Not much. A couple of 11-1 seasons. Some real nice talent. Marino, Richards, Martin, West, Fitzgerald, Bryant, Gilbert, Green, Tumulty, Doleman, etc…
The Big East has pretty much been considered the joke of the BCS conferences. Pitt’s stellar bcs bowl performance did nothing to help that situation. Although the Mountain West conference is known to be quite a powerhouse division
So I guess we should diss Oklahoma last year too? Utah had a very good team ( I won’t say excellent) against a Pitt team that didn’t deserve to be there because of the ACC raid. Utah had an excellent QB, and an outstanding coach with an innovative system that was hard to defend. No matter what, that is going to be ugly.
Agreed. Although they have had that problem for quite some time. Even when they still had the on-campus stadium the sell-outs were when Notre Dame, Miami, Penn State, or WVU would be in town. A lot of the other games had tons of empty seats with exaggerated ticket sales due to Pitt packaging their tickets in plans so you had to buy the sucky games if you wanted to get the good games. Good idea for selling tickets but still left a lot of empty seats.
Pitt sells out when the team is good. The Fitz years they sold out easily. Virginia Tech, Miami, Notre Dame, and Syracuse were sold out that year. The first game (can’t remember who it was) I think had 59,000 and Toledo that year had 64,000. The stadium sells out when the team is good. They just don’t have the hard core following of some of the bigger schools that are out in the middle of nowhere.
Remember, from about Pete Carroll’s 2nd year and before, when USC was okay not great, they didn’t sell out in the LA Coliseum. Neither does Miami. They were closing down the Orange Bowl against Virginia and had it at like 55% capacity. This is a problem for big urban schools that don’t have all the attention drawn to them.
Going off-campus with the stadium was definitely a horrible move, especially if you want to attract students or have some tradition.
They didn’t have a choice. Where were they going to build a stadium? Panther Hollow? Raise the Hill District? Move the Cathedral? That stadium, while “steeped” in tradition, was a shit hole that would have required over $100 million in renovations to get it up to just building code within the city.
The Big 10 has rather consistently had teams that have performed quite well against any conference. It will be interesting to see how they fare this year in the bowls seeing as how almost the entire conference is playing in them.
Against who? Tell me who the superstar teams are in the Big 11 outside of Ohio State? It’s not Wisconsin. It’s not Penn State. It’s not Michigan.
You’re best bet at another great team is Illinois, who thru the last three years combined only won SIX games. But then they brought it another supposed “coach who can’t coach, only recruit” and i’ll be damned look at the season they had this year.
The Big 11 is in the same class as the Big East, that being a step or two ahead of the ACC. The ACC is an absolute joke. They are awful. I know you Big 11 purists don’t want to admit it, but hey, that’s just the way it is.
Wow, what are you doing, reading directly off of a Ron Cook or Bob Smizik cache of articles?
Pitt lost to Utah I believe 35-0. Doesn’t really make much of a different if its 49 or 35, it was an ass-whoopin either way.
Wannstedt was horrible in the NFL. That’s why he won coach of the year with the Bears and took them to the playoffs, and took the Dolphins to their last two playoff appearances. Not saying he was the best coach in the NFL ever, but there are a lot of guys out there that haven’t won Coach of the Year and taken their teams to the playoffs
And I’m sure you think he isn’t an X’s and O’s type of guy, but then please explain to me his national championship rings with the Miami Hurricanes from the 80’s? Or maybe his D’s that were rating #1 in the country 2 years in a row at Oklahoma State. I’m with you that he might not be the best head coach, but the guy damn well knows how to coach a defense. No questions about that.
All the football players are going elsewhere in the Big East? Take a look at the recruiting this year and the 2 before it. Top rated recruiting classes? Pitt. Easily. Name a team that has another group of impact young kids like Pitt with McCoy, Romeus, Malecki, J. Thomas, Bostick, Porter, M. Williams, DeCicco, Sheard, and others?
If you want to hate, that’s fine. But at least use your own opinions, don’t rehash someone elses.