On Monday, the ACC unveiled their 2013 football
schedule. It is the first schedule with
the new additions of Pitt and Syracuse, which both officially join the ACC on
July 1st. The ACC looks to
improve its image of being low level BCS conference and plans on doing that
with their product on the field. ACC
teams have 9 non-conference games against teams that finished the 2012 season
ranked in the AP Top 10. An ACC team
will play each of the Top 4 teams in those final rankings, Virginia Tech vs #1
Alabama, Virginia vs #2 Oregon, Clemson vs #3 Georgia and Pitt vs #4 Notre
Dame. No other BCS conference has more
than 4 Top 10 teams from last year on their schedule.
With the conference schedule being released yesterday,
it also finalized all the teams’ schedules, putting dates to each opponent. The conference will kickoff the season on
Labor Day Night when the defending champion travels to Heinz Field in
Pittsburgh to welcome Pitt to the conference.
That game will be broadcast on ESPN with an 8:00pm kickoff.
This will be the 1st game between FSU
and Pitt since 1983, when Pitt defeated Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles 17-16 at Pitt
Stadium. The two schools have played 8
times in history with Pitt holding a series lead of 5 games to 3. For Pitt, the Labor Day game, which almost
didn’t happen due to previously scheduled games that weekend for both teams, is
a no-lose situation in many ways. The
Panthers, who fight for attention in this sports driven city with the Steelers
every season, will be playing their biggest game of the season on national
television in prime time one week before the Steeler season even starts. Pitt will also hope to take advantage of a
young and inexperienced Florida State team playing on the road the first game
of the season. Florida State will be
replacing their starting QB as well as their top offensive lineman, while Pitt
returns 9 starters from their defense.
Florida State will also be replacing 6 starters on defense, including 3
lineman and 2 linebackers, as well as adjusting to a new defensive coordinator
who has never held that position before.
Pitt knew that they would have to play Florida
State at some point this season; this is the best possible time for the
Panthers to get them and possibly pull the upset.
The Florida State game is just the beginning to
the Pitt schedule, which is one of the best home schedules in the nation for
the 2013 season. After a bye week, the 2nd
week of the season Pitt will host New Mexico in a non-conference game. This will be the first time that Pitt ever
plays against the Lobos in football. New
Mexico is coached by Pittsburgh native, Bob Davie, who saw his team finish with
a 4-9 record in his first year of the job last season.
Week 3 sees the Panthers play their 1st
road game in the ACC when they travel to Durham, NC to take on the Duke Blue
Devils. Pitt last played Duke in their
national championship season in 1976, winning 44-31. Pitt leads the all-time series 9-8. The Blue Devils have continually been
improving under David Cutcliffe, but will have to replace 3-year starter Sean
Renfree at quarterback. The Blue Devils
got to a bowl game last year, losing in the Belk Bowl to Cincinnati and
finishing the season 6-7.
Pitt returns home the final week of September for
another ACC foe, Virginia. The last time
Pitt saw the Cavaliers on the football field it wasn’t pretty for Panther
fans. Virginia dominated Pitt in
Charlottesville 44-14 in 2007. Virginia
started the 2012 season off strong, including an upset win against Penn State,
but they lost 8 of their final 10 games and they too will be replacing their
starting QB before the 2013 campaign begins.
If Pitt can find a way to beat Florida State in
the season opener, it is not out of the realm of possibilities that they enter
October undefeated and 3-0 in conference play.
After another bye week to start October Pitt finishes
the season playing 8 games in 9 weeks, starting with a road game in Blacksburg,
VA against the Virginia Tech Hokies.
Pitt beat VT last season 35-17, so you can be sure that the Hokies will
be looking for revenge, but for whatever reason the Panthers have faired well
against the Hokies in recent years.
Despite Virginia Tech holding a 7-5 edge all-time in the series, Pitt
has won the last 4 meetings including their last game at Lane Stadium in 2002. Virginia Tech will also be the 1st
team that Pitt faces that has the same quarterback as in the 2012 season in
Logan Thomas. Thomas has been hyped and
praised since coming out of high school and going into his senior year is
looking to finally put it all together.
After the game against Virginia Tech, Pitt steps
away from ACC play for 2 weeks, first hosting FCS opponent Old Dominion. ODU was 11-2 last year and reached the 2nd
round of the FCS playoffs. It will be
the 1st time Pitt plays ODU in football and the 1st time
ODU steps up to play a FBS school in history.
