HAIL to HISTORY
Pitt historian lists top 5 football games you can rewatch on YouTube
Without live sports, unless you’re into marble racing, people have turned to rewatching classics to stave off going stircrazy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last week was supposed to be the start of March Madness. So CBS showed a collection of famous championships over the weekend. The NBA made its League Pass available for free until April 22, giving fans access to every 2019-20 game, as well as archival content. The NFL did something similar with its Game Pass subscription service.
But what about college football? And specifically Pitt? The Panthers were supposed to be in spring practice right now, building toward a spring game that has since been canceled. So, without anymore Israel Abanikanda runs to marvel at for the foreseeable future, we’re going back in time.
Sam Sciullo Jr., a Pitt historian who has authored four books on the Panthers, gave us his top 5 Pitt games ... that are rewatchable on YouTube.
Sciullo noted that some of the Panthers’ greatest
performances — like Pitt’s 1938 win against Fordham in front of 68,000 people at Pitt Stadium — weren’t televised. He also originally had Pitt’s three-overtime win against West Virginia in 1997 in his top 5, only to find out the entire game isn’t anywhere to be found online. And that’s the point of this exercise: To look back in full (and have something to watch that will take up a couple of hours).
Here are Sciullo’s five selections, with a brief explanation for each pick.
5. Nov. 28, 1980: Pitt 14, Penn State 9
Where: Beaver Stadium Rankings: Pitt — No. 4; Penn State — No. 5
Why: “Since 1976, that was Pitt’s best team. That was its most talented, most experienced team. That was the team that had the personnel that should have been the national champion. They lost to Florida State in the fifth game. So a loss to Penn State in that game would have been, in my opinion, disastrous. Because that was the team that should have been No. 1 at the end of the year.
“Pitt had nine senior starters, and they were tested throughout that game. Penn State’s defense played tremendously that day. Pitt’s defense had to win the game. Three times in the second half, Penn State was in Pitt territory and got zero points. Two or three times Pitt stopped Penn State on fourth-and-1. And then a big interception by Carlton Williamson in the last minute clinched the game.”
4. Nov. 13, 2004: Pitt 41, Notre Dame 38
Where: Notre Dame Stadium
Rankings: Pitt — unranked; Notre Dame — No. 24
Why: “Everybody thinks of Tyler Palko because of the five touchdown passes, but to win at Notre Dame with the history and the tradition, it was just very exciting and thrilling game. Palko was the ultimate competitor, and he really showed his spirit during and after that game. To me, it was one of the great wins of the Walt Harris term.”
3. Nov. 26, 1976: Pitt 24, Penn State 7
Where: Three Rivers Stadium
Rankings: Pitt — No. 1; Penn State — No. 16
Why: “Well, because Pitt had not beaten them since 1965. Pitt was No. 1 at the time. Last game of the regular season. There was a lot of doubt in the minds of Pitt fans, if not the players, that they could win that game. It just felt that somehow they were jinxed because of the year before. Penn State beat Pitt, 7-6, at Three Rivers Stadium when Pitt missed a 23-yard chip shot field goal with one minute left, and then got the ball back and missed a 40-yard field goal with eight seconds left.
“But the ’76 game, that was light’s out. It got the Penn State monkey off Pitt’s back. [Tony] Dorsett went over 6,000 yards for his career. It capped an 11-0 season, the first time Pitt had won that many games in a year. It was a springboard to New Orleans and the national championship game.”
2. Dec. 1, 2007: Pitt 13, West Virginia 9
Where: Mountaineer Field
Rankings: Pitt — unranked; West Virginia — No. 1
Why: “To win at West Virginia, to beat them and deny them a chance at the national championship, they would have played LSU [or Ohio State] and I think they would have beaten them. They had a tremendous offense, but Pitt was catching up. Pitt’s defense got better. And the thing is, I’m not sure if it was such a great upset. Because Pitt really controlled the line of scrimmage in that game. [Pitt] didn’t have much of a passing game. They played it very conservatively.
“But just the thought of spoiling West Virginia’s chance at No. 1 in front of all their fans on a national stage was just about as good as it gets for a Pitt fan.”
1. January 1, 1982: Pitt 24, Georgia 20 (Sugar Bowl) Where: Louisiana Superdome Rankings: Pitt — No. 10; Georgia — No. 2
Why: “That was big because they were coming off the 48-14 loss to Penn State. They had a lot to prove going into that game. It was like, ‘Wow.’ This 10-0, No. 1 team got destroyed at home . ... So there were a lot of questions after the loss to Penn State. Can this team bounce back? Can it rebound? And Georgia still had a chance at No. 1 going into that game. Pitt dropped in the polls. And, of course, Georgia won the national championship the year before.
“But it was a great game, back and forth. Pitt was having trouble with the crowd noise. There were a number of procedure penalties. But it was a thrilling, dramatic game because there was so much talent on the field. To be playing in the Superdome, Pitt fans were outnumbered. But it was a terrific ending. Probably the most dramatic single play in Pitt history, Marino to Brown for the winning touchdown.”