I understand your point but the population you deal with on a football message board are football fans. They didn't all even necessarily go to WVU and so their interest in the academic side of the school is probably not what drives them in their contact with other message board posters.

I don't know much about the academic situation at WVU besides it's been corrupt in the past (the free MBA) and it's not ranked well overall. Part of this isn't really their fault, either, because the population that they draw their students from aren't known as being the best and the brightest. When you're the state university of West Virginia you know you're not going to be drawing a lot of people from elsewhere and the students who go to WVU probably aren't getting into Pitt. Still, it is right for the state to have a university to educate the people there. Unfortunately, the quality may always be doomed to suffer.