The Big East announced the 18 game conference schedule. Every team in the conference plays each other once, and 3 home-and-homes. How do they decide those?

The conference said that the opponents a school plays twice were based on “natural interest, geography, rivalries and television contractual obligations.”

Well,  for Pitt obviously WVU is one of them. In basketball, Marquette-Pitt has been well on its way to being a “rivalry” as the games have been heated and tough in every meeting. So, naturally Marquette and Pitt only meet once. These are Pitt’s 3 home-and-homes.

Pittsburgh: Cincinnati, Villanova, West Virginia

WVU and ‘Nova make sense. But Cinci? WVU should have the home-and-home with Cinci but they end up with Providence and St. John’s as their other two? Huh? Yes, there’s things that make sense. Private, small, East Coast schools are a natural fit to play WVU.

As for the the other 12 conference games for Pitt.

• Away: UConn, Marquette, Notre Dame, St. John’s, USF, Syracuse
• Home: DePaul, Georgetown, Louisville, Providence, Rutgers, Seton Hall

I’m still trying to accept playing Cinci twice.

While Pitt isn’t officially commenting, the Big East has confirmed the Pitt-Duke game at Madison Square Garden.

Pitt is scheduled to play the Blue Devils on Dec. 20 at Madison Square Garden in a nationally televised men’s basketball game.

“It’s happening,” Big East associate commissioner Tom Odjakjian said. “That’s been confirmed.”

Duke had a standing deal with ESPN for a game at MSG on that day. Thankfully, Pitt was able to make it work.

Non-con known now includes Duke, St. Louis, at Dayton, at Washington, Oklahoma St., Duquesne, Buffalo, Lafayette, Houston Baptist and NC A&T. With 18 Big East games, that brings the schedule to 29 games. That means maybe one more game on the non-con that we don’t know at this point. Nice.

Looks like we know how Pitt will be starting the season this year. Hosting the Hispanic College Fund Classic. Last year, it was held at UConn. There’s no announcement by Pitt, but St. Louis has released their non-con schedule to give us the info.

The Majerus era begins as the Billikens open the regular season playing in the “Hispanic College Fund Classic” an exempted tournament hosted by Pittsburgh. The Billikens face North Carolina A&T on Fri., Nov. 9, and Houston Baptist, which was 22-7 and is making the transition to Division I, on Sat., Nov. 10. SLU closes out the tournament on Sun., Nov. 11, against the host Panthers, who are coming off a 29-8 record.

So, now we know three more teams Pitt will have on its non-con St. Louis (making it 3 A-10 teams played this coming season) and NC A&T and Houston Baptist as part of the cream-puff portion.

Looks like Pitt has had luck in reshuffling a bunch of games to finally make that Pitt-Duke game at Madison Square Garden a reality (Insider subs).

The Pitt-Duke game is finally getting closer to becoming a reality on Dec. 20 in New York City. Pitt needed Dayton to move its Dec. 22 game against the Panthers to another date. Pitt didn’t want to play Duke in New York City with one day prepare and travel for Dayton. Dayton has finally relented and is willing to move the game to Dec. 29 in Dayton, but that means more games have to be moved. Dayton is scheduled to play Lipscomb on that day, and Pitt was scheduled to host Lafayette on Dec. 28. Those games are being moved to make it acceptable to all parties. Pitt is also moving a game with Buffalo on Dec. 19 because of the Duke game.

Beautiful.

This also fills in a bit more about what teams Pitt has in the non-con puzzle. Lafayette (Dec.), at Duquesne (Nov.), at Dayton (Dec.), Duke (Dec.), Buffalo (Dec.) and Washington (Feb.). That leaves 5-6 more games for Pitt’s non-con.

ADDITION: I forgot Oklahoma State also in December.

As lame as Pitt’s home schedule is this fall, the road schedule receives recognition as being a challenge. Really, it’s on the strength — or brutality — of playing the expected best three teams on the road. Plus playing two other BCS conference schools in Michigan St. and Virginia on the road.

Rivals.com listed Pitt’s schedule as the 23d toughest in the country, and the 2d toughest in the Big East. That’s with Grambling and Eastern Michigan on the schedule. It’s either a bit of a reflection of the perception of the top three teams in the Big East now, or just how bad other schools schedule that Pitt’s sched. would make the top 25 in schedule difficulty.
Ideally, 2-3 on the road this season would be amazing progress. 1-4 would be tolerable.

AD Jeff Long is not evil.

I don’t agree with some of his decisions. He may be tin-eared and lacking a charisma, but he is not out to ruin Pitt athletics. There has even been good like his work to help other sports in the athletic department. Building campus facilities and updating other sports facilities to bring them out of the 70s.

