Pitt 42 - Penn State 39

First off, The Grandstander will be on a brief hiatus this week (or, as a guy I used to work with might have put it, "a brief hi-anus";  yes, he really did say that), but before I do, I have to comment on that whale of a football game today between Pitt and Penn State, which Pitt won 42-39.

Had this game been played in a vacuum, it really would have been no big deal.  Two non-conference opponents playing early in the season, and let's face it, both teams could generously be described as mid-level teams within their own conferences.  Of course, it was PITT versus PENN STATE for the first time in sixteen years, so this game was definitely not played in a vacuum. It was, as my friend Dan Bonk has been reminding us since 2011, a BIG GAME, and man, oh, man, did it live up to all of the hype.

George Aston scores Pitt's first TD of the day.

Let me clear on my loyalties.  I was rooting for Pitt all the way, and I was delighted when they bolted to a 28-7 lead in the second quarter.  Who would have envisioned that it was going to be this easy?  Well it wasn't.  Penn State scores right before the half and once again early in the third quarter, and all of a sudden it was 28-21 and it was real ball game.  In the waning minutes of the game, Penn State was driving, trailing by three points, and they appeared to be unstoppable, when Pitt intercepted a pass in the end zone to seal the three point win.

Absolutely fabulous.

Some final observations...

• I have been a part of this Pitt season ticket group since 2013, and in all that time, I can point to only one "signature win" for Pitt during that time, a win over Notre Dame in 2013.  That changed today for Pitt and Coach Pat Narduzzi.  If ever there was a Signature Win, this was it.
• It is said that a loss today would raise the heat in Happy Valley under James Franklin. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but before Lions' fans come down too hard on Franklin, be aware that he sure as hell did something at halftime for his team.  PSU was getting whipped in the first half, but they dominated the second half and almost won it.
• All of my fears about bad behavior among the fans of the two teams appeared to be unfounded, or at least they were in what I saw in the parking lots, tailgate parties, and stands today.  That was refreshing.
• It is said that watching a game on TV these days is superior to actually going to the stadium, and for the most part, I agree, but I have to say, that for today at least, it sure was better being at Heinz Field than sitting at home watching on TV.

Finally, the attendance was announced today to be 69,983.  It is the largest crowd ever to see any sporting event in Pittsburgh, and I was a part of it.  Of course, as friend Fred Egler has noted, this does not count the 350,000 people who claim to have been at the Immaculate Reception game in 1972 or the 130,000 who claim to have been at Game Seven of the 1960 World Series.

Very cool to be able to say that I was a part of a record crowd for ANY sporting event in this city.  And in case you were wondering who the best looking people were at that game, well, here they are:

Bob Sproule, Len Martin, Dan Bonk, John Sebastian

Photo courtesy of Donna Sebastian

Sunday Morning Football Thoughts

Pitt's 31-13 victory over Pitt yesterday was an impressive one and an important one.  It boosted their record to 7-3 and kept their hopes alive, however dim they may be, to capture the ACC Coastal Division and getting a chance to play in the ACC Championship Game.  It also proved that they could beat a pretty good team on the road, and do it in fairly convincing fashion.  With two home games remaining, it is not unreasonable to think that Pitt can fashion and 8-4 or even a 9-3 season, and a chance to play in an upper echelon Between-Christmas-and-New-Year's-Day bowl game.

Who saw that coming last December when yet another Pitt coach was fleeing Oakland to take yet another dream job, and the new guy would be coming in and reaping a less than complete recruiting class for his first season?  I should probably wait until the after the final game to see this, but I say that Pat Narduzzi now becomes one of the leading candidates for the Dapper Dan Man of the Year Award for 2015.

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On the Pro Side of the House, the Steelers take on the Hated Browns today.  By all rights, this one should be an easy W for Rooney U., but for the following reasons, it could also end up in disaster.  First and foremost, Ben Roethlisberger will be sitting out this one due to that injured foot, and secondly, the Steelers in recent years have shown an uncanny ability to lose to crummy teams, including these same Browns last year.  If you haven't already done so, I recommend Gene Collier's column in this morning's Post-Gazette, who spells out, in his usual entertaining manner, how this could be one big pitfall for the Steelers.

We will see how it unfolds on the Heinz Field greensward this afternoon.  In any event, the annual tilts with the Brownies are always fun to watch.

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Speaking of the Browns, for even the most hardened Steelers fans who harbor a lifelong dislike for the Cleveland football team, I am guessing that most of those people would concede that the Browns always had a classic uniform, as modeled by this guy:

As has become the case these days throughout  all sports, especially in the NCAA and now the NFL, the Browns went to new uniforms for 2015, and can we all agree that they are absolutely hideous?

I know it's all about marketing, and selling jerseys to the suckers fans who continue to put down big bucks for these rags.  The Steelers get criticized all the time for those bumblebee throwbacks that they wear, but at least they only pull those out for two games a year, and  the classic Black-and-Gold uni remains unchanged, although I do wish that they would go back to the "block" font for the numerals ("Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!")  Lifelong, die-hard Browns fans, and I know many of them, after having watched years of incompetence since the franchise came back into the NFL, have to really be sickened by this aesthetic nightmare of a uniform.

