Call me one of the few in a slim minority anymore that is giddy for the showdown at PNC Park Tuesday evening between Pitt and Penn State on the baseball diamond. I get neither program moves the needle nationally in baseball. But it’s that rivalry with Pitt that gets my juices going.
Penn State branded itself throughout much of its time in the Big Ten as “Unrivaled.”
I was never a fan of that marketing moniker.
For the longest time, Penn State had the most national championships in all of NCAA sports amongst Big Ten schools. That was until USC (114) and UCLA (124) entered the league. Those schools have more than double the NCAA team championships all time than Penn State (56).
Last week, I wrote about how former Ohio State quarterback Will Howard was wrong about not seeing Penn State as a rival.
Golik: Will Howard Still Has a Chip on His Shoulder Over Penn State — and It Shows
Trust me, had Ohio State lost any of the games it had enjoyed during its eight-game winning streak against Penn State, its grumblings would be just as enormous.
Spoils goes to the victors, and Penn State sure has had that with Pitt on the gridiron.
If you take out the stretch between 1976 and 1982 when both schools combined to appear in three national championships (winning two), and were No. 1 in the nation at some point during four of seasons, Penn State dominated Pitt on the gridiron from the start of the Paterno-era on.
In 28 football matchups between 1966 to 1975 and 18 matchups that happened between 1983 to 2019, Penn State is 22-5-1 against Pitt. Penn State vanquished its traditional Eastern rivals and fans of a certain age still take pride in that “Beast in the East” moniker.
The attitude toward Pitt is as wrong as Howard is toward Penn State. Pitt-Penn State is a rivalry.
Step back to 2016. Penn State entered the game against Pitt with a 15-12 record through James Franklin’s first 27 games. The hot seat was present for Franklin. During ESPN’s College Game Day, hot seat chatter came up about Franklin.
It didn’t help matters in the first half when Penn State had a rash of injuries. Pitt’s James Conner and Penn State’s Saquon Barkley had a running back duel for the ages, combining for seven of the games 11 offensive touchdowns scored.
Pitt won that day 42-39. Franklin was instantly on the hot seat, with temperatures soaring after the 49-10 Michigan loss weeks later.
Franklin righted the ship since that Michigan defeat, going from just a game above .500 (15-14) overall to having won 75.4% of Franklin’s games since (86-28).
Franklin has vanquished the traditional Eastern rivals Penn State used to play, still figuring answers for the Big Ten rivals like Ohio State and Michigan to get Penn State over the hump.
That is what rivalries do. They force you to work and push yourself to a point you normally wouldn’t if you weren’t challenged. When Jim Knowles called Franklin, Franklin knew he wanted to make that happen in the absolute worst way possible.
Franklin being 1-10 against Ohio State gnaws at him worse than anything. At the same time, Ryan Day is looking forward toward the hiatus of Penn State in 2026 and 2027. Day knows the challenge of beating a fierce rival. So does Franklin.
Going back to Pitt, the 2019 game went to the final buzzer. Pitt got to the Penn State 26-yard line with five seconds to go, it took a pass defense Kenny Pickett, who was 35 for 51 for 372 yards, to seal the 17-10 win. That crowd was about as tense as any.
I look at other rivalries since the last expansion carousel was salvaged. Oregon still prioritizes Oregon State on the schedule, and last season had to survive against Boise State before completing the regular season undefeated. Washington did the same for Washington State for the Apple Cup. Florida State always manages to play Miami and Florida, Clemson and South Carolina and so on.
The other notion that needs to be dispelled is Pitt could ruin Penn State’s national championship chances. This isn’t the college football we grew up on where you had to be perfect, because now you don’t have to be. Ohio State was a two-loss national champion. Notre Dame lost to a Group of Five team in Northern Illinois last season and made it to Atlanta.
Northern Illinois’ Colossal Upset at ND Could Benefit Penn State
No disrespect to Villanova, Nevada, and FIU but none of those get the juices going like Pitt does for me, or quite frankly any of the base. When I cover this Tuesday’s Pitt versus Penn State game, there will be a part of me that will rage, because Pitt matters that much that a loss will be unbearable.
