ACC and BIG

[Pitt79]

It just comes down to travel. If I had to rank all teams by fan travel (all else equal), it would be:

1. OSU
2. Nebraska
3. Michigan
4. Penn State
5. Iowa
6. Wisconsin
7. Clemson
8. Florida State
9. VT
10. NCSU
11. Louisville
12. MSU

Just too many huge traveling BT fanbases.

You're probably right, but is that a guess or do you have numbers?

All those teams are "the only game in town" and tOSU is the only one that is in a huge city, biggest city in Ohio, with only NHL and MLS to compete with. #1 PRO football team in that state.

 

[WCSordill]

It can be more like 3 hours depending on traffic and where in the DMV you are coming from.

Was the turnout bad? Depends if you are comparing it to a typical Pitt turnout or a turnout to a team that actually travels well. It was a smaller Pitt turnout than I expected though.

Didn't look like UVA's turnout was all that great either, even with homecoming and all.

 

[thebadby2]

Didn't look like UVA's turnout was all that great either, even with homecoming and all.

It never had been, never will be. One of CFBs true historical doormat programs. The ACC boasts a few of those from its days as the tobacco road basketball conference where football was almost a club sport.

Charlottesville is a really nice town, UVA is a beautiful campus, but let's face it, college football fans travel to tailgate and watch football games, not to go to craft breweries, art galleries and wineries. Michigan and OSU travel huge but you won;t see a ton of their fans at an IU or Minnesota game, because nobody caress about IU or Minnesota. Same with UVA. Nobody cares about a UVA football game, not even UVA students and alums. All CFB fans travel to watch winning teams play meaningful games against winning teams. That's the bottom line.

 

[Pitt4Life34]

The Big10 is just awful. Let's see where PSU finished up. Pitt bullied them around the field like a younger brother. 300-400 yards rushing against them is like what Oklahoma does to Kansas. ie PSU is Kansas. Imagine the PSU team we played pounding anyone LOL. I guess we would have rushed for 1000 yards against Maryland.

 

[bwh05]

UVA had in the mid 30k range for homecoming, and people said the atmosphere was good. We'd get crucified by the local media for that.

 

[BuffetParrothead]

UVA had in the mid 30k range for homecoming, and people said the atmosphere was good. We'd get crucified by the local media for that.

What local media??? There's no PITT friendly local media in Pittsburgh? How ironic!
The amazing thing is all of you Pittsburghers let it happen! Amazing!

 

[CrazyPaco]

It never had been, never will be. One of CFBs true historical doormat programs. The ACC boasts a few of those from its days as the tobacco road basketball conference where football was almost a club sport.

Charlottesville is a really nice town, UVA is a beautiful campus, but let's face it, college football fans travel to tailgate and watch football games, not to go to craft breweries, art galleries and wineries. Michigan and OSU travel huge but you won;t see a ton of their fans at an IU or Minnesota game, because nobody caress about IU or Minnesota. Same with UVA. Nobody cares about a UVA football game, not even UVA students and alums. All CFB fans travel to watch winning teams play meaningful games against winning teams. That's the bottom line.

Like Navy? Maybe if fans just go to the game and then home. I don't think you've traveled to many away games, or at least not among fans of other teams that actually do travel. Most try make more of a weekend out of it and explore the location in my many experiences.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

The ACC bowl hookups are vastly inferior

Yeah. That is the problem with you have 20,000 student population schools mostly sharing their states with at least one other school of like, vs 50,000 student population schools which have little competition and established over 100 years.

 

[Black_Man_Panther]

Before Louisville joined the Big East, I always considered them a lower tier than Pitt, same with Cincy, but they certainly passed Pitt to a much higher level. If only Pitt would do ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING they do, maybe they could get the players to get there.

Uhh... yeah... and their President just got canned for that "anything and everything" attitude that may have brought them some athletic success but certainly did zero for academics. They spend more per student on athletics than any university in the NCAA. Got their priorities straight, eh?

 

[Spindler]

I do not think the turn out was bad. Virginia splits up the visitors among several sections in the upper deck--so I think it was a bit deceiving. I'd say it [UVA] was the largest Pitt road crowd this season, nudging out UNC. The OKState traveling crowd was pretty much only the hard core Pitt traveling fan base. I expect Clemson will be the largest this season. Hopefully there will also be a good turn out for Miami...as that is a stadium where there is plenty of room for the visitors. Hail to Pitt!

UVA stadium personnel told me during the game that the Pitt fans in attendance were the biggest crowd in recent years by a visiting team at their stadium.

