OT: Learfield standings: Pitt last
- Thread starter TIGER-PAUL
- Start date
Feel like we are becoming more competitive overall, but still not winning. Going to take a long time to turn around decades of neglect for our Olympic sports.
This represents the lowest number of points and lowest finish since the 2000-01 season when Pitt finished an all-time worst of 153rd. Pitt's best finish ever, since this ranking began in 1993-94, is 48th in 1994-95 thanks to largely women's track and field which had top 5 team scores. Pitt's all-time average finish is 95.2.
Pitt has a small number of Olympic sports compared to its peer P5 institutions so it will always be at a disadvantaged in these rankings. But the decades of Olympic sport neglect has been exacerbated by imploding the high profile revenue programs and questionable moves and bad hires in others, and no AD, not even the current one, has been immune to these mistakes. We are spending a lot more money all the way around in athletics now, thanks to the ACC, so these sort of results for the athletic department are completely unacceptable, but hopefully, also representing a bottoming out.
The large majority of college sports fans across the country care about 2 sports - Men’s Basketball and Football. Those 2 drive the bus. Nobody cares if you have the best fencing, bowling, rifle, etc. team.
There are only 2 rankings that matter when it comes to college sports. Football Top 25 and Mens Basketball Top 25. Some will try to say women's basketball but outside of 3 maybe 4 programs people saying that are being PC.
I am not even saying this to be mean. I love the sport of wrestling but that does not move the needle at all for schools. Their are some outliers like UConn W Bball, PSU & Iowa Wrestling, and the like. But the money and publicity is in Top 25 football and Mens Basketball.
I am not even saying this to be mean. I love the sport of wrestling but that does not move the needle at all for schools. Their are some outliers like UConn W Bball, PSU & Iowa Wrestling, and the like. But the money and publicity is in Top 25 football and Mens Basketball.
How dare they leave-out Cornhole, Ultimate Frisbee, and Hotdog Eating Contests!
This data should remind us just how lucky we are to be in the ACC.
yeah... again... so? At best this should be on the locker room, not in the football board.
I can honestly say I have never, not once in my life, looked at these standings. I did not open the link, As Stache said...this is locker room at best info.
Yeah okay, but we aren't particularly good at them either.
LOL, every AD in America looks at these. People actually in collegiate athletics look at them. Even a few fans of schools and athletic programs that aren't embarrassed by their rankings look at them. It's a lead story on the ACC website.
You are correct. School administrators care about the Learfield Cup and other similar rankings of full departments. Lyke seems to be the first AD to truly care.
I tried to go to the acc website and got directed to Association of corporate counsel.
Imagine how bad we'd be at football and basketball if we spent more on those other, unimportant sports
The responses in this thread are exhibit A as to why we’ve had an immune athletic dept for 100 years. 0 team NCAA championships in the history of our school. It’s a shame. While it shouldn’t be expected that all of you have an interest in what ALL our sports are doing, it’s disappointing that more of you don’t.
I know this data doesn’t support the fact that our athletic dept is better...but it sure feels like it is.
I know this data doesn’t support the fact that our athletic dept is better...but it sure feels like it is.
I’m sure most of us want Pitt to do well and win in everything, but unless people are financially supporting a program then it is just hot air. $ talks and BS walks.
While that not true, she does have more conference money to do something meaningful about it.
I'm sure you don't care, but that altitude tells me you also never really been involved in athletics in any real capacity. But by NCAA rules, you have to sponsor 14 to be Div 1, and at least half have to be women's sports.
None of that negates the fact that football and men's basketball have to be given priority because the revenue derived from them funds the entire athletic department. But it underscores how poor football and basketball revenue at Pitt have been historically because there has been almost nothing left to support what have been, for most of the athletic deparatment's history, terrible and absolutely horrifically underfunded olympic sports programs compared to every school we think is Pitt's peer.
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Dear Crazy One, good insights as always. I choose to believe that this disappointing stature across all sports represents the nadir as you suggest. The large infusion of money from being in the ACC should eventually improve matters.