The plan would have the greatest impact on what are commonly referred to as Olympic or non-revenue sports, those programs that have lower visibility than basketball or football.

Pitt plans to build a soccer complex, track/intramural complex, softball field, marching-band facility and baseball complex. The athletic department also plans to spend $11.4 million to renovate Fitzgerald Field House, Trees Hall and the Cost Sports Center and put a diving well into Trees Pool.

The soccer, baseball, track and softball facilities are in the first four-year phase of the plan.

The athletic department construction will take place at the former site of the dilapidated Allequippa Terrace public-housing project, which was torn down in the mid 1990s. In 2000, the Oak Hill housing community opened on a portion of the site and, since then, the remaining land was at the vortex of a tug of war between Pitt, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, and developer Beacon/Corcoran Jennison. In March, the parties came to an agreement, clearing the way for Pitt to go forward with its plan to build the state-of-the-art athletic facility. While the deal has not been finalized, sources indicate the closing of the deal is imminent, and that will give Pitt the land it needs.

Part of how he’s worked on it is with the unpopular reseating plan for Pitt basketball and the increased mandatory donations.

This hasn’t been a good week for AD Long. There was the leaking of the new Panther/dog/mutant/dino/thing head logo that was widely panned.

Then there was the announced cancellation of the Clemson home-and-home for 2010 and -11. I thought it was probably a mutual thing, though,  because the way it was set, Pitt might have wanted to cancel or change it more. Pitt had a home slate in 2010 of WVU, Louisville, Rutgers, Miami and Clemson (not to mention ND on the road) while 2011 had Pitt with 3 difficult non-con road games and ND as the only attractive home game. Simple marketing suggested that Pitt needed to reorganize the schedule. Add another good home non-con in 2011, maybe go a little lighter with 2010 for the other non-con home games. Plus, 2009 still needs to be finished and it could allow a home-and-home to start then.

Sure, it’s always annoying to give up a decent opponent on the schedule, but it was only Clemson. Instead, AD Long decided to get defensive over the schedule.

“Clemson approached us about getting out of the series because they wanted the dates,” Long said. “At first, we balked, but then we began to talk to some other teams and, when we realized we had enough time to find an adequate replacement, we decided to go ahead and let them out of the contract.

“That’s really all it was — some times things come up. And some of the teams we are talking to as a replacement are very encouraging to me. We are talking to BCS conference teams, so this talk of wanting to add a I-AA is just not fair.”

Long said contrary to popular belief, his policy and desire is to get Pitt at least three non-conference games (out of five) against teams from BCS conferences (or Notre Dame) every year.

Did he really need to put the blame all on Clemson? What was the point? You say something like there was talk of changing the years and in discussions it became mutually agreed that it would be best to cancel.
Long also put himself in a scheduling corner. He now has to make sure that he has a BCS conference opponent to take the place of Clemson. He says they can find an “adequate replacement.” Clemson is a consistent mid-level bowl team. That means to find the “adequate replacement” means he can’t come back with a Northwestern, a Mississippi State, Vandy, Baylor or Kentucky. He’s going to need a Maryland, Oklahoma St., Purdue, Texas Tech, South Carolina — or even Boston College. And that also means no MAC, C-USA or such for the slots.

Give Zeise credit in the article for pointing out the disconnect between Long’s stated goal and desire of putting 3 BCS-quality opponents on the schedule each year and reality.

Although Long’s stated desire is to play three BCS non-conference teams, a look at future schedules suggests he has work to do.

The Panthers are scheduled to play only two BCS conference opponents in 2008 (Iowa, Notre Dame), 2009 (North Carolina State, Notre Dame) and as of now 2010 (Notre Dame, Miami), 2011 (Notre Dame, Iowa) and 2012 (Virginia Tech and Notre Dame).

In fact, the lone exception in the next seven seasons is 2013 when Pitt is scheduled to play Virginia Tech, North Carolina State and Notre Dame.

That doesn’t look too good.

Pitt and Clemson have agreed to cancel the home-and-home for 2010 and 2011. I think this was a mutual thing. While, it may have been a mutual thing, I think Pitt really wanted out for a couple reasons. The 2010 schedule already had Miami and ND making it a bear of a non-con even assuming they added patsies from 1-A and 1-AA to round out the schedule. It also means they might be able to do a home-and-home with a team starting in 2009 where they already have 7 home games set (UCF, Navy, ND, Cinci, UConn, USF, ‘Cuse) where Pitt can start on the road.

