The ACC is a Better Fit for Pitt

 Basketball, College Basketball, College Football, Football, The Bigger Picture  No Responses »
Nov 202012
 

For years after the ACC first raided the Big East for Miami and Virginia Tech, Pitt partisans dreamed of a move to the Big Ten. TV markets, however, dictated that Pitt would/will never get an invite. The Big Ten Network is already in the Pittsburgh area because of Pennstate. Ratings themselves don’t necessarily matter. If you have expanded cable, you get the BTN whether you watch it or not. So you’re paying for it no matter what. The B1G gets paid, period. I still prefer the ACC.

In football, we can still maintain a strong northeastern and mid-atlantic presence against former Big East schools Syracuse, BC and VT. We get a better toehold in Florida with the additions of games against FSU and resumption of games against Miami-FL. We can expand our recruiting south to places like the Carolinas. And historically, Pitt hasn’t needed a rivalry presence to recruit Ohio; the River City Rivalry with Cincinnati stretches back less than a decade. Moving to the B1G would open up the midwest more but that’s about it.

Atlantic Coast Conference wordmark Continue reading »

Loose-leaf observations from a tight-bound notebook…

 College Football, Football  No Responses »
Nov 192012
 
  • SEC vs SEC title game scenario. Because you know it’s going to happen.
    • ND loses to USC.
    • Alabama, Georgia and Florida win their last respective games to finish at 11-1.
    • SEC Title game: 11-1 Alabama vs 11-1 UGA.
    • BCS National Championship: 12-1 SEC title game winner vs 11-1 Florida.
  • Bam. Done. You’re welcome, CFB nation.
  • Does this mean I have to root for ND to beat USC just so that we have some variety? Yikes. ND is already a lock for a BCS bowl game and deservedly so but they’re going to get waxed by any of the other contenders.
  • Brian Kelly is a dbag but man, can he coach. I said it when he left Cincinnati that he would reawaken the echoes. Looks like he has done that.
  • Maryland and Rutgers to the B1G. Makes financial sense for both but athletically, they’ll be whipping boys going up against those huge schools.
  • I don’t regret one bit that Maryland and Rutgers might be going to the B1G while Pitt is going to the ACC. The B1G was a pipedream of Pitt fans for many years but we fit better athletically within the ACC.
  • If ever you doubt that college football is more innovative and interesting than pro football, check out Chris Brown’s site, Smart Football.

Class of 2004 QB’s > Class of 1983 QB’s

 Football, Pro-Football  2 Responses »
Nov 012012
 

SB Nation Pittsburgh links to a Ben Roethlisberger quote ruminating on whether his draft class may eventually surpass the fabled 1983 QB draft class that included John Elway, Jim Kelly and Dan Marino (and a couple other guys named Bob).

“And all four quarterbacks — Matt Schaub, Philip (Rivers), myself and Eli — that were drafted there. I hope we can play well enough that one day they talk about us as maybe the best quarterback draft class of all time.”

Let’s check out the numbers.

Class of 1983 Designation Superbowl Record Passing Yards Years Yardage Rank
John Elway HOF 2-3 51,475 16 4
Todd Blackledge Bust 0-0 5,283 7 245
Jim Kelly HOF 0-4 35,467 11 18
Tony Eason Ok 0-1 11,142 8 154
Ken O’Brien Ok 0-0 25,094 10 62
Dan Marino HOF 0-1 61,361 17 2
Totals/Averages 2-9 189,822 69 80.83
Class of 2004 Designation Superbowl Record Passing Yards Years Yardage Rank
Eli Manning Potential HOF 2-0 29,980 8.5 36
Philip Rivers Mediocre 0-0 25,931 8.5 58
Ben Roethlisberger Potential HOF 2-1 28,566 8.5 44
J.P. Losman Bust 0-0 6,271 8 223
Matt Schaub Undecided 0-0 19,586 8.5 98
Totals/Averages 4-1 110,334 42 91.8

I tend to believe 2004 has already surpassed 1983 because of a superior Superbowl record. 2-9 for 1983? That’s abysmal! Continue reading »

MST: Football Gods Punish Political Steelers Fans

 Football, MST, Pro-Football  No Responses »
Oct 122012
 

In a stunning rebuke of America’s politically-charged society, the Gods of Football chose to punish the Pittsburgh Steelers because some of their fans deigned to pay even the slightest bit of attention to the Biden-Ryan VP debate last night. The Steelers fell to the Tennessee Titans, 26-23 on a last-second field goal, dropping their record to 2-3.

