Pitt Fans Can't Celebrate Tri-Championship After Losses to UConn and WVU

How appropriate that Pitt’s 2010 football season ended before a small crowd at Nippert Stadium during a blizzard. Just as the snow obscured the yard markers and colored Cincinnati with a dreary hue, the actions of Wannstedt, his coaches, and his over-hyped players cast a fog over the future of Pitt football if Wannstedt continues as head coach.

There is no indication Chancellor Nordenberg and side kick athletic director Steve Pederson are going to do anything at all to remedy the situation. In fact, Pederson has been so aloof through this season of unmet expectations he could have spent some of his $1.5 million settlement from Nebraska sunbathing along the Caribbean and Pitt fans would never have known the difference.

Yes, the Panthers are tri-champs of the worst conference in BCS history, the Big East. You could feel the refs pulling for South Florida over Connecticut in the nightcap last evening. Certainly Big East commissioner John Marinatto preferred West Virginia, the only program in the Big East with a large traveling fan base and a national ranking in the BCS game.

Connecticut will represent the Big East in most likely the Fiesta Bowl, but the Huskies bring no cache to the table. Huskies fans travel to away basketball games, but football? Not so much.

It doesn’t help the Huskies’ cause when national sports writers are still referring to tri-champion BCS-bound UConn as a “bad team.”  The Huskies will have the chance to redeem themselves with a victory over Oklahoma, the Big 12 conference championship winner.

West Virginia fans are getting a mixed message. Even though congratulations are in order to coach Bill Stewart for three straight nine-win seasons, fans know this West Virginia team which beat Pitt 35-10 is by far not the best Mountaineer team of this decade.

His predecessor, Rich Rodriguez, put together three straight 11-win seasons, including a No. 2 ranking in 2007. Surely settling for nine wins and an uninspiring offense contribute to the Mounties’ unhappiness with Stewart, despite the Mountaineers almost giving the Big East its best win of the year, playing tough at LSU but losing in the end.

There is good news and possibly great news for the Mountaineers. Notre Dame appears to be out of the Champs Sports Bowl, opening a space for WVU.  A BCS bowl invite might be given to the Mounties, possibly a matchup with Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

Orange Bowl officials are still reeling from from matchups in 2009 and 2010 which did not sell out. Having all those blue-and-gold clad WVU fans filling up Miami hotels and night clubs is something to get excited about.  

Pitt’s prospects are not so sunny. Pitt is third among its co-champion cohorts with no BCS prospects. The 2010 Pitt non-conference losses came against No. 20-ranked Utah, 27-24, and two unranked teams—Miami, 31-3, and Notre Dame, 23-17. 

Throw in the blowout loss to West Virginia at Heinz Field played before a handful of angry fans in the fourth quarter and Pitt is 0-3 in high profile nationally televised games.

Wannstedt specializes in looking bad when the stakes are high, and he has turned off a fan base loathe to travel to bowl games even under good conditions.

With the press abuzz about fan anger directed at Wannstedt, chancellor Nordenberg, and A.D. Pederson, officials of the the Beef "O" Brady’s and BBVA Compass Bowl are looking for ways to avoid the Panthers.

At least Wannstedt is fired up about playing in Birmingham or St. Petersburg. He’s going to do his little fist-pumping dance for everyone—you know, the one he rehearsed in Tampa after his team beat USF.