Unrelated, but with amusing timing, an early Clemson verbal now appears ready to switch to Pitt.

Madison (Ohio) tight end Nic DiLillo, ranked No. 12 nationally by Scout.com, has reneged on his commitment to Clemson and favors Pitt.

…

The 6-5, 225-pound DiLillo took an unofficial visit to Pitt on Friday, then called Clemson coaches last night and informed them that it was too far away from home, according to the fan site, CUTigers.com. Thanks to the recruitment by newly promoted Panthers tight ends coach Brian Angelichio, Pitt appears to be the frontrunner for DiLillo.

Scout.com has DiLillo as a 4-star recruit and Rivals.com puts him at 3-stars and the 19th best TE prospect. Michigan and Syracuse are also interested. Not sure what that does for Pitt’s recruitment of Hubie Graham and possibly still going after Mike Cruz. Kevin Gorman seems to think Pitt may also land Graham as well. Graham is ranked higher than DiLillo and holds offers from Michigan and Oklahoma as well.

This is apparently the latest on the possible Pitt-Duke game at Madison Square Garden (Insider subs):

Pitt is still trying to move three games, notably Dayton, so it can play Duke Dec. 20 in New York City. The Dayton game is scheduled for Dec. 22 in Dayton, which would mean Pitt would go from playing Duke in New York on Thursday to traveling Friday to Dayton to playing Saturday in Dayton. The chances of Pitt wanting to do that are zilch.

So basically, the game is still in the air until Pitt can get the other games shuffled. The other possible issue is the fact that the Big East will be playing 18 games plus Pitt has a February game at Washington. That means the rest of the non-con will have to be done in November and December. Very little wiggle room for make-up dates.

The December 20 game would likely be a main ESPN game. The only other competition for the WWLS would be the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego that night which I’m guessing wouldn’t start much before 9 pm Eastern.

Coach Dixon was a Hawaii assistant for a couple years, including just before joining the coaching staff at Pitt. He and his family seem to enjoy going back there every year, he’ll speak at the coach’s camp and he makes it a point to stop by and see the Hawaii coaching staff. The new Hawaii head coach was an assistant when Dixon was on the staff.

“I’m really happy for Bob,” said Dixon. “Now whether we’ll be back to play in the (Rainbow) Classic … I don’t know. The way the (NCAA) rules have changed, it’s harder to come out here. I would like to.

“And you look at the money, what we could do for four games at home. … What I’d like to do is figure out a way to play here without having to play Hawaii.”

Pitt hasn’t played in the Rainbow Classic since the 80s (I think). Hopefully Coach Dixon might be able to convince the school and those involved in running the Classic to invite Pitt in the next year or two. That might be part of the reason he continues to be involved at Hawaii when he visits.

The start times first three games of the football season have been announced.

Sept. 1 — Eastern Michigan — 6 pm

Sept. 8 — Grambling (1-AA) — 12 pm

Sept. 15 — @ Michigan St. — 12 pm

The Michigan State game will be televised on ESPN, so that’s some good news. No regional broadcast issues or blackouts.

Hilarious that Grambling will be a noon start. They really want to guarantee no one shows up for that game, don’t they?

Evening start for the first game. Whoo-hoo! Extended tailgating. Spending the night in the ‘Burgh.

This nugget from Andy Katz at ESPN.com (Insider subs.) is very exciting.

Pitt is trying to rework some scheduling conflicts so it can play Duke in Madison Square Garden in December.

Oooohhh.

UPDATE (3:42): One of the games that Pitt might be trying to reschedule might be the December 15 home game against Oklahoma State.

The Cowboys’ return game from last year’s All-College Classic against Pitt is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 15 at the Petersen Events Center. That location — the Panthers’ home court — might be a tough one for OSU fans to swallow since it has previously been a neutral-neutral series (like last year’s game against Tennessee in Nashville). But head coach Sean Sutton said he’s happy with the deal because of a guarantee that Pitt will play in Stillwater sometime in the future.

I forgot about the OK State game as well. That would mean road games at Dayton and Washington, a home game with OK State and a neutral court with Duke. The Big East will be an 18 game schedule next year. Even with all patsies for the rest of the non-con (about 8 more games), that’s a hell of a good schedule.

(This one’s for you, Marco.)

Coach Wannstedt and Assistant Coach Greg Gattuso were in Altoona yesterday. It’s part of Dave Wannstedt’s regular May barnstorming the state.

Pitt reportedly is among the colleges that have offered Mountain Lion standout A.J. Alexander a scholarship, although NCAA rules forbid Wannstedt to confirm or discuss the recruitment of specific players.

