PITTSBURGH – Perched high on the 17th floor of the Omni William Penn Hotel, just a short distance from Pitt’s home stadium, Heinz Field, Penn State coach Bill O’Brien quickly addressed a subject that almost always gets the locals buzzing: the Nittany Lions’ dormant rivalry with the Panthers.
O’Brien, speaking at his 14th stop along the Coaches Caravan bus tour, expressed his desire to see the two schools, which have not met on the gridiron since a 12-0 University of Pittsburgh win at Three Rivers Stadium in 2000, clash more regularly.
“I just believe that that would be a great rivalry to play every year,” O’Brien said. “If we can’t do it, then we can’t do it because of conference obligations, but if we could work it out, I think it’d be a great rivalry.”
Pitt and Penn State first faced off in 1893 and have played 96 times since, with Penn State owning a 50-42-3 advantage. During the 1970s and 80s, the games frequently carried national championship implications for both teams. Penn State’s 48-14 win against No. 1 ranked Pitt at Pitt Stadium in 1981 knocked the Panthers from the title chase and is widely considered one of the program’s all-time greatest victories.
Scheduling conflicts resulting from the schools’ moves to the Big Ten and Big East conferences in the early 1990s, however, have derailed regular meetings over the last two decades.
The teams do appear on each other’s future slates, with a home-and-home series scheduled for 2016 and 2017. There are no commitments beyond that, however, and Penn State’s ties to the Big Ten could continue to complicate the feasibility of an annual game.
Beginning in 2017, the Lions are bound to playing a Pac-12 team every year as part of the Big Ten’s broader scheduling collaboration with that league. This, along with Pitt’s move to the Atlantic Coast Conference and its nine-game conference schedule in 2013, will severely limit the dates available for the Lions and Panthers to meet every year.
If O’Brien has his way, though, his team will visit the banks where Pittsburgh’s three rivers meet frequently.
“When you come out of the [Fort Pitt tunnel] and the first thing you see are the lights of the stadium right there by the rivers, it’s just an unbelievable place to play football,” O’Brien said of his visits to Heinz Field as a member of the New England Patriots’ coaching staff.
Regardless of whether Pitt and Penn State are able to work out a long term agreement to meet on the field, O’Brien expects to compete against the Panthers hard in western Pennsylvania’s fertile recruiting grounds.
Though Penn State signed just one recruit from the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL), tight end Jesse James, to its 2012 recruiting class, O’Brien intends for that number to go up in the near future.
The coach said assistants Ron Vanderlinden and Mac McWhorter will do a lot of recruiting in the area while also noting position coaches will play a large role in luring WPIAL talent. He is looking for his staff to develop a “trusting relationship” with local high school coaches.
If successful, O’Brien hopes the same territory that has recently produced big Penn State names including Paul Posluszny, Sean Lee and A.Q. Shipley can continue to fuel the program moving forward.
“The high school football here is really good and the coaching is great. There’s no question about that,” O’Brien said. “Western PA is just a fantastic place for high school football and we’ve got to do a good job of finding some Penn State players here.”