Notre Dame 42 - Pitt 30

I will leave the debate as to exactly where the Notre Dame Fighting Irish belong in the national rankings.  Going into the weekend, the wire service polls had them at #8, the Committee with Condoleezza Rice On It had them at #5, and after yesterday's game at Heinz field, who's going to argue?  

I suppose that many Pitt fans hearkened back to 2013 when Pitt upset Notre Dame at Heinz Field,  It was the only upset win and the only signature victory for the Panthers in the Paul Chryst Era.  Could it happen again in 2015?  Well, those thoughts were pretty much dispelled when ND gained 19, 9, and 47 yards on their first three plays from scrimmage and took a 7-0 lead.  It was pretty much downhill from there for Pitt.  The twelve point margin reflected by the 42-30 final score is not indicative of the dominance of Notre Dame over Pitt.

So, what are Pitt fans to make of this?  Pat Narduzzi won't be, and, really, he cannot be, totally honest when evaluating his team in public, but when he talks to himself in the shaving mirror each morning, I am sure that he has been saying ever since he took this job, that the level of talent currently at Pitt cannot measure up with the "big boys" of college football, and that was sure evident yesterday, and by arriving at his position late, he was only able to recruit 15 players for this year's team.  However, despite all of that, Pitt still is in a position where they are competing and still in the hunt for their division lead in the ACC, which would put them in a position to play Clemson in the ACC title game.  Give Narduzzi and his staff a couple full years of recruiting, and it would appear that Pitt will be competitive in the ACC in the years ahead.  The fact that Pitt is 6-3 at this point would indicate that Narduzzi knows how to coach 'em up come game day.

Remaining for Pitt is a road game at Duke and home games with Louisville and Miami.  I am thinking that Pitt could be competitive in all of those games.  I would gladly settle for two of three and an 8-4 record and a trip to between-Christmas-and-New-Year's-Day-bowl game.  That would be a major step forward from the three season 19-19 record of mediocrity of the Chryst Era.

Sunday Morning Sporting Thoughts.....

The big news in Pittsburgh sports today will be the return of this guy to the playing field:

(Photo courtesy of the Pittsburgh Steelers)

The Steelers managed to go 2-2 in Ben Roethlisberger's absence, which is better than many of us had hoped, to be perfectly honest.  Here's hoping that Ben won't be too rusty today as the the Steelers take on the 6-0 Cincy Bengals today in a key AFC North match-up.  Let's face it, based on that defensive performance against the Chiefs last week, the team is going to need Roethlisberger at the top of his game from here on out.

The other thing the Steelers have going for them is that today's opponent is the Cincy Bengals.  Yeah, I know that they are undefeated, but there is always the possibility that they will revert being the, well, the Cincy Bengals.

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That was a tough loss that Pitt suffered at the hands of North Carolina this past Thursday night.  North Carolina was clearly a better team than Pitt, so that 26-19 result was probably a just one.  Still, one can look at how Pitt made adjustments and played a better second half.  The coaches seem to know what to do to make in-game adjustments, and the players are clearly buying into it.  That's a good sign.  Also, one wonders what might have been had two UNC fumbles been recovered by Pitt when they occurred, but they weren't, so it's time to move on.

Pitt now faces two straight games where they figure to be underdogs, home with Notre Dame and at Duke, before finishing up with home games with Louisville and Miami.  would be nice to see the Panthers split those remaining games and end up at 8-4 (and what Pitt fan would not have signed on for that at the beginning of the year?), but it's not going to be easy.  Still, I wouldn't discount what this team might be able to do in these remaining four games.

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Speaking of college football, let me highly recommend this book to you:

Check out the subtitle: "A Journey Through the Big Money Culture of College Football."  There's nothing in here that any serious fan didn't know or at least suspect, but Gilbert Gaul, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, has put together a well researched and well written book about this topic. Delving into this topic oft-times makes you want to take a shower, but as I have stated before, I buy the tickets, and I watch the games on TV, so I am a part of the problem, too.

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So, Steven Matz did his job last night, as did Michael Conforto, and the New York Mets were five outs away from evening the World Series at two game apiece.  What followed is what makes baseball such a great game: two Tyler Clippard walks, a Daniel Murphy error, and a seeing-eye single by Salvador Perez, and BOOM!, the Royals are now firmly in control of this Series after a 5-3 win has given them a three games to one advantage over the Mets.  You can't take a knee in baseball.  You've got to get all twenty-seven outs.

Too bad for the Mets, but good for the Royals, who are clearly the better team insofar as the everyday eight man lineup is concerned.  Still, the Mets send Matt Harvey to the mound and momentum is the next game's stating pitcher blah blah blah, so we'll see.  Other teams have overcome being down 3-1, but the Mets are clearly rolling that rock uphill right now.

And by the way, while most of the country was probably watching the Notre Dame-Temple football game last night, they really missed a pretty darn good baseball game, even if you had to listen to Harold Reynolds in the broadcast booth.  Man, he's bad.  And on the subject of the announcers, I was pre-disposed to not like Alex Rodriguez as an analyst, but in the in-game spots that he has done, he has been pretty good.  He is well prepared and at times he seems to want to force every factoid that he has into his comments, but, all in all, I've enjoyed what he's had to say.