We should also look at the reality that Pitt is profoundly disadvantaged as a university competing in Div 1 athletics. The Pittsburgh region is already the smallest in America to host (3) professional sports franchises. And we are one of the few truly urban universities to field D1 football and hoops teams.
As Paco noted, all it took for Pitt to be Top 50 was a good program in another sport - in that case lady's track & field. With the improvement we're seeing in women's volleyball, men's wrasslin', and efforts in baseball and women's hoop, we can only hope that improvement comes soon
And don’t forget elite coaches in men’s and women’s soccer. Although, competing and winning in those sports in the ACC is harder than competing and winning in that league in basketball with Kevin Stallings as Coach.
Having to only turn on the lights for 2 sports conserves energy...I expect more from someone with the username VictoryLights!
It took more than just women's track, which finished 6h in Indoor and 17th in Outdoor. PItt baseball and volleyball also had made the NCAAs and both finished tied for 17th, wrestling and gymnastics both finished 26th at nationals, women's swimming finished 29th and men's swimming 38th. I don't know if indoor and outdoor track and double dip in the rankings anymore (I believe they could back then), but I'm not entirely sure. This year Pitt scored points for a 17th place showing for volleyball, 34th for wrestling, and a calculated 50th place in football. You need multiple programs making runs in post-seasons.
BTW, the ACC had the most schools in the top 10 (FSU, UVA, Duke, and UNC) and 5 more in the top 50. The next worst ACC finish was BC at 87 which was 50 slots ahead of Pitt in the standings. Pitt is an outlier in ACC athletics like Louisville is an outlier in it's collective academics. Unfortunately, the ACC is an athletic conference. Fortunately, athletics are way easier to fix than academics.
Pitt has only itself to blame. By choosing (and it was absolutely a choice) to downgrade football in the 80s, which never recovered ... and then later inexplicably strangling Dixon's recruiting and dumping him for a total stooge ... it killed revenues. Winning isnt everything... it's the only thing.
These sports need(ed) to be winning consistently to increase revenues for paying for the other unpopular sports; instead, because they've largely sucked for 3 decades, they're the ones actually absorbing money.
The idealistic but delusional Pitt admins hate football (probably not men's basketball as much, given its international and thus more acceptable). But the irrefutable fact remains... winning at the two big sports needs to be the utmost priority for a D1 uni. It feeds all these frivolous sports they really care about.
These sports need(ed) to be winning consistently to increase revenues for paying for the other unpopular sports; instead, because they've largely sucked for 3 decades, they're the ones actually absorbing money.
The idealistic but delusional Pitt admins hate football (probably not men's basketball as much, given its international and thus more acceptable). But the irrefutable fact remains... winning at the two big sports needs to be the utmost priority for a D1 uni. It feeds all these frivolous sports they really care about.
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I'm not sure any endeavor in sports would be more difficult than trying to win in a league as good as the ACC is in basketball with a dud like Kevin Stallings as your coach.
Without even opening BWI, I bet Pitt's standing has it's own thread. And to say "nobody cares" is a joke. Every time an Olympic sport puts together a run of wins, there's a thread crowing about it.
These stupid rankings dont matter to football recruits, so therefore why in the h*ll should we care?
I care. Maybe it should be in the Olympic Section or the Locker room instead of the FB board, but I care about the overall health of Pitt athletics. And the conference/Pitt does as well.
I dont care for anyone else in the ACC, conference pride is the dumbest thing ever. I care about Pitt football and basketball, thats it. These rankings are stupid.
So when you accumulate all sports and rank them, we are last. That sucks fellas.
I thought we hired some bad ass men’s soccer coach. How is that going? I honestly don’t know. We built a nice baseball and softball field, hows that going? Again, I have no clue.
I thought we hired some bad ass men’s soccer coach. How is that going? I honestly don’t know. We built a nice baseball and softball field, hows that going? Again, I have no clue.
All of this Stallings hate......I mean at one time he was considered a good coach. Just the version we got was essentially an In House Retiree. Again, this wasn't Stallings fault, someone hands you that kind of money and security, especially when it was likely you were going to be pushed out, well you take that lifeline. This is all on Barnes, and honestly Pat Gallagher and his confidants for allowing this to happen.
