Crowd. I know we have played them for decades. But they just aren't a very good program any more. Beating them is just not a big deal. They gain way more from winning this game than we do. They just aren't on our level.
Count me in the don't want to play Pitt
- Thread starter SilverSpringWVU
- Start date
If they aren't a very good program anymore, neither are we.....................
Last three years:
WVU - 18-20
Pitt - 19-20
Last five:
WVU - 37-27
Pitt - 33-32
Last three years:
WVU - 18-20
Pitt - 19-20
Last five:
WVU - 37-27
Pitt - 33-32
There is more to being a good program than a win and loss record the last three years. Why not go back a decade? Look at their fan base? Look at the fan turn out at games. I live in the DC area. No one cares about Pitt. Every where I go in Maryland, DC and Virginia I run into people eager to talk about WVU. No one ever talks about Pitt.
Not to defend WVU being great lately, but Pitt does play in a much easier conference and that helps their record.
The argument people will make in reply to that is that the cupcakes don't demand we play at their house or at most 1 time for every 2 or 3 they play at WVU. Pitt OTOH would demand 1 for 1.
Finally you are seeing the light Keaton. Some of us have known it for years now.
Never, ever make the mistake of grouping me in with folks like yourself.
I'm just glad to see you finally admit we haven't been very good for a while now. That must have hurt. If you'd just admit it was due to sub-par coaching we could get you on the path to healing much sooner.
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Playing Pitt home/home is a no-brainer. WVU fans get a "home" game twice.
That won't happen when WVU plays Virginia Tech or Penn State.
Line up a two-game series (I think 2019 and 2020 are available for both schools) and it won't matter whether the first one is in Morgantown or Ketchup Field. It will still be a home game for WVU fans.
WVU can maintain its usual stance: Cupcake (Pitt), good team (Virginia Tech, Penn State, Alabama, BYU) and a lower-level Power 5 school like Indiana, which would be close enough for WVU fans to get there and take over the place.
You don't cut off your nose to spite your face. You schedule Pitt, then out-number them in their own stadium and beat the crap out of that Panther! I don't understand why there is even a debate about whether or not to play Pitt. Do it! It will be a reduction in competition from playing Maryland.
That won't happen when WVU plays Virginia Tech or Penn State.
Line up a two-game series (I think 2019 and 2020 are available for both schools) and it won't matter whether the first one is in Morgantown or Ketchup Field. It will still be a home game for WVU fans.
WVU can maintain its usual stance: Cupcake (Pitt), good team (Virginia Tech, Penn State, Alabama, BYU) and a lower-level Power 5 school like Indiana, which would be close enough for WVU fans to get there and take over the place.
You don't cut off your nose to spite your face. You schedule Pitt, then out-number them in their own stadium and beat the crap out of that Panther! I don't understand why there is even a debate about whether or not to play Pitt. Do it! It will be a reduction in competition from playing Maryland.
I agree with most of you post except there is no need to play 12 Power 5 teams. That is called over scheduling even if we play some like Pitt or Indiana.
I'm almost 48 years old. I've know it for years. Back when playing Pitt use to mean something. It just doesn't have the same charm it once did and hasn't for more than a decade. There have been a few years but most of the time we have played a team we should have beaten. Since 1988 how many times has Pitt been ranked in the top 15 when we played them?
Yes but they will tell you how storied a program they are and have won 9 national championships, and how they put all these players in the nfl. The actual fans are hard to stomach, and all they refer to is 13-9 when they see a wvu fan. I ran into a loser at bettis after the stones concert I was trying to get a drink and he started giving me crap. I told him it would take 4 Pitt home games to get that many people in Heinz field. Then I showed him that pic of empty Heinz field during a pitt game got my drink and walked away.
I think you mean "we" in both instances. Don't hide your proud Pitt heritage, Keaton Kity...
Pitt game is always super tricky to navigate & extremely gratifying when on the W side. Not often are they a cupcake. I think the last meeting was a sloppy 21 to 20 edging. Beat em like a drum by 20 year before that & edged 'em again by a heroic last second FG in '09.
