(07-27-2014 02:10 PM)allthatyoucantleavebehind Wrote: PSU fans are certainly in the cross-hairs of this topic.
Some want Pitt back because they were our first and best rival (the series from the late 60s to early 80s was transcendent!). Some feel like we get enough "regional" games simply by playing in the Big Ten and--like the poster above mentioned--we can accidentally legitimize Pitt (who has been relatively mediocre since the mid-80s) by playing them regularly.
I feel like part of the "problem" is the new dearth of OOC games. In the last decade, the furor for 7 home games (essentially a money grab) has made most teams schedule 3 patsies and 1 solid OOC foe each year. PSU even had a year or two with 8 home games.
I think if you told a typical PSU fan that they could have 9 Big Ten games, Pitt, a patsy home game, and a good "national" OOC foe every year (like Alabama, Notre Dame, or Miami), I think they'd take it. The problem comes up when Pitt is ALL we get. We'd rather not stay regional in the new system, since the Big Ten is regional enough.
My brother-in-law is also a Penn State grad/fan and I have heard him express the same lament you have about playing PITT versus the importance of maintaining a national presence. As I have told him time and again, your premise is just ludicrously off base and amazingly arrogant.
This theory may have held some water pre-child sex scandal at Penn State and when PITT was still in the Big East, which struggled to gain the nation's respect as a football conference. I always thought it was little more than a weak excuse then but it's an out right insane position now that PITT is playing in the ACC, which hosts the defending national champion Florida State Seminoles.
If PITT can't be legitimized by playing the likes of Clemson and Florida State, they're not going to be legitimized by playing a mid tier Big Ten team as Penn State has been for most of the past two plus decades.
Personally, I think that is a game that needs to be played for both schools' sake. PITT does benefit more on a very superficial level (attendance) but both schools would benefit tremendously from having a marquee game that both schools' fan bases care about at the end of the season – something both teams currently lack.
Let's be real for a second and acknowledge that not many people respect or even know that for most of the past two decades Penn State and Michigan State have played for something called the "Land Grant Trophy". It just hasn't made an impact on anyone, and Michigan State is often been very good during this time and Penn State has occasionally been good too.
For its part, PITT has had more success in that department by virtue of being able to play an actual rival in West Virginia rather than a contrived one. However, even that has now gone by the wayside and PITT's end of the season rivalry now is set to be the Miami Hurricanes.
From PITT's perspective, Miami is okay, West Virginia would be even better (if they behaved themselves), but Penn State would absolutely be the best, most natural rivalry we could play. It would energize the fan base, but don't confuse that with legitimizing the program. No other program has that kind of power over any other program - especially not P5 to P5.
Let's try to apply this logic to other fairly similar scenarios. Does South Carolina legitimize Clemson by playing them? Does Georgia legitimize Georgia Tech by playing them? Does Florida legitimize Florida State by playing them? Does Kentucky legitimize Louisville but playing them? If so, then why do they all continue to play those in-state rivalry games? Why doesn't that seem theory apply to any of those other larger programs? Because it's manufactured BS designed to confuse the Penn State fan base, that's why.
It is absolutely true the PITT has fallen off a lot from where it was during that rivalry's halcyon days. There is just no question about that. I think it speaks to PITT's internal struggles over maintaining a high-quality football program and doing it in this sleazeball environment as well as the difficulty for an urban school to compete against all of these land-grant institutions with their almost limitless resources. However, people should also bear in mind just how far Penn State has fallen as well. They were one of the true behemoths of college football in the 1980s - sort of like Alabama and LSU are right now - and now they are roughly akin to an Iowa. That is not bad, certainly better than where PITT is, but it is nowhere near where they were in the 1980s. They're still drawing those huge crowds - a byproduct of an isolated location and an absolutely enormous student body - but they are not getting it done on the field, at least not to the level they think they should.
When I became convinced that Penn State also needed that game was in hearing a big recruit from Pittsburgh (I can't remember who, want to say Terrelle Pryor) say that he had always dreamt of playing in the Ohio State/Michigan game. Why would a kid who grew up in Pennsylvania dream of playing in the Ohio State/Michigan game? That makes no sense. That would be like a kid who grew up in Ohio saying that he always dreamt of playing in the Backyard Brawl. That just doesn't happen.
That is no disrespect towards Ohio State or Michigan or their wonderful game, which I think most would agree is among the best rivalries in college football. It is just that, before that quote, I had never in my life heard a PA kid speak of it with such reverence. Frankly, it was odd and spoke directly to a void existing in that department in Pennsylvania collegiate football.
I understand that a lot of the posters here are quite young but for those who don't know or who don't remember, PITT and Penn State, along with Oklahoma and Nebraska, basically invented that Friday afternoon following Thanksgiving college football tradition. It was usually a doubleheader on ABC and it was an awesome day of college football featuring two of the largest rivalries in the sport. It is a crying shame that neither game is now played and I don't their absence benefits college football in the broader context at all.