Blue White Illustrated

It's time to renew Pitt rivalry - permanently M ost readers of Blue White Illustrat- ed probably don't remember the column I wrote more than a decade ago that strongly opposed a resumption of the annual football game with Penn State's most bitter rival of all time, the University of Pittsburgh. I've changed my mind. The reason is simple. In this high- stakes era of financial gluttony, Power Five conferences and a true national championship playoff, Penn State needs the type of intense and rancorous rivalry that Pitt provided from 1887 until 2000. So does Pitt. Ever since the Penn State football pro- gram began competing in the Big Ten in 1993, it has not had an archrivalry to match the one with the Panthers, and neither has Pitt. As I wrote for BWI in the spring of 2006, "The game was once one of the rancorous and best rivalries in college football, played at the end of the reg- ular season where the win or the loss was the most meaningful of the year – gratifying the gloating victor and devastating the disconsolate loser for at least the next 12 months and sometimes for years." Most college teams do have one annu- al game with an opponent each consid- ers its bitter rival. Bitter in this context may be a hackneyed word, but it per- fectly sums up the enmity, animosity and sometimes outright hate that the schools' players and most ardent fans have for each other. Michigan-Ohio State is the epitome of such a rivalry, reaching a status nationally that is chal- lenged only by Army-Navy, whose ri- valry is much more polite and respect- ful. There are other high-profile rivalries that often attract nationwide attention, most of them depending on the success of the teams in any given year or decade. Alabama-Auburn, Florida-Georgia and USC-UCLA are good examples. Some- times the games aren't played at the end of the season but have a significant im- pact on conference standings and/or na- tional rankings. In the best rivalries, even if both teams are having lousy sea- sons, they want to beat the crap out of each other. That was the hostile atmosphere that pervaded the Pitt-Penn State game for decades. The Big Ten tried to contrive a rivalry between Penn State and Michigan State, setting up an annual end-of-season game that matched the two historic land grant colleges. All that did from 1993- 2010 was produce the ugliest trophy in college football. Since then, three year- end games with Wisconsin and two more with Michigan State have diluted any definition of what a true bitter rival- ry is all about. Future schedules from 2016 through 2019 call for another game with Michi- gan State and three with conference newcomers: two with Maryland and one with Rutgers. Penn State's longtime Eastern opponents have potential, and there is already some rancor percolating after just two seasons of Big Ten compe- tition. But a truly bitter rivalry takes years to develop. Let's face it. Penn State's players and fans nowadays would rather beat Ohio State and Michigan than any other Big Ten team, with Ne- braska just behind. Pitt has a similar dilemma. When Penn State departed for the Big Ten, West Vir- ginia moved to the top of the Panthers' STEEL CITY Penn State will be making its Heinz Field de- but in Septem- ber. The last time the Lions faced Pitt on the road, in 2000, the Pan- thers were still playing at Three Rivers Stadium.

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