Al Messerschmidt, Getty Images

“Political pundits across the nation have spoken about the relative unimportance of this debate to the greater outcome of the President Election in November so we were surprised and disappointed that normally erudite Steelers fans disregarded the science of Superstition and watched the VP debate instead,” said a clearly angry Pop Warner, chief spokesman for the Football Deities. “Even channel surfing between the two is considered bad form. In our estimation, Titans fans’ attentions weren’t as divided so we chose to reward their loyalty.”

Your humble narrator can attest to the scatter-brained nature of the Nation as after the game, he saw numerous Facebook posts and tweets by otherwise loyal Steelers fans who had been commenting on the VP debate during the game.

Let this be a lesson, Steelers Nation. FOOTBALL > politics. The Gods do not care about your political loyalties, or even your level of activity or advocacy. But when your Steelers are playing, TUNE THE FRAK IN!

Photo Credit: Al Messerschmidt, Getty Images

Is Bigtime FBS Football a Reach for Rutgers?

 College Football, Football  No Responses »
Jan 262012
 
Greg Schiano, EX-Rutgers coach

With the news coming out that head coach Greg Schiano has bolted Rutgers for the supposedly greener pastures of the NFL, the immediate concern for Scarlet Knights fans focuses on the program’s future relevance. BCS concerns aside, can Rutgers continue to field even a modestly successful football program (defined here as at the very least an average of 6-8 wins/year).

The historical answer, pre-Schiano/post-1978, is a resounding no. Except for Greg Schiano, no other coach has won big at Rutgers. Except for Greg Schiano, no other coach has gotten a firm commitment (read: financial) from Rutgers’ administration to field a winning big-time program.

Greg Schiano, EX-Rutgers coach

I didn’t realize this but apparently Rutgers was once an academics-first/only institution. As opposed to fellow northeastern schools Pitt and Pennstate which both boast outstanding academics but also strive to run with the big boys in college football, Rutgers didn’t even put itself in the game. This was the eye-opening passage for me from CFT’s Matt Hinton:

Traditionally, Rutgers belongs to the class of academically oriented schools in the Northeast that disavow the corrupting influence of big-time football: Before Division I was split into “I-A” and “I-AA” classifications in 1978, its schedule consisted overwhelmingly of teams from the Ivy League and the kind of wannabe-Ivy schools that would go on to form the Patriot League — that is, second and third-rate programs that care so little about sports that most of them still don’t offer athletic scholarships.

And Rutgers were mostly successful in that setting. 7, 8, 9-win seasons weren’t uncommon. It was only after trying to join the big boys post-1978 that Rutgers became a laughingstock of a program. In fact, in 1976, Rutgers went 11-0… against a lineup of Navy, Bucknell, Princeton, Cornell, UConn, Lehigh, Columbia, UMass, Louisville, Tulane and Colgate. Four of those schools were non-IA. That team didn’t even go to a bowl game.

By comparison, the 1976 National Champion, who went 12-0, played a schedule consisting of Notre Dame, GA Tech, Temple, Duke, Louisville, Miami-FL, Navy, Syracuse, Army, WVU and Pennstate with a Sugar Bowl win over Georgia. That team was Pitt. (Hail).

Beano Cook once wrote that if you’d asked him in the early 1970’s to name the programs with the most un-tapped potential, he would have named Miami-FL (duh)… and Rutgers. The strength of northeastern teams from Pitt to Pennstate to Syracuse has often been supplanted with the fantastic talent that comes out of the Garden State. Greg Schiano tapped into that base, to a degree, and it helped him build a modestly successful program.  Whether another coach can build on that legacy or even sustain it is debatable.

My guess is that Rutgers fades into semi-irrelevance; partly by choice of not paying ridiculous huge sums to keep up with the Ohio States of the world and partly by being excluded from the big boy conferences upon the demise of the Big East.

Photo Credit: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

Frak the Rangers… and Browns… and Jaguars… and Braves…

 Baseball, Football, Hockey, Pro-Football  No Responses »
Jan 202012
 

One of my recent tweets: “Adam Graves and the New York Rangers should die of gonorrhea and rot in Hell. Want a cookie, son?”