I'm in the play Pitt the day after Thanksgiving crowd or even on Thanksgiving night. Before that takes away from the magic. Any December meeting, well, brings back a terrible memory.
The Backyard Brawl beats the hell out of the virtually meaningless Iowa State game.
I'm in the play Pitt the day after Thanksgiving crowd or even on Thanksgiving night. Before that takes away from the magic. Any December meeting, well, brings back a terrible memory.
The Backyard Brawl beats the hell out of the virtually meaningless Iowa State game.
Honestly ... I don't miss Pitt. I would rather play Penn State, Syracuse, Rutgers, or VaTech, before I would want to give Pitt a helping hand with their disaster of a football program.
But that's just me. And I am sure that I am in a small minority.
But that's just me. And I am sure that I am in a small minority.
PITTsburgh fan here chiming in as we have the same topic on our board now. The general consensus from PITTsburgh fans in around 80/20 in favor of not playing again.
80/20? How many times are each of you allowed to vote?
If both sides felt this way in years past, we wouldn't have played them many times at all. What if they said that back in the 70's, when they had Marino and co. running out on the field.
If Penn State felt that way, we'd never have had the opportunity to beat them. They would've stopped playing us 20 years earlier.
I wouldn't mind playing them every few years, but I'm also fine not playing them again at this point.
LOL. 80/20 on that board means 4 poster said no and 1 said yes. Not playing WVU and Pitt's empty stadium contributed greatly to Pitt's A.D. getting fired.
If Pitt had success over the last 30 I might feel different. But just how many great to good seasons has Pitt had since 1985? WVU is no Alabama but we usually put together a good/great season or two every decade. Couple Pitts average at best seasons with poor attendance and other than history there isn't much to like.
My view, schedule Pitt , Penn State, and Boston College out ten years while we still can, if we can. I miss all 3. Believe in hedging bets too.
I live in the baltimore/dc area also and no one cares about WVU either. This is a professional sports area
No.
My first "Backyard Brawl" was my first Mountaineer game, in old Pitt Stadium, with Wyant, Huff, Bosley, Marconi, et al, beating them 17-7.
I recall the 1975 game, won 17-14 on a last second FG.
The '94 game, won with Zach Abraham's last seconds heroics, is the only game in 40 years that I have never seen, not even on video.
The ominous 13-9 game got me banned forever from Pitt's web site. They, nor Michigan, have any semblance of a sense of humor.
The 2009 game, won 19-16 on Tyler Bitancourt's FG with 0:00, was as memorable as the 2004 game at Heinz Field, lost 13-16 when Tyler Palko bounced a pass that the refs missed, leading to their winning TD.
I was in Pittsburgh in 1996 when Amos Zereoue touched the ball for the first time and went 69 yards untouched. We won 34-0.
All these and many more are indelible for the rest of my life, and beyond I hope.
But for me, it's over. For me, we can't return to the supercharged aura of that game. The appeal was due to us playing them every year and looking forward from 0:00 to the next year's kickoff. And it existed because our fathers and grandfathers had known of the game. Jack Fleming's vitriol toward Pitt helped us to hate the bastards.
When we were routinely laying 52 points on them it just wasn't fun, because they were unworthy. We've had close, nail-biting games against Big 12 foes with more recent cachet than Pitt can muster, and we've had similar games against lesser opponents that are fun for me (see East Carolina 1996).
Their fans, collectively, are unimaginative, non-supportive of their team, and are few in number leaving the 'burgh. Pitt fans are unengaging, unlike our Big 12 brethren, who are more like us. Even ECU, FCS schools, or Marshall fans are easier to banter with.
But just as Texas vs A&M is by the wayside, so is Pitt - WVU. The four years since the last game seems, to me, more like 14. By the time they could even schedule a game, the percentage of Mountaineer fans who could even remember 2011 will have further diminished. Even now, to WVU fans under 30, Zereoue might as well be Jim Thorpe.