Old Dominion started playing NCAA football in 2009 and is in the process
of moving up to FBS in 2014 when they plan to join Conference USA.
The Naval Academy is the next non-conference
opponent for Pitt. This game will be on the road in Annapolis, MD. Pitt has played Navy 38 times in history and holds
a 22-13-3 advantage over the Midshipmen.
This is the final game of a 4 game series between the two schools that
started in 2007. Pitt won back-to-back
games in ’08 and ’09 after losing the 2007 match-up. After some scheduling conflicts prevented the
series from wrapping up in 2010, the two teams will go back at it this fall.
After the Naval Academy, Pitt gets back into
conference play with a game in Atlanta, GA against Georgia Tech. Pitt holds a 5-2 series lead, but hasn’t
played the Yellow Jackets since 1976 when Pitt won easily 42-14. This game is somewhat of a blessing in
disguise from the ACC to Pitt. Both Navy
and Georgia Tech run a rare and unique Triple Option Read offense. In this day and age of college football, it
is not something that you see everyday and can be very difficult to prepare for. Pitt will see it against Navy, and then again
with Georgia Tech. Playing these two
teams back-to-back basically gives Pitt 2 straight weeks preparing against the
Triple Option Read before they play their conference game with Georgia Tech.
Now here is when the schedule takes a serious step
up in competition. The final 4 games of
the regular season for Pitt come against 4 teams that finished with at least 7
wins last season.
Notre Dame, who entered the BCS National
Championship game undefeated last season, is first up in this brutal 4 game
stretch for the Panthers. Notre Dame,
which escaped last years game against Pitt with a triple overtime win to keep
their title hopes alive, will be in Pittsburgh this year for the annual
showdown between the teams. Notre Dame
has played Pitt 66 times in history, 5th most among any Irish opponents. Only Navy (84), Purdue (84), USC (83) and
Michigan State (79) have played Notre Dame more than Pitt has.
After Notre Dame, the rest of the season is
against ACC opponents. On November 16th,
Pitt will travel to Chapel Hill to take on the Tar Heels of North
Carolina. Larry Fedora is in his 2nd
year as head coach for the Tar Heels, who finished 8-4 last year but were
ineligible to play in any postseason games.
North Carolina only lost 2 offensive and 2 defensive starters from the
2012 team and is expected to be a favorite to win the Coastal Division of the
ACC in 2013. The last time Pitt and UNC
met was in the 2009 Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, NC. Pitt won that game on a last second field
goal 19-17, giving Pitt their first 10-win season in 28 years.
The final road opponent of the season will be a familiar
one to the Panthers, as they travel to Syracuse to play fellow Big East
defector. Syracuse finished 2012 tied
for 1st place in the Big East and then went to the Pinstripe Bowl in
New York and beat up on West Virginia 38-14.
Pitt had beaten Syracuse 7 straight years until losing at the Carrier
Dome 14-13 this past season. Due to
changing conferences, the two teams find themselves in a unique situation
playing 2 straight seasons in Syracuse. Syracuse
lost their head coach to the NFL after the 2012 season and will have to replace
QB Ryan Nassib, who had a standout senior season.
The regular season ends the same way it begins, against
a Florida opponent at Heinz Field during a holiday weekend. This time Miami will visit Pittsburgh the
Friday after Thanksgiving. Pitt and
Miami will re-new their rivalry, which was largely dominated by the Hurricanes
when both schools were in the Big East.
Pitt is 9-22-1 all-time and has lost their last 7 against the
Hurricanes. Their last victory came in
1997 when Pete Gonzalez led the Panthers to a 21-17 upset win.
Here is a look at the entire 2013 football
schedule for the Panthers.
Sept 2 (MON) vs Florida State*
Sept 7 BYE WEEK
Sept 14 vs New Mexico
Sept 21 @ Duke*
Sept 28 vs Virginia*
Oct 5 BYE WEEK
Oct 12 @ Virginia Tech*
Oct 19 vs Old Dominion
Oct 26 @ Navy
Nov 2 @ Georgia Tech*
Nov 9 vs Notre Dame
Nov 16 @ North Carolina*
Nov 23 @ Syracuse*
Nov 29 (FRI) vs Miami*
*ACC games
No comments:
Post a Comment