Seriously? I can’t give up a grudge against Adam Graves (and by extension a New York Rangers franchise that hasn’t done anything meaningful since 1994) based on a cheapshot in the 1992 NHL playoffs? #$%^ no!! The Penguins won the Stanley Cup that year despite Graves’ hit on Lemieux and it’s even possible that the hit galvanised the team and propelled it to those heights. You’re damn right I’m not letting go of my hatred.

And that gets me to thinking about the nature and origins of sports hatred.

It’s pretty common knowledge among my friends that I despise the Cleveland Browns. It’s just the way Pittsburghers are raised. But truth be told, the Browns don’t really deserve to be hated. They haven’t been a true threat since a brief window in the early 1990’s. The cRavens are our real rival nowadays and a worthy one at that.

But I remember that brief, annoying period when the Browns rose up; when Vinny Testaverde was considered a threat to our AFC Central supremacy and the addition of the combustible Andre Rison served to put the Browns (the Browns!) as a chic pic to get to the Superbowl. And so I remember what it’s like to hate the Browns fo’ realz and I hold on to that hatred and nurture it and let it fester and boil.

My mom once told me that for all my hatred, I would probably end up with a girl from Cleveland. What a cruel fate to foresee for her son! Formative years those 1990’s were for Maher’s sports consciousness. I hated Mark Brunell and the Jacksonville Jaguars for a time. I even remember hating the Cincinnati Reds and the Atlanta Braves for beating my Pirates in the NLCS. Do you remember when Steve Avery was good? I f*ckin’ remember! I’d root for the Yankees over the Braves, damnit!

Now don’t get me wrong. I do hate the Ravens. Arrogant, showboating f*cks all of them! But damn, they’re good. And most of them probably already have gonorrhea anyway.

It’s interesting to see how current rivalries are shaping the sports consciousnesses of Pittsburgh’s youngsters. The Ravens may even win a Superbowl but all teams go through down cycles. Just ask  the 1970’s Raiders, the 1980’s Oilers, the 1990’s Browns and Jaguars, etc. And rivalries are generally established of shared excellence not mediocrity.

But those who grew up knowing that raw, raging emotion will forever hold the Ravens in ill-regard. They will remember.

Which brings me back to Adam Graves and the New York Rangers. I f*ckin’ hate the Rangers. No, I mega-loathe them. You see, when I was coming up during Mario Lemieux’s Stanley Cup runs, the Rangers were a primary threat to us. The Flyers were pretty mediocre and though people of good conscience must always hate the Flyers in principle, they didn’t get me worked up that much. They do now but it doesn’t have the force of history, at least for me.

And so 20+ years later, 10-year old Maher still demands even more justice! Yesssss… Adam Graves and the New York Rangers should die of gonorrhea and rot in Hell.

… which is probably quite similar to Cleveland during football season. [steeples fingers malevolently]

MST: Duke and Coach K say yes to Pitt/’Cuse. Rest of ACC says NO!

 Basketball, College Basketball, College Football, Football, MST, The Bigger Picture  No Responses »
Sep 182011
 

The college sports world was thrown into turmoil this weekend when it was revealed Pitt and Syracuse had applied for and been accepted for membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Speaking to Andy Katz of ESPN, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said that adding the Panthers and Orangemen would be a coup for the ACC.

“It’s actually pretty exciting,” Krzyzewski said. “I think it’s great for our conference football-wise, even better basketball-wise. Wherever this is going to end up, four big-time conferences or five, whatever it is, you want to be perceived as No. 1 in football and basketball.”

It is widely known that Duke and Coach K opposed the ACC’s previous expansion plans, a position that solidified the other universities’ resolve to add Miami-FL, Virginia Tech and Boston College. So even though Pitt and Syracuse bring top-notch basketball programs to the ACC, Krzyzewski’s remarks still caught ACC administration off guard.

MST has since learned that the ACC’s Presidents and Athletic Directors have had a sudden change of heart upon hearing of Coach K’s welcoming words. Using a little known by-law known as the We Hate Duke Corollary, they have since re-voted to reject Pitt’s and Syracuse’s applications to the conference. The ACC’s expansion focus will now shift to schools that will most definitely piss off the Blue Devils.

“It’s actually pretty exciting,” Krzyzewski said. “I think it’s great for our conference football-wise, even better basketball-wise. Wherever this is going to end up, four big-time conferences or five, whatever it is, you want to be perceived as No. 1 in football and basketball.

