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.