AD cites difficulties in longer Pitt series
CHICAGO — Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour echoed football coach James Franklin in regards to extending the Pitt arrangement.
Penn State and Pitt will renew their football rivalry Sept. 10 at Heinz Field, the first meeting since 2000. The teams have a fourgame agreement for homeand-home series 2016-19, but Barbour and Franklin cited scheduling as to why this arrangement hasn’t gone beyond 2019.
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi and athletic director Scott Barnes have expressed their interest in making this a yearly game. Barnes even approached Barbour about an extension but said Barbour rebuffed him.
“It wasn’t a matter of [being] not as interested,” Barbour said. “We’re taking a look at our scheduling philosophy, so we have to determine where that fits. We’re very interested in playing Pitt. Obviously, we’ve got a four-game series coming up, and we’re really looking forward to it. I’ve never been a part of a Pitt-Penn State game, and I think it’s going to be vibrant. But we have to come up with a long-term scheduling philosophy, of which you’ve seen us come out with the fact that we’re playing Auburn [in 202122], and where does Pitt fit in that?”
Barbour said the school always is looking into scheduling Power Five regional rivalries such as Pitt, West Virginia and Virginia Tech while also mixing in more national, intersectional rivalries such as Auburn.
Barbour also briefly spoke about the facilities master plan, which she said is just finishing up the concept phase and should become public in the fall. She said Beaver Stadium likely will shrink just a bit from its 106,572 capacity to accommodate needs for wider seats and more leg room. But it will stay around the 100,000 range.
Concussions, misconduct
Big Ten Conference commissioner Jim Delany, who USA Today reported will retire in 2020, commented on several hot topics — that weren’t negative recruiting — in a news conference Tuesday at Big Ten media days in Chicago.
He said the Big Ten is in the second year of its independent spotter program, and all 14 conference schools have filed their concussion-management plan with the NCAA. Delany, however, didn’t say if there were any plans to follow the NFL’s new procedure of penalizing teams that fail to follow concussion protocols.
“We work closely with our doctors and trainers, and we have expectations that they will follow the concussion-management plan that we have,” Delany said. “There’s an incredible emphasis on following those concussion-management plans, and they’ll be monitored on a week-toweek basis. And, in part, that’s why we have an independent spotter program, to coordinate with them to make sure we’re doing everything we can to make sure that the experience is as safe as it can be.”
While other conferences such as the Pac-12, SEC and Big 12 have transfer rules that limit schools from admitting players who committed serious misconduct — those who have been convicted or pled guilty or no contest to crimes such as sexual assault or domestic violence — at their previous university, Delany said the Big Ten believes “the facts and circumstances closest to the ground are the places those decisions ought to be made.”
Delany said he has had discussions among the conference’s athletic directors, faculty and presidents as well as outside legal counsel and Title IX and Cleary Act experts about the issue but came to the conclusion that local action is best.
“I think just as you’ve seen these policies executed, and, in some cases, they work, in some cases, they fail to work,” Delany said. “So we’ve got a lot of confidence in the commitment by our institutions. [We are] totally committed to reducing and if not eliminating violence, sexual violence in every way.”