Replacing Paterno

 College Football, Football  No Responses »
Aug 092011
 

Joe Paterno broke’d himself the other day. And predictably, many were led to question his ability to continue on in the same capacity as he has for the 45 years at Pennstate.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn about his supposed frailty. The man can still coach. Even including last year’s disappointing (yet foreseeable) 7-6 record, the State Penn logged 58 victories over the latter half of the last decade, including two trips to BCS Bowl games.

What fascinates me is the never-ending speculation over who will/should take over for the legend once he’s done. It’s a pretty common sentiment here in W. PA that that man should be current PSU defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, a well-respected coaching mind and an ace recruiter. I think that would be a big mistake.

I’m not trying to rip on Bradley, whom I would have loved for the Pitt  job, but he’s too close to the trees to see the forest (or vice versa?). Pennstate will need new blood, new thinking, much like they got when Galen Hall came aboard in 2004. It’s no surprise that his addition sparked the Spread HD offense, which has been so successful for PSU.

Had Bradley left the farm, either for Pitt or UConn or some other school, he would eventually have gained valuable experience and become an excellent candidate to succeed Paterno. Or he would have failed in which case PSU would know he’s not the right guy to man their helm. No less an authority on good coaching hires than the Steelers have eschewed the easy choice by going outside the family. I’d say Mike Tomlin has worked out quite well for Steelers Nation.

When the time comes for PSU to replace JoePa, I hope they don’t stay in-house. I don’t expect Paterno to be around in 2016 when PSU deigns to play Pitt again. But as for the new guy-to-be – no to JayPa (hah, that would be hilarious), no to Galen Hall, no to Tom Bradley. Paterno has worked hard to make PSU into a destination job. New blood should help keep it there.

http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/552577/Latest-setback-puts–another-cloud-over-JoePa.html

The Cabrera Factor

 Baseball, Football, Hockey, Pro-Football, The Bigger Picture  1 Response »
Feb 072011
 
In 1996 (I think), after the Steelers lost Superbowl XXX to the Dallas Cowboys, I remember reading a rather whimsical letter to the editor of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explaining the city’s role in the sports world. He detailed a nameless individual who made a deal with the Devil decades earlier, which setup Pittsburgh’s great sports successes – the Steelers’ Superbowls, the Pirates’ World Series titles, Pitt’s and Pennstate’s MNCs and the Penguins’ Stanley Cup runs. In the past forty years, Pittsburgh’s professional sports teams have collected 11 championships; fourth behind LA, NYC and Boston. Not bad for having only three of the four major US Sports and the 22nd largest market in the country

The Devil in the details, so to speak, was a clause that Pittsburgh’s teams would also suffer mind-numbing, spirit-crushing losses as well. Caveat emptor, after all. Pittsburghers can recall these losses pretty well today, I think, so I won’t detail them here. When asked why this proviso was called The Cabrera Factor, the Devil simply grinned and walked away.

Of Footballs and Accents

 Football, Pro-Football  No Responses »
Nov 152010
 

I drove up to Northampton, MA this extended weekend to spend some some with my sister, brother-un-law and niece. I was enjoying a leisurely time, when on Friday morning, I received a call from my mom that an unkel had offered two tickets to Sunday night’s Steelers/Patriots game in Pittsburgh. Done.

After driving home from Northampton in 7.5 hours (~515 miles) on Sunday, I was subjected to one of the worst Steelers games I’ve seen in years. Just a putrid, heartless display. Embarrassing, really.

The worst part? Although our seats were pretty sweet (section 108, row K), they were directly in front of five guys from Boston. Now I don’t mind that they were loud and boisterous for their team. By and large, they weren’t rude and there was some fun jawing back and forth.

But those accents! OH MY LAWD!! I mean a really thick, thick, Boston/New England accent. Like Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting or Peter Griffin on the Family Guy.

“Let’s go Paaaats!”
“Let’s go boyyyeesss!”
“Atta boy Tommy!”

Horrible, simply horrible. I’d rather hear southern drawls, Long Island or Bronx accents, Midwestern accents, valley girl accents, maybe even Jersey Shore accents than that bile-inducing detritus. Worst regional accent in the world!

Those boyyeess made this the single worst sporting event I have ever attended. (And considering I’m a long-time Pitt football fan, that’s sayin’ something). UGH.

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