https://twitter.com/PaulZeise/status/229966630560600066

Quote:Steve Pederson "We hope to continue to schedule Big East teams in all of our sports when it makes sense." #Pitt.

Translation... it will rarely make sense. Steeevo has about as much desire to schedule Big East teams in the future as he does returning to the Pitt script.

I think he will try to schedule Big East basketball teams much more than football.

I really don't think they are gonna schedule either. Trust me this is a divorce where neither side is interested in seeing the other for the rest of their lives.

I'm with 7 on this one. Once we leave the BE it'll be a LONG time before we see any BE team on our schedules.

When it comes to nBE football, I can see Pitt trying to schedule Rutgers, Navy and Temple. Those 3 schools will be the only schools in the BE that have any history with Pitt football. I don't think Pitt would care about any other BE football school, including UCONN, USF and Louisville. I also think WVU is not on Pitt's radar anymore either.

The only BE team I can see us scheduling is Navy. But that's more of a traditional rivalry.

What? Are you saying the River City Rivalry... is DEAD!?!

Seriously, with only 3 non-conference games and one of them figures to be either Notre Dame, Penn St, or WVU... the other 2 could end up being 1 FCS and 1 MAC/CUSA every year anyway. Throw in Temple/Rutgers/Navy in years when you only have 4 ACC road games (at the Vet maybe?)

(07-30-2012 07:49 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  The only BE team I can see us scheduling is Navy. But that's more of a traditional rivalry.

I could see Navy but still don't consider them a bigleast team. I will still beleive they join when they actually do.

I agree, nothing in the remaining Big East that's really worth scheduling on any regular basis, except possibly Navy.

The rest don't really mean anything other than when we're looking for that mid tier 1A school.

But I wouldn't mind Seeing a big east school replace the 1AA school we schedule. I don't really find much excitement in the Main and Youngstown games. I'd rather see a Big East team in those slots if not something even bigger.

The problem the Big East is going to have is that they are essentially going to be viewed as "trap" games. If you look at the conferences as a hierarchy that has 5 powers - B1G, Big XII, SEC, PAC, and ACC and then see the Big East as a step down but still a step up from the MAC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MWC, etc. then I think you begin to see this. It's sort of like playing Boise a few years ago - they're dangerous and they can beat you but if you win it's just going to be a game that you should have won.

With the exception of Boise I think most of the Big East fits this profile moving forward. They're not going to be regarded as well as teams from the power conferences and I believe the reward for beating them is going to make it cost prohibitive to play them. I will say, though, that I would anticipate that Pitt would consider playing Rutgers and will certainly consider playing Navy. Navy is kind of a different story. Other than that, I just don't see us playing the Big East teams and since we don't have much history with Boise I doubt we pick them up anytime soon, either.

I think Pitt will definitely play Navy. I think there is a good chance that Pitt would want to play Rutgers from time to time and that Temple might be in this category too. Otherwise, I think Pitt will not schedule UL, UC, Memphis, Boise or any of the other nBE schools out there. USF would have been an interesting school except for the fact that it has a chronic problem with choking away half their season. A loss to USF always looks bad because everyone knows that sooner or later, USF falls apart.

But the only definite school that I see Pitt playing is Navy. The other northeast schools are maybe's. Who knows, Rutgers and Temple may not want to play Pitt anyways.