In order to have a rivalry, it has to be even matched. While we always seem to step up the tempo against OSU and Michigan, well what we’ve beaten OSU twice in the last 7 years? And have not beat Michigan in 9 years? We have to start beating these guys on a more consistent basis, or atleast if we lose, not lost be 30 like we tend to.

Michigan State is probably the current “rivalry”. 1. Its for the Land Grant Trophy, and 2. just about every year it is a very good game.

and Tennessee will never be Auburn to Alabama but it’s still a pretty big game.

like their comments. Most OSU fans dismiss PSU as lunchmeat. We need to beat them, period, to gain any respect – especially at the shoe.

Maybe SuePa can create some animosity – similar to the fake Syracuse lion painting back in the day.

Yes, Penn State fans are terribly, almost insufferably, arrogant. There are indeed cows on our campus, we were founded as the Farmer’s High School, and State College is not quite the cultural Mecca that is Oakland. Once upon a time our colors were pink and black, and our basketball team sucks.

But Penn State football is better than Pitt football. Period, end of story. I went to both schools. I was at every Pitt home game the year they went to the BCS, and I would rather be at Beaver Stadium watching a 4-7 Penn State team any day of the week.

Until you go native at Pitt for a few years it’s hard to really understand how much different the two schools are. Pitt simply does not have the desire or the resources to be a nationally competitive football team on a year in, year out basis. And that’s a fact.

Hating Pitt is like hating Communist Russia, so twenty years ago, and in hindsight, totally pointless.

When I was in school, what I really liked about the switch to the Big Ten was the fact that silly superficial "hatred" you had to deal with WVU, Syracuse, Maryland and Pitt was finally gone. I found the collegiality of the Big Ten fans to be really refreshing and I much prefer that to some nonsensical hatred of Pitt.

As to the rest, lots of schools are close, and there are lots of schools we used to play. This will be our 16th football season in the Big Ten; they have to finally get used to us, and vice versa. For our part, we can’t keep looking back and waxing nostalgic for the independent days every time we have a bum season.

Once we get back up on top, and start beating Ohio State and Michigan regularly again, and it will happen, there won’t be much more discussion of The University of Pittsburgh during football season.

And I thought I was the only one who gets upset at 99luftballoons! Great stuff, wookie!

Is never going to happen. Ever. It has nothing to do with Joe Paterno, and everything to do with being a member of a confrence.

If we played them, it would be in September.

This is no attack against psu4ever (love your and Puz’ & Conlan’s & Collins’ work!).... This argument, however, is flawed. At its core. And it’s about more than pitt/penn state. The very same argument is made about there being no playoff (‘the poll/bowl system is good for the game b/c it gets people discussing it’). And, more recently here in BSD, the assertion has been made that flamewars keep this blog ‘interesting.’

None of this is true. Just because something inspires chatter does not mean it’s a good idea. A point is valid or invalid based on its merits or demerits, none of which are the vociferousness of the debate. Was segregation good for America because the volume of those in the civil rights movement was loud? Was the beginning of the holocaust fine because there was so little international outcry (b/c the scope of the genocide was as yet unknown)? Like Chris Rock said, ‘you could drive a car with your feet, but that don’t make it a good f*cking idea!’ Just because we all shoutin, don’t make the point any more or less valid.