“I’m out on the road most of the month of May,’’ Wannstedt said. “Nobody knows more about the football team than me as the head coach. It’s important for me to get out and meet people. I want to let them know that Pitt’s alive. We’re still here.’’

…

“I didn’t realize how improved Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers are,’’ Wannstedt said. “Everybody can talk about the Big 10, the Southeastern Conference, but look at our wins out of the conference. The Big East will have three of the top Heisman Trophy condidates next year in Brian Brohm, Patrick White and Ray Rice. The biggest challenge is just the competition in the Big East.’’

Arguably, it’s four if you also include WVU’s Steve Slaton as well.

Now here’s the bad news for the Big East. You know how the SEC regularly gets ripped for playing nothing but patsies in the non-con. The top teams in the Big East looks just as bad — except for two programs with varying degrees of struggles.

While the rest of the conference opens against the likes of Buffalo, Elon, Eastern Michigan, Murray State and Southeast Missouri State, Syracuse opens against a Pac-10 school (Washington) and follows with two Big Ten teams (at Iowa, vs. Illinois). The Orange then begin conference play at Louisville, and, after a visit to Miami (Ohio), play host to West Virginia and Rutgers. That’s no way to revive a program. Pitt is the only team in the conference to play road games against the big three — West Virginia, Louisville and Rutgers — and also must visit Michigan State and Virginia.

Sigh.

Looks like the Football Schedule Poster is released. Or at least available for downloading as wallpaper (640×480).

There’s also 800×600 and 1024×768.

That’s Joe Clermond, LaRod Stephens-Howling and Derek Kinder.

The general rule when you have to give bad news to the public and media, it is best to do so on a Friday afternoon, when less people are paying attention. If you can time it for a holiday weekend, even better.

Safe to say, the Pitt Athletic Department knew that the news of moving the Navy-Pitt game to mid-week would be poorly received. They didn’t break the news until late afternoon on Friday. Not just a normal Friday. Good Friday of Easter weekend. A good time to get out some bad news as it can slip past a lot of people a lot easier. No chance for any additional comment on the news from Pitt’s AD or Coach Wannstedt except the notes in the media release. No matter how they spin it as a good thing, they knew it wouldn’t be received as such by the fans. The timing of the release is the giveaway.

Kevin Gorman in his blog wonders if Pitt agreed to the Wednesday night game because the only other choice from the Mouse Monopoly would be on Friday night — something Pitt and AD Long stressed they would never agree to do. Interesting point, and totally believable. You have to remember, Pitt only has a little bit of leeway when it comes to when the games get played. The Big East and ESPN have a lot more say considering they are the rights holder.

I don’t know. I do know that this is why for all the attention and exposure the Big East and Pitt gets from ESPN in basketball, the football side is treated as programming filler. It’s why I’m not particularly wild about Pitt and the Big East’s TV contract.

ESPN has moved the Navy-Pitt game from a Saturday nooner on September October 13, to a September Octobaer 10, Wednesday night prime-time game at 8pm (hat tip to Chris).

“We are pleased and excited that ESPN has provided us with the opportunity to renew the Pitt-Navy series in front of a national television audience,” said Pitt Athletic Director Jeff Long. “Playing the national college football showcase game on Wednesday night allows us to take advantage of an opportunity for national exposure without compromising our desire to not play on Friday nights out of respect for the traditions of Western Pennsylvania high school football.”

“This is a real win-win for us,” Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt said. “We’re getting a nationally televised game, which is always great for our program and recruiting. The date change also gives us a week-and-a-half to prepare for two consecutive opponents in October (Navy and Cincinnati) which we hope to use to our advantage.”

The Panthers’ remaining six home games will all be played on Saturdays. Additional television games are expected to be announced in the future.

Obviously this is a huge pain in the ass to those who want to attend, but at least it is early in the season when it is still warm.

Really, I wanted to rip it more, since I have a 2 1/2 hour drive and a mid-week game plays havoc with scheduling and planning. Then I thought about the original date and realized I would have missed it as the game would have fallen right on Rosh Hashana. This actually will break a streak with the moving of the game. It’s the first time at least since I’ve been holding season tickets that a Pitt home game won’t fall on Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur.

Still not sure I’ll make this game, but it’s hard to be as pissed when I definitely would have missed it on it’s originally scheduled day.

Might as well pass along this bit of general weirdness as porn star Joanna Angel talks about being the most observant Jew in the porn industry. I’m really not sure there needs to be a punchline to this.

UPDATE: Strike that, I am pissed since I looked at the date wrong and saw September not October.  Yom Kippur falls on the home game with UConn. The streak continues.