(05-29-2013 11:17 AM)jaminandjachin Wrote: Pitt just signed a deal with Penn St for 2016-2019. There's talk of adding more. Pitt is already getting ND every three years. Va Tech may eventually replace WV but that will take time. Pitt also gets to renew their mini rivalry with Miami.
There is no such thing as a mini rivalry. That's like a pseudo rivalry, which is to say it's not a rivalry at all.
We certainly have a history with the Hurricanes but it's not much different than our shared history with schools like Boston College and Syracuse. Don't get me wrong, we've played all of those schools a bunch over the decades - including as independents, which people often forget - and we all have different memories of games against those teams from yesteryear but that is not the same as a true blood feud like we had for decades against Penn State and West Virginia.
I'm sure the fans of those other schools all feel the same way towards Pitt.
Penn State and West Virginia are different in that those fan bases absolutely resent our very existence - just as we do theirs.
Do you think it is somehow coincidental that almost all of the rumors of the ACC's demise came out of the Mountain State and the one school never mentioned as likely landing on its feet was Pitt? Nope, Pitt and its ACC brethren were going to pay dearly for snubbing the Mountaineers. That's par for the course with those guys. The only difference was that the rest of the country finally got a good look at how psychotic they are.
The same was true of Penn State and the whole Sandusky deal. They have always demonstrated cult-like behavior and screwed up priorities that make normal, well adjusted people uncomfortable. However the rest of the country never got a good look behind the curtain until the Sandusky scandal broke. At that point everyone saw how messed up they were as a collective group.
That type of unbridled hatred is practically unheard of anywhere else in the Northeast and Pitt has/had it with two different large, passionate (irrational) fan bases. That's impossible to replace.
Also, Pitt has a long shared history with Notre Dame that is different than the other non-rivals that I listed. Pittsburgh is a HEAVILY Catholic city and as such there are zillions of Domers are all over the place here. As such, those games always feel like rivalry games even if they're not. And when Pitt is good, those games absolutely are rivalry type atmospheres.
Now we're giving up that game too for games versus Duke and North Carolina?
I'm sorry but that is tough medicine to stomach and I say that without a hint of disrespect for Duke and Carolina (or anyone else in the ACC). As I said, it would be like telling a UNC fan, "Well, yeah you no longer get to play NC State and Duke every year but don't worry because now you will get to play Boston College and Syracuse more often."
I'm not sure that would go over so well in Chapel Hill.
Please don't misunderstand me on this. Given our choices, I'm glad things worked out as they did. Trust me when I tell you that I fully understand that the alternative was much, much worse - just ask UConn and Cincy fans. As such, I'm not running around bemoaning the falling sky, I'm simply acknowledging reality. Pitt came out a winner in the conference realignment lottery. However we did not come out unscathed - or anywhere close to unscathed. We are paying a fairly heavy price here and have been for some time now.
I am encouraged by the four game series Pitt and Penn State are slated to play. Those two schools should have never ceased playing and they only stopped because Paterno was powerful enough to act on his petty grudges.
However, he is now gone and - magically - suddenly there is again room on Penn State's schedule for Pitt.
What a surprise!
If Pitt can schedule an annual home-and-home with Penn State then all of this will have clearly been worth it. We still will have sacrificed annual games with our second and third biggest rivals in Notre Dame and West Virginia but we also would have gained an annual series with our top rival, Penn State and the relative security of the ACC.
All things considered that is a fairly reasonable trade.
That said, if we aren't playing Penn State every year (preferably on Thanksgiving Weekend), then we almost have to renew our series with West Virginia or risk becoming one of those schools that has no rivals and that is not appealing at all.
It's cool and fun to be the bane of another fan base's existence and we've had that with two large, passionate fan bases over the years - even though for much of the past three decades we have done very little to justify such respect/derision. I'd really hate to lose that special status and we can't afford to lose it with all of our aforementioned rivals all in the off chance that we may one day become Virginia Tech's second or third biggest game.
That will not suffice.