 

[CrazyPaco]

I do not think the turn out was bad. Virginia splits up the visitors among several sections in the upper deck--so I think it was a bit deceiving. I'd say it [UVA] was the largest Pitt road crowd this season, nudging out UNC. The OKState traveling crowd was pretty much only the hard core Pitt traveling fan base. I expect Clemson will be the largest this season. Hopefully there will also be a good turn out for Miami...as that is a stadium where there is plenty of room for the visitors. Hail to Pitt!

I actually thought it was a lower Pitt crowd than two years ago but maybe it was because they split it up.

I agree with you though. Okie State was just hard to get to. Clemson should be decent.

 

[bwh05]

UVA stadium personnel told me during the game that the Pitt fans in attendance were the biggest crowd in recent years by a visiting team at their stadium.

That's good to hear. It sounded like our fans made some noise

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

Michigan also beat Colorado soundly.

Clemson looked bad in the Auburn game, and Malzahn might have been out of a job if there were 2 more seconds on the clock in the LSU game. Clemson looked like crap against NCSU & Troy. They played well against Louisville. We will see how it plays out. At this point, I fully expect them to get Clemsoned somewhere down the road.

I actually watched that Michigan/Colorado game with a couple of diehard Michigan fans. The Wolverines beat the Buffaloes, 45–28. However, that does not nearly tell the story of that game.

Colorado was beating Michigan in the third quarter whenever their best player, and star quarterback, Sefo Liufau was knocked out of the game with an ankle injury.

Incidentally, on the play in which he was injured, he threw a 70-yard touchdown pass. Michigan appeared to have no answer for him. Prior to his injury, Liufau was 16–25 for 246 yards and three touchdowns.

After he was hurt, the game completely changed and that's what allowed the Wolverines to go ahead. The Buffaloes could not move the football in the third and fourth quarter. Colorado's back up quarterback was 0-7. Eventually, Michigan's power running attack wore down CU. I would love to see that game again in the Rose Bowl.

Colorado lost the next week to USC for the same reason – their best player was out and his back up was ineffective. It's sort of like the Roethlisberger/Jones deal for the Steelers.

That kid is coming back this week and if he is healthy enough to move the Buffaloes are going to be tough to beat.

I know Michigan is a very good football team and I knew after that game that Colorado was legit as well.

That is a classic example of a game being much closer than the score would indicate. Let me put it this way, my Michigan friends were definitely relieved to win that game.

 

[Begbie_Nole]

Too many small schools in the ACC.

Other than this past bowl in Annapolis, Pitt has proven time and time again over the last 18 years that it won't travel. So even if the ACC had the B10's lineup, it would get passed over often by worse teams with bigger fan bases. Pitt will have to earn its way to good bowls the old fashioned way...by winning its way in.

BTW, extremely disappointed by the turnout of Pitt fans in Charlottesville. Pitt fans need to catch on to what a great weekend destination it is. Should be a great biennial destination for Pitt fans to roadtrip.

Charlottesville in the fall is amazing.. Wish we were in the coastal for that reason.

 

[chethejet]

Winning and having a very good program will do wonders to the fan shelling out cash for support. But no question the ACC is simply not the football size and support of the football power programs in the Big Ten. With the exception of a couple other big time size programs. OSU, Michigan, PSU and Nebraska are the only game in town.

But one also has to realize that only Michigan presently and OSU have the cache to be "national" programs. All the other programs are limited in either demographics recruiting base or administrative mediocrity as to coaching hires ect. But the recent hires as to head coaches will raise the level of the caliber of said programs. ACC coastal has a number of terrific coaches now.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Uhh... yeah... and their President just got canned for that "anything and everything" attitude that may have brought them some athletic success but certainly did zero for academics. They spend more per student on athletics than any university in the NCAA. Got their priorities straight, eh?

If you've read 79's posts in the past you would realize that yeah, he thinks they have their priorities straight. In fact he'd tell you that they need to cheat more to increase their chances of winning. Because the one and only thing that matters to him is his satisfaction, and if someone else needs to throw any and all sense of morals into the garbage can for him to get what he wants, then dammit that's what they need to do. And now isn't soon enough.

 

[CrazyPaco]

Uhh... yeah... and their President just got canned for that "anything and everything" attitude that may have brought them some athletic success but certainly did zero for academics. They spend more per student on athletics than any university in the NCAA. Got their priorities straight, eh?

Louisville is a complete mess internally

And academically, since it joined the ACC two years ago, Louisville has actually dropped 10 places in US News rankings to 171st. That's almost 20 spots behind Illinois State and a UMass branch campus. It also has 3 straight years of declines in R&D expenditure ranks and sits at 107 (and it has a med school unlike Kansas State that sits in front of it). For all its athletic success, the institution has been trending in the wrong direction.