Wherever Pitt ends up, I want them to be in a conference where they can compete and where they have at least one establish rivalry game.
Pitt's Value in Realignment
- Thread starter NCPitt
- Start date
Yeah, it's like some people don't understand, I could probably come up with some ridiculous metric that would show that Pitt football has been better than Clemson football over the last decade. But if I did, that wouldn't mean that Pitt football was actually better than Clemson football, it would mean that my metric was flawed. And therefore of no actual value.
Ah yes! Good old cash! Leave it to a non-Pitt fan to straighten everybody out when any positive news is presented.
You know who doesn't bring any value at all? Cash! (excuse the pun).
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I don't know if Cash is a Pitt fan or not, and I don't really much care. But it's obvious that the "news" that people are hyping up here is just silly. I cannot imagine how anyone, or at least anyone who is even semi-objective, who knows what just happened in realignment, can sit here and do anything other than laugh at a metric that says that in realignment Stanford is by far the most valuable than any of the former PAC12 schools other than USC and UCLA, and that Cal is fifth on the list after those three and Washington. And that there was a big gap from Cal to Oregon, and a huge gap between them and all the rest.
In the real world, the actual realignment didn't play out anywhere close to that. If your metric shows you something completely different than what real life showed you, that might not mean that your metric is worthless, but it surely does mean that your metric is not a good one. Or even close to it.
Cash is not a Pitt fan and admits it for the record.
I think the point most are making is that, Pitt is more valued than fans think regardless of the article. It's just a validation in some small way. I stand by what I have said before and that Pitt is look at in a much different light than they are locally.
Pitt may very well end up in a merger with the ACC / Big 12.
However, some underestimate the snobbery of the BOT’s at these institutions. Politics is involved as well in these decisions. Those who schmooze and are connected will get a longer look, especially when the criteria is close with other schools that are considered a slam dunk.
Don't count Pitt out.
Auburn hasn't even been going 8-4. What don't you get about that?
Teams that annually lose 4 or more games are not elite regardless of conference. They will be in that position from now with the additions to the conference. They are no longer elite and haven't been for several years.
And, again a reminder that this valuation is not limited to football and includes negative factors like scandals. Having scandalous Pearl as the BB coach and Freeze as the FB coach are negative factors for them.
I do not count Pitt out, but I also think that we are not in a very good spot right now, no matter what this guy's metrics show.
But it is what it is, and I certainly don't have any angst over it. I've been going to Pitt games for well over 40 years now, and at some level it doesn't really matter who we are playing. I go to see the Pitt football team. Whether we are playing Notre Dame or Clemson or we are playing Grambling or Akron. Whether we are going 10-3 or 3-9.
Yeah, always better to trust some clickbait model a dude slapped together over the facts. Have to avoid those biases.
#MathAintReal
There are biases in pretty much everything.
Which, of course, in no way, shape or form means that some goofy rankings that says that Stanford was a better realignment target than anyone in the PAC12 other than USC and UCLA and that Cal was better than all of them except those three and Washington has anything at all to do with real life.
When Pitt was evaluated by the ACC, it was coming off its most successful football seasons in decades and had a top 10 basketball program. Most importantly, it was located in Pennsylvania (and actually, Western PA has more population than the entire state of WV) and drew good media ratings (better than WVU), which ESPN has the actual numbers on. Approximate quote: you can't have an conference of the east coast (which is what the ACC's objective was) without Pennsylvania and New York.
And yes, Pitt was palatable to presidents for obviously reason, and WVU and the ACC have a long negative history going back to the Southern Conference, the bottom line was the ACC first asked their media partner for info about the best additions in terms of restructuring the media contract and to fit the objectives of the conference...which was to be the Pac12 of the East Coast.
Pitt's academic profile is not going to keep it out of the B10 or SEC, but it isn't going to get it in to either conference either.
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I’m not speaking to where Pitt does not doesn’t belong.
I’m speaking to where the idea that programs that would make the Top 20 jobs in America, aren’t actually top tier jobs.
Auburn is a Top Tier job. You have to be deliberately dumb to believe otherwise.
That is saying nothing about Pitt. You don’t have to white knight everything.
Because you’re looking at it ass backwards.
What we are asking is: who are Top Tier football programs? That actually try to win national championships, and can actually win them.
And what factors go into that?
There is *nobody* that would argue Auburn isn’t in that group.
They try to win big.
They have won big over the last 15 years.
They have produced a lot of high quality teams.
But in the SEC, you can be high quality and still have a bad record.
It’s possible to have the 13th best program in college football, and go 0-12 every year. Because it could be your schedule consists of teams 1 to 12.
What we’re asking is what is your football value? Going purely by records in a tomato can conference vs elite heavyweight conference, is a poor comparison.
Just ask yourself this: if your life depended on it, which team would you bet on producing a legit national title contender the next 5 years? Next 10 years? Pitt or Auburn?
Why do you spend so much time on the message board of a team you don’t even like?
These boys go around calling everybody a troll. Which I have no problem with. Whatever gets you enjoyment of the board is what you should do.
And if you don’t engage back with them, they take it as a concession. It’s cute.
Not everyone....Just the ones that are, like you for instance.
Everything that has been said about you is true:
* You're not a Pitt fan by your own admission
* Whenever there is good news, you're never around
* You're always here to be contrary whenever there is a discussion concerning Pitt's future.
Most of all, you're always WRONG.
A few years ago, you went on a crusade about Pitt's recruiting not being good enough to win an ACC title. You said that we need to do better in the ratings than teams we are chasing. You went on and on and on...
What happened? Pitt won the 2021 ACC title.
Now go pay the rent on your basement apartment at your momma's house... She has bills to pay too.....
Beat it.
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So avoid it. No one is forcing you to read this discussion.
