Pitt Hate Week

I hate Pitt.

”Really Dan? You HATE Pitt? Isn’t that a little strong?”

Listen, I hear you. If you’re reading this, odds are that all Pitt is to you is a mediocre school in Pennsylvania that we haven’t played regularly for 10 years.

Hell, Stein on the Sidelines namesake Dan Marino, the greatest quarterback of all time, played there…how bad could it really be?

And here is my devastating, bunker buster bomb of a retort: Mark May went there.

Boom.

Mark May is what I like to call “the worst person in the world”. I’ve looked in to his eyes…he is pure, pure evil.

He called for Miami to get the death penalty in the Shapiro case; never mind that the coach he played for, Jackie Sherrill, is widely considered one of the biggest rule breakers in the history of the sport during his stops at Pitt, Texas A&M and Mississippi State.

Simply genius.

You know how Craig James killed 5 hookers and it became an internet Meme, mostly in jest?

I actually believe that Mark May killed 10 hookers. 

Mark May and his slobbering, Alzheimer’s patient partner Lou Holtz represent all of the things I hate about college football. They are Skip Bayless, except not nearly as successful.

I am devoted to all things college football, but when either of these two is on TV I have to get up and walk out of the room. I once made it through half an hour of Human Centipede yet I cannot make it through 30 seconds of Mark May and Lou Holtz.

Mark May also represents everything shitty about Pitt. They long for the days of Marino and Tony Dorsett and Mark May and play a “hard nosed” (translation: boring) brand of football that makes opponents look like crap. They slog it out, have a strong armed, overrated quarterback and rely on the temperature to create home field advantage.

And don’t get me wrong…this will probably work against us. We suck in any sort of inclement weather, especially if it is sub-freezing, which it will be. We will get gashed by the run and let their doofus quarterback Tom Savage throw in to the middle of the field. This is not going to be a fun game to watch.

But just know, any negative reaction you have is making Mark May, in whatever cave he lives in, super happy. If Pitt wins AND Miami fans melt down, he will probably have his life partner (I’m just assuming that he calls his spouse, whether male or female, a life partner) tie him to the bed and tickle his feet with a feather boa. The safe word is probably “counter pull trap,” which must get confusing because whenever he has one of his “special” dreams that is probably what he is muttering to himself, because in case you forgot Mark May was a really good offensive linemen back when they played big boy football.

Mark May is TOUGH, damn it.

God I hate Mark May.

But you know what I hate more?

I hate that we are at the end of another college football season. 

Every year, they seem to go faster. I know this one has been frustrating. Our team seemed to finally be getting ready to make the final push to the peak of Everest, the end of a slow, tortuous hike we have been enduring as fans for a decade. It was right there. 

And then, just that quickly, our footing came loose and when we stopped tumbling we were damn near back at base camp.

But lost in the frustration, I fear, is the following stone cold fact: a mediocre ‘Canes season is more fun than the other 8 months of the year. After Pitt, win or lose, we have one game left, and then the LONG offseason.

With the end of the season comes the end of so many things. No more getting to play Monday Morning Quarterback. No more dissecting game matchups. No more hating Mark May until they trot him back out of whatever crypt he sleeps in during the offseason.

More importantly, there are a lot of people I hear less from when football is over. 

We all have busy lives, but football is one thing that always brings me together with certain people. When the season is over, we revert back to our normal routines and don’t talk as much. And that always makes me sad.

Look, I love football. I love the ‘Canes. But the thing I realize more and more is that I love TALKING about the ‘Canes and football with my buddies just as much. I enjoy the debate. I enjoy the arguing. I enjoy the celebration. 

Every year I get sadder and sadder when the season ends. It is partially because the team is never as good as I hope…the reality is they may never be again. 

(I think they will but isn’t that what makes us fans?)

But more importantly, it is because everything that comes along with football season is gone again, and 8 months is a long time to wait.

So I plan on enjoying these last couple of games, win lose or draw. 

And then I will enjoy the Iron Bowl, and Clean Old Fashioned Hate, and LSU-Arkansas, and USC-UCLA, and Ohio State-Michigan, and all the other games I look forward to at the end of every season. 

After 12 weeks of these “hate” blogs, we now face the thing that I hate most of all: Passion Fruit Iced Tea The End.