AP/Coaches Rankings, Media Bias, Attendance/Stadium, Coastal Division, Recruiting Stars

[jbweiss1425]

Reading the posts on the lair most people agree there is media bias against Pitt. The data to support this theory is easy to find.

Yet - Pitt continues to get better in the following ways:

1. Better Players / Better Talent Development
2. Facilities Upgrades
3. Program Investment
4. Increases in Donor Funding
5. Attendance Increases
6. Season ticket sales Increases
7. Engagement / involvement from prominent Pitt Football alumni.

Unfortunately, Pitt has headwinds (perceived) that still work against us

1. Attendance - While it's not true for all schools a high percentage of the schools that get preferential media treatment tend to be bigger schools or schools that have better more consistent fan base attendance at games. It's not a coincidence that most of those are SEC / BIG schools. Within the ACC - schools like NC State, Clemson, FSU, VaTech, and Louisville (who all happen to be in the Atlantic aside from VaTech) are the big "Football schools"
2. Coastal Division - ACC gets so disrespected it's sickening. Not so much because the ACC is good but because the other conferences are NOT. Every year the BIG is so OVERRATED and this year is no exception. Teams like PSU, MSU, WISC, IOWA, every year get in the top 25 based on nothing more than being in the BIG. Then they play each other and the competition is just not very good. But because they have giant stadiums filled with fans they get ranked high. MSU is the perfect example each year. I hesitate to bring up PSU because well this is a Pitt board and they are PSU but they are now 11 after beating a 2-2 Purdue team who just barely a 2-2 Florida Atlantic team by 2. They also beat a 3-1 Auburn team people are calling "good" who has 3 wins against Mercer, San Jose State, and by 3 over a 2-2 Missouri team.
3. Coastal Division (Con't) - The rest of this division looks like one of the worst divisions in CFB on paper. GaTech, Duke, UVA have all been horrible. UNC - could be the biggest letdown team every year. VaTech - has fallen apart since Beamer left yet they continue to keep the perception of a "Major" program. Finally Miami - perception program that is not good. Instead of Pitt being respected for the strength and improvements we have made like other similar programs we get penalized for all the reasons why it "doesn't" count.
4. Recruiting - It sucks to admit this but one of the biggest areas of frustration with the media and football writers is the lack of acknowledgment that Pitt knows how to recruit and develop talent. We have been loaded the past five years and continue to put PRODUCTIVE players in the NFL. In addition, my biggest complaint with Pitt historically was that when we did recruit a 3-star you could see their offer sheets almost never included other P5 offers. That is not the case anymore. I do agree with other posters that we need to start winning more battles for 4-star guys and start becoming a consistent Top25 recruiting class. Top 25 classes + Attendance + Wins is the formula to become relevant.
5. Bringing it all together - the good news is Pitt is winning! Pitt's recruiting is moving in the right direction and Pitt's attendance is improving. Consistency at the AD and HC positions has been so critical to all of this. Also, HCPN has made many more good decisions than bad ones. People forget how long it took for Whipple's offense to "work". People also consistently underestimate the time it takes to fully install and execute any new offense or defense. What I have seen this year is two games where the offense slowly started to open up...then the team get hit hard by the injury bug and the coaches try to play the long game by being conservative and smart and win games and minimize injuries which to me is VERY SMART coaching. I feel very confident that the offense we will see in ACC play (assuming our QB1 and QB2 are healthy) looks very different from what we have seen these past two weeks.

Pitt needs to follow the same script as last year after WMU. Take care of business each week. Get better each week. We need THE FANS to show up each week. We need some new guys to break out this season like last season.

If Pitt does those things - we will be ranked in the Top 12 or higher again. We will win out. We will be back in the ACC Championship and from the look of things now - it will be a game Pitt can win again.

#H2P