It’s scary to think that I’ve been following Pitt football for almost 60 years and covering it for 37, and I think it may be time for people to come to the same realization that I have.
Pitt is not a national power waiting to happen.
There were a couple of decent Pitt teams (Mike Ditka) in the late 50s and early 60s and an excellent team in 1963 that went 9-1, with the only loss being to Roger Staubach and Navy.
From the mid 60s until 1973 Pitt football was worse than it is now.
Much worse.
I remember when they had to have a mercy clock in the second half against Notre Dame.
If it hadn’t been allowed to run, Pitt might have lost by 100 points.
Pitt was almost as pathetic as the Steelers, and, trust me, that’s saying something,
Things changed in 1973 when Johnny Majors was hired.
Keep in mind that, at the time, Johnny Majors was the hottest coach in the country.
He just happened to show up at the same time that a kid named Anthony Dorsett was graduating from Hopewell.
He was told to bring in as many players as he wanted and not to worry too much about their level of literacy.
That was the beginning of the nine year period that Pitt and Pitt fans keep telling themselves can happen again.
It can’t.
Not unless Pitt hires a superstar coach, who can immediately compete with the top programs for players, cheats more and/or lowers its academic standards.
The first thing everybody connected to the Pitt program –including fans—needs to do is lower the expectations.
Dave Wannstedt didn’t eliminate the impatience but he had Pitt on the way to respectability.
Respectability looks pretty good right now.
Whoever is up next has a long way to go to get there.