Bowl bid arrives Sunday, and Pitt looks to rewrite its postseason history
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Since Walt Harris’ 1997 team broke a six-year bowl drought in a 41-7 loss to Southern Mississippi in the Liberty Bowl, those postseason, holiday-disrupting road trips have not turned out especially well for Pitt.
Since then, seven Pitt coaches — including three interims and not including Todd Graham, who left before the end of the 2011 season — have compiled a collective bowl record of 6-12. Harris is the only Pitt coach in that time to win more than one.
The Panthers are going back this year, anyway.
Bowl games are perks for fans, who turn them into vacations and a reason to wave the pom-poms for a national TV audience.
The players? The assumption is most of them like the attention and gifts from bowl organizers and another chance to showcase their talents. Others are fearful of the injury risk.
Kenny Pickett and Kenneth Walker III skipped the Peach Bowl last year between Pitt and Michigan State, stayed healthy, were among the first 41 players drafted and now both are starters for