The Pittsburgh and Penn State football programs might have the fiercest rivalry in college sports that doesn’t currently exist.
The reason it doesn’t exist, despite their history against one another and close proximity within the state of Pennsylvania, is that they no longer play each other regularly.
This upsets the Pitt side of the rivalry far more than the Penn State side, and Panthers head coach Pat Narduzzi proved that again on Tuesday. While discussing Pitt’s ongoing non-conference matchup with its other fierce rival, West Virginia, during the ACC Kickoff, Narduzzi said he loved having West Virginia on the schedule and that he would love also to have Penn State “If they would play us. They won’t play us.”
Pitt and Penn State have played each other just four times since 2000, with Penn State winning three of those matchups between the 2016 and 2019 seasons. Considering Penn State’s stature, officials there may not see any additional value in adding Pitt to its non-conference schedule unless it can get two home games for each Pitt home game. PSU Athletics might value the gate money it can get from scheduling other non-conference games, especially if those foes are more likely to result in another win to the season total.
Penn State also seems to take some sort of pride in not having any actual rivals and seems to put itself above that chaos. The Nittany Lions’ program slogan has, quite literally been, “unrivaled.” Pitt, meanwhile, is highly unlikely to agree to that sort of split on games at the cost of its own gate revenue.
In some ways, this might actually be the dumbest rivalry in college football when looked at it within that context. While playing Pitt would have more risk for Penn State’s record than, say, a non-conference game against Youngstown State or Buffalo, PSU probably isn’t making the decision to avoid Pitt out of fear. Penn State has been the objectively better program for years and won three of the past four meetings, including two of them by multiple scores.
The unfortunate reality is that it is a meaningful game for fans, and not playing it each season is a loss for them. But what fans want and what is good for them in college sports has never really been a top priority for individual programs, conferences or the whole institution of college football in general.