Pitt Set to Announce Uniform Change

Manhattan, NY -

Pitt's Athletic Director, Steve Pederson, has been seen extensively in the Broadway area of NYC in the past 6 months. Inside sources reveal that the humble AD has been taking pointers from the only folks that change costumes more often than the Pitt football team.

Many of those close to the talks were unwilling to speak. However, the Magical Mister Mistofolees gave us quite interesting talking points. "This brutish man comes in and starts asking about how many times we change during a performance. It kind of creeped us out until we understood that he was looking for ways to push the envelope."

Many Pitt fans are unaware but uniforms were the true reason SP was brought back on. We were able to connect with Chancellor Nordy. "Let's face it - Jeff Long just wasn't changing things as much as we'd like at Pitt. He'd go 2, even 3 years without radical uniform changes and that just won't do. So I called up Arkansas and asked them to find Long something in their department. When Steve and I spoke about the position, I said, 'Steve, things are different since you left; the bar has been set higher. What can you do that you didn't do before?'" Nordy continued. "Steve looked me right in the eye, his hand shook and his voice boomed as he stated that he was going to do things that have never been imagined in college athletics. I didn't care what it was at that point; but I knew we had to have him."

According to Chris Ferris inside the Athletic Department, who spoke on condition of anonymity but we didn't care and are printing it anyway, Pederson is going to implement sports' first intra-game uniform changes. Ferris quoted Pederson as saying, "Pitt has been a leader in college athletics in the area of changing decals, logos, mascots, colors, uniforms, and everything in between. But so have a lot of other crap schools just trying to make a quick buck. We're going to up them all, even those crazy European soccer jerk-offs. We're going to change uniforms after each quarter." Ferris commented that changes will take effect in the first game this year. Pitt's goal is to implement at least 2 different color schemes, 3 different "Pitt" fonts, 2 helmets (for each player), and 2 tooth emblems. "2009 is the year of change," Ferris noted. "And if confusing and annoying our fans ever loses it's place as a top priority in this athletic department, by God in heaven, this isn't the place I grew up with. Hail to Pitt!"

Pitt Football 2009 Aims for Return to Conference Highs

Blawnox -

Welcome to the first article of the 2009 season. We here at Pantherrants feel this is Pitt's time to shine. After posting the best regular season since early in the Reagan administration last year, Pitt is poised to take it's rightful place as a team who, year in and year out, can compete for at least 3rd place in the conference.

The early years of Pitt's conference involvement were not positive. Pitt joined the Big East in 1991 and summarily languished in the bottom half of the conference. However, the glory years came earlier in this decade. Who could forget the 2000 squad? They went out and did something no Pitt team had ever done: won 4 conference games in a season. The mark was equaled the following year and improved upon with a miraculous and whopping 5 conference wins in 2002-2004. That's 15 conference wins in just 3 seasons! Pitt's fan base was not only treated well but spoiled according to fans of some other proud programs such as Rutgers, Utah State, and Rutgers (they're so proud that they get named twice).

2005 saw the advent of the Wannstedt regime. Coach Wannstedt returned Pitt to it's normal place in the Big East standings by winning a total of 9 conference games in his first 3 seasons (an average of 3 games/season for the readers from WVU). Many college football fans were thankful to see Pitt return to the bottom half of the 8 team league. And who could blame them? We all like consistency and Pitt was the model after finishing less than .500 for 14 out of it's first 17 seasons in the Big East.

Unfortunatley for them, Pitt's 2008 squad blew the doors off the college football world by winning 5 conference games in 2008. Proud programs with a long history including South Florida, Connecticut, and Louisville succumbed to the mighty Panthers last season. And history tells us that after winning 5 conference games one season, Pitt should be expected to win 5 more in 2009 (see: 2002-2003)! That's a conference winning percentage of 71% in a BCS league!

Therefore, this writer's bold prediction is that Pitt will return to the glory years of the early 2000's where the program strung together two years of finishing third or fourth in the mighty Big East. Maybe, just maybe (*fingers crossed, dare to dream LOL!), the proud and mighty Pitt Panthers have turned the corner and will have finally reach the promised land. That's right: a program that annually is labeled better than average in the Big East conference.