing too radically.

The teams may play periodically, but it won’t be on an annual basis. Now if the basketball teams want to start back up with things that would be a good start.

I’m sure many of you have seen the stories. That Penn State’s new coach expressed a desire to reestablish the Pitt-Penn State series.

Penn State and Pitt last played Sept. 16, 2000, when the Panthers beat the Nittany Lions, 12-0, at Three Rivers Stadium.

“I would love to see that game played on an annual basis,” O’Brien told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in a story published Saturday. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for (Pitt coach) Paul Chryst and their program, and that’s a great rivalry.

“For the fans of Pennsylvania to be able to see that game every year, I think that’s pretty neat.”

From the earliest days of this blog, I have maintained that Pitt-Penn State would resume some time after Paterno not only retired, but had passed away.

Now we have the home-and-home coming up in 2016, and it seemed obvious that there would be some discussions as it got closer to extending it. Especially since by then no one expected Paterno would still be coaching.

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Did you realize that if you lived outside of the Pittsburgh area and your internet provider does not give you ESPN3.com, there was a very real chance of not seeing a Pitt basketball game until the the beginning of December? Terrifying.

Well, the cancelled games from the NBA lockout offer Pitt fans the first tangible benefit. The November 16 game against Long Beach State has been bumped from ESPN3.com to ESPNU. It has also been bumped from a 7pm start time to 9pm.

I’m not going to spend much time banging on how bad the non-con is this year. I think everyone already knows it. Some of it was out of Pitt’s hands with the non-con tournament squeeze, deal falling through at MSG, and a team dropping out of the Philly Classic. Still the next 3 years of tournaments are already set.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said today Pitt will play in the 2014 Maui Invitational. It’s Pitt’s first trip to Maui since Dixon became head coach.

Pitt will play in the Philly Classic in November. In 2012, the Panthers will play in the preseason NIT in New York. In 2013, they will play in the Legends Classic In Brooklyn.

The preseason NIT is always a big deal, and the Maui Invitational is fantastic because of the ESPN backing and promotion. The Brooklyn game is obviously a new one, but considering that will be in the new NBA arena there, so I expect the promoters to get some really good teams to try and get some attention from MSG.

Add in the fact that Dixon and his wife have a history with Hawaii — where they met and Dixon was an assistant. Not that I think Dixon is going anywhere, but getting to coach his team in Hawaii in a few years has to be another enticing carrot.

Let’s face it, until Pitt gets consistently better. Until the team starts the season strong, the Mouse Monopoly is not going to be interested in airing Pitt games in the late afternoon or at night. Utah isn’t too good this year, and may not even have its starting QB for the game.

About the only reason for the Utah-Pitt game not to air at noon would be a concession to the Pac-12 and Utah to not have a team playing at 10 am by their internal clocks. But, this is not to be. The Big East Tweeted that the Utah-Pitt game on October 15 will be a Noon game on ESPNU. I will be curious how lethargic Utah will be with that starting time.