If WVU were today announce a future game with Pitt, my reaction would be, "Aw, hell, there's an inter-sectional game chance lost - perhaps with a P5 school we've never played." I just don't give a rat's about Pitt, nor about playing them, aside from a bowl game.
My first "Backyard Brawl" was my first Mountaineer game, in old Pitt Stadium, with Wyant, Huff, Bosley, Marconi, et al, beating them 17-7.
I recall the 1975 game, won 17-14 on a last second FG.
The '94 game, won with Zach Abraham's last seconds heroics, is the only game in 40 years that I have never seen, not even on video.
The ominous 13-9 game got me banned forever from Pitt's web site. They, nor Michigan, have any semblance of a sense of humor.
The 2009 game, won 19-16 on Tyler Bitancourt's FG with 0:00, was as memorable as the 2004 game at Heinz Field, lost 13-16 when Tyler Palko bounced a pass that the refs missed, leading to their winning TD.
I was in Pittsburgh in 1996 when Amos Zereoue touched the ball for the first time and went 69 yards untouched. We won 34-0.
All these and many more are indelible for the rest of my life, and beyond I hope.
But for me, it's over. For me, we can't return to the supercharged aura of that game. The appeal was due to us playing them every year and looking forward from 0:00 to the next year's kickoff. And it existed because our fathers and grandfathers had known of the game. Jack Fleming's vitriol toward Pitt helped us to hate the bastards.
When we were routinely laying 52 points on them it just wasn't fun, because they were unworthy. We've had close, nail-biting games against Big 12 foes with more recent cachet than Pitt can muster, and we've had similar games against lesser opponents that are fun for me (see East Carolina 1996).
Their fans, collectively, are unimaginative, non-supportive of their team, and are few in number leaving the 'burgh. Pitt fans are unengaging, unlike our Big 12 brethren, who are more like us. Even ECU, FCS schools, or Marshall fans are easier to banter with.
But just as Texas vs A&M is by the wayside, so is Pitt - WVU. The four years since the last game seems, to me, more like 14. By the time they could even schedule a game, the percentage of Mountaineer fans who could even remember 2011 will have further diminished. Even now, to WVU fans under 30, Zereoue might as well be Jim Thorpe.
If WVU were today announce a future game with Pitt, my reaction would be, "Aw, hell, there's an inter-sectional game chance lost - perhaps with a P5 school we've never played." I just don't give a rat's about Pitt, nor about playing them, aside from a bowl game.
I don't know. There are some pretty dumb ones from time to time. Many head down a bunny hole of attacks and insults which gets tedious.
Agree - the Pitt rivalry is dead. Now on to better things. Will WVU finally get a conference win over Oklahoma & KSU this year? Can WVU knock off either top 10 team Balyor or TCU at their stadiums - what a challenge? Beating Texas, OSU, and Big Ten Maryland in Morgantown would be special wins this year. A winning season in the Big 12 guarantees you a nice bowl game against a tough opponent in a great location. Can WVU get its first bowl win since joining the Big 12?
It's a shame that so many do NOT want a rivalry that lasted more than a century to resume. In today's America we seem to thrive on discarding the values and experiences that made this country great. I would embrace having Pitt on WVU's schedule because, as I've said, it would be me a "home" game every year, whether it's in Ketchup Stadium (saving me 90 minutes of driving each way) or Mountaineer Field. Must we throw away everything that is yesterday? Pitt would be preferable, to me, to playing Maryland, which is a next-door rivalry. Pitt, Virginia Tech and Penn State on future schedules would be a great thing to look forward to. 2 out of 3 isn't bad, though.
good points. it was a terrific rivalry. dating back to what 1895?
never met a WVU fan that wasn't thrilled in beating Pitt no matter how a season was going.
I'd trade the Maryland game for the Pitt game anytime.
The VPI series is intermittently being renewed. People will be on board with that & those old rivalry feelings will be resurrected. Based on the comments from the ADs, it sounds like the Backyard Brawl will be back at some time.
Lets compare strenght of schedule and terrible losses if were gonna get into a win total argument. Im pretty sure any college football fan who isnt a fan of WVU or Pitt could tell you who the better program has been....