Joe Cudwadie remembers going to his first Pitt-Penn State football game at Beaver Stadium in 1972.
He went with his dad and they watched their Nittany Lions beat Pitt, 49-27.
Over the next 28 years, whether in person or on television, the Pitt-Penn State game became an annual fall tradition for Mr. Cudwadie and his father, as it did for so many other Pennsylvanians.
So there was no way Mr. Cudwadie, 50, would be anywhere other than Heinz Field Saturday, a part of the long-awaited resumption of the football rivalry between the schools, which have not played in football since 2000.
Mr. Cudwadie’s father passed away two years ago, but he was on his mind during the five-hour drive from Philadelphia Friday night, and when he was walking into the stadium Saturday.
“Look, it’s Pitt,” said Mr. Cudwadie, a 1988 Penn State graduate wearing the school’s trademark “White Out” shirt.
“We haven’t played Pitt in 16 years. We had to come out for this.”
They were hardly alone. Cars were lined up to get into the North Shore parking lots well before they opened at 7 a.m. Within a few hours, those lots were bulging at the seams, alternating cheers of “We are!” and “Let’s go Pitt!”
The Panthers won the upper hand of the long-simmering feud — at least until next year’s game — with a dramatic, 42-39, victory Saturday. The Panthers jumped out to an early lead and held on for dear life as Penn State clawed back, with the outcome in doubt until Pitt defensive back Ryan Lewis intercepted Nittany Lions quarterback Trace McSorley in the end zone with just over a minute remaining.
The crowd of 69,983 was the largest for any Pittsburgh sporting event in history, with the battle lines clearly drawn: blue and gold against blue and white.
“People actually care,” Pitt fan Norm Gebrosky, 52, of Delmont said. “A lot of times you come to these games and people are just looking for something to do. It actually means something. Even though it doesn’t affect our standing in the ACC [Atlantic Coast Conference], in the heart, this means more than any.”
But for as much as the animosity between the two sides has simmered over the past 16 years, Saturday was just as much a celebration that this game, which meant so much to so many for so long, was finally back.
“You can feel it,” Mr. Cudwadie said. “People want to say this isn’t a rivalry. It feels like it, it looks like it, it smells like it. Maybe because it’s the first one in a while, this one has a little bit extra to it. It definitely feels like the old days.”
Even those who have no memory of the old days understood what it meant to have these teams facing off again. Sid Menon, 20, was 5 the last time they played, and admitted that at that point he had “no concept of what Pitt was.”
Saturday morning, Mr. Menon, now a Pitt senior, and his friends arrived at Heinz Field at 5:30 a.m. to secure the best seats in the student section. By 9 a.m. the line for the student section already wrapped halfway around Heinz Field.
“From the moment we got here as freshmen, we were taught how to and why to hate Penn State,” Mr. Menon said. “They tell us, ‘We hate Penn State, we hate Penn State,’ and now it’s happening.
“It’s all coming together, we can finally be a part of this thing that we’ve heard so much about.”
There are some tics of the Pitt-Penn State rivalry that are common to most college football feuds, like divided households and friendships.
“Everybody you grew up with, went to high school with, by and large either went [to Pitt] or to Penn State,” Mr. Gebrosky said. “That’s what makes it fun. You always knew someone.”
There are also aspects unique to this series and these teams. Several Pitt fans donned shirts or toted signs mocking the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, which Penn State fan Becky Alshefski, 26, called “aggravating.”
“That’s the only thing I’m really afraid of, Pitt fans getting really nasty,” Carol Maurer, 71, of Clearfield said.
But any nastiness appeared to be superseded by good-natured ribbing, with Pitt and Penn State fans tailgating next to one another and getting along, if somewhat begrudgingly.
“Just being in Pittsburgh, knowing there’s a pretty good contingent of Penn State fans in Pittsburgh,” said Penn State alumnus Jason Dalnoky, 38, of Washington, who was tailgating with friends in Pitt gear.
“There’s a lot of give-and-take. Bragging rights for [Western Pennsylvania].”
Those bragging rights go to Pitt, for now. The teams will meet again on Sept. 9, 2017, in State College, with the Nittany Lions eager to dish out some revenge on their home turf.
The teams are scheduled to play annually through 2019. Beyond that, it’s unclear. Pitt athletic director Scott Barnes has expressed a desire to continue the series in perpetuity, but Penn State has been reluctant to agree.
Realistically, after 2019, Pitt and Penn State likely won’t play again until 2025 at the earliest, and that doesn’t exactly sit well with those on the North Shore Saturday.
“Not a big fan of the state getting involved with stuff they don’t need to get involved with, but I wouldn’t cry the blues [if they got involved in] this one,” said Pitt fan Gerry Durishan, 52, of Irwin.
Saturday’s scene and game served as a sign of what this series could be moving forward.
Artie Rowell, 24, played center at Pitt from 2011-15 and never got to take part in the rivalry, but he was there Saturday as “a die-hard Pitt fan.”
“It brings families together, it brings friends together,” he said. “I’m just so impressed by how much fun it is. I thought it was going to be more hostile than what it is. It’s just a lot of fun.”
Sam Werner: swerner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SWernerPG
First Published: September 11, 2016, 4:00 a.m.