I refuse to discuss solely football when it isn't the sole criteria when comparing Pitt and Auburn.
Auburn will not have national football contender in the next 5 years. Not even close. 4-loss teams don't contend.
Okay, but I’m responding to the post that specifically brought up football.
And I’m not saying Auburn will have a legit contender.
I’m simply asking: which team would you bet your life on if giving the choice, and those were your only two choices?
The team that has played for two national titles the last 15 years, won one, was a game away from a 4 team playoff, routinely beats Top 10 teams during its bad years, has produced several power Top 10 finishes fairly recently, and just brought in a Top 10 class, or Pitt?
13 million in PA. How many follow Pitt?
3 million in Arkansas. How many follow the Razorbacks?
Alabama with 5 million?
Precisely the reason Pitt isnt going to P2.
13 million and nobody cares
Here’s another graphic from the same author… this is what hurts us. Second to last among the SEC, third to last among the B1G, and middle of the pack among the Big 12.
This Altimore guy massages and selects things all the time to fit certain narratives. I would be very cautious with relying too much his posts.
Here's the thing about TV viewership that people in the actual business know....there are a handful of schools...like 10 or less...that drive ratings based on their name alone. Schools like Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, and Michigan. Really, the ACC may have zero of these schools. At one time Miami was, but not any more.
Then there is every one else. Throw them in a bag and shake. What drives rating numbers outside of the few name brands and some rivalry games are the network, time, exclusivity of the window, etc. And what drives any of these "other" schools getting the best of those slots is primarily the little number next to the schools name.
If you are ranked and competitive, you get better slots. Games featuring ranked teams make compelling story lines for networks to lure viewers and thus advertisers. It is that simple.
In addition, games on the ACC Network are not metered. Notice how many games Pitt gets on the ACC Network (because ESPN/ABC pass on them). There are no Nelson ratings for those games, but you better believe ESPN has streaming numbers internally.
What hurts Pitt more than anything is that in the past 35 years it has seldom been ranked during the season, and when it is, hardly ever in the top 10 or 15. Following up a potential breakout 2001 with a 2002 season where Pitt was mostly outside the rankings did not help. Then following it up with 2023 basically set Pitt back five years. You have to be consistently competitive, e.g., a top 25 program, throughout the season to get those more prime broadcast slots and networks and build viewership numbers. Pitt simply has not been able to gain and hang onto top 25 rankings which are needed to generate compelling storylines for networks.
Pitt, because of its market, is always a school of potential, but struggles for chances to demonstrate that potential by glaringly consistent mediocre (at best) performances on the field.
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Gotta love trolls like you that hang out on the Pitt board with nothing better to do.
You don’t think saying nobody cares is trolling. The numbers that have been posted show us as middle of the pack in the ACC.
My whole post was "as compared" to states with less population but certainly more interest in that state's school.
Gives some clarity to a stat /article that im not buying as to the validity.
As for Pitt, not trolling at all. It simply is what it is.....
When did the ACC Network start? The data is for 2016-23.
Correct, the ACCN would’ve launched in 2019 but as Paco points out, those might not have been captured regardless.
Unfortunately Pitt fans do not like to do what your last paragraph states. Which is what drives a lot of this.
It's so hard to disprove the myth that the SEC (and to a smaller extent B10) as a whole is a stronger conference top to bottom than the others. It's just not true. It's just the top teams are so dominant that everyone assumes the rest of the conference is just as good. But if that was true we would see more parity year in and year out. But we don't...its just the same 2-3 teams (used to be Alabama, LSU and Florida and now Florida has been replaced Georgia) And almost none of the other teams save those top 3-4 really go on the road and prove it against other conference teams
Its all a marketing ploy that like any lie if its said enough people start to just believe it.
Its all a marketing ploy that like any lie if its said enough people start to just believe it.
Why does literally every analytic ranking always show this not to be the case, and the SEC extremely deep in quality each year?
Is there some kind of mathematical input that has an SEC bias, and the creators of the models purposely skew the formula to that input?
I don't know; the SEC typically looks pretty solid from top to bottom. Like we had our best season in 40 years, and a team that finished 4-4 in the SEC basically played us tit for tat. Louisville just played for the ACC title, and they lost to a Kentucky team that finished 3-5 in the SEC in a down year for the conference.
Of course there is. Just like all the college basketball metrics, those are predicated on initial pre set rankings of teams that have no bases in anything other than reputation of the team and the conference they are in. That's why a larger playoff that incudes teams from many conferences is so important. It's not perfect but its way better than 8-10 people preselected by the big conferences and TV to select the top 4 teams is ludicrous. None of these teams play each other enough so it always benefits the conferences who can put together the best narrative (supported by their biased local and national media and rabid fan base) of why they are the best.
This is just wrong.
Early season analytics factor in recruiting class ranking and projection based on last year’s numbers, along with recency bias.
But as the season goes on, that is completely phased out of the model. Your preseason rankings and numbers have absolutely no influence on your end of the year numbers. Only only like Weeks 1 to 5, until the sample size can get big enough.
That’s why when Connelly releases his early season numbers, he also releases a “if the numbers were just based on this season” ranking as well.
He does that until the latter catches up in inputs.
I think you’re confusing media polls with analytic power polls.
I fully agree there is a strong SEC bias in the media. And that influences human voting.
But I’m asking why do computers also show an SEC bias?
With uneven schedules this happens. 4 of Kentucky's 5 losses were to the 4 best teams (Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri and Georgia) in their conference. Lousiville happened to draw a very easy conference schedule avoiding the best teams in the conference (Clemson, Florida State, UNC) and pulling an upset against NC State.
It's just impossible to compare teams because even in conference they don't always play the same teams. An expanded playoff isn't much better but at least it allows it to be better settled on the field.
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