To hear administrators and coaches talk, scheduling non-conference games is an act that requires a miracle, a team of the world’s most foremost analytics experts and a computer program so complex only five men on the planet can understand it. And they all have the same nonsensical explanations and rationalizations for why they can’t figure out how to get certain games scheduled.
“Well, you know, we need a certain amount of home revenue and we need to have a certain balance to our strength of schedule formula and...”
Please, stop insulting our intelligence with that nonsense. There is no discussion you can get into with an administrator or coach that makes less sense than those about non-conference scheduling. It is absolutely incredible how many ways they can twist and turn as opposed to just saying “We don’t want to play the game.”
The subject is obviously pertinent this week because Pitt and Penn State are set to play for perhaps the final time Saturday. It’s a rivalry game that is more than 100 years old and the two schools are less than three hours apart, but for some reason, the series is going to end.
I’ve already made it clear that I don’t care that it is going away and Pitt needs to get past it too. If Penn State doesn’t want to play, go find someone else to play. There are plenty of teams out there who want to play a game.
The thing is, when it comes to all of this stuff, I wish people would be more honest about it. I don’t want to hear about how tricky it is. I don’t want to hear about revenue streams and home-game considerations and all the other nonsense.
James Franklin said Tuesday it would take “creativity” from both sides to make it happen and even floated the idea of a neutral site game as being a solution. Now that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Pitt vs. Penn State in Chicago at Soldier Field. Honestly, I wish Franklin would just say “We don’t want to play Pitt because we don’t need to play Pitt” and be done with it.
And I’m OK with it. I’m just tired of all of these administrators making a very simple process out to be so complex. And here is how I know I’m right: If Franklin picked up the phone and called Pat Narduzzi and said, “OK let’s agree to a long-term deal,” it would be done before dinner time and announced before breakfast the next day.
This isn’t aimed at Penn State, by the way, Pitt is guilty of the same kind of stuff. West Virginia has made it clear that it would be willing to get a long-term deal to play Pitt in both football and men’s basketball and yet Pitt always seems to have some reason why it can’t happen.
Pitt did a similar thing to Duquesne this year when the men’s basketball team decided it couldn’t squeeze the Dukes in for the annual City Game.
All of these scheduling discussions are dumb, and usually they are all very self-serving. If you don’t want to play an opponent, just say it, move on and spare us the stuff about how difficult the process is.
Paul Zeise: pzeise@post-gazette.com and Twitter @PaulZeise
First Published: September 10, 2019, 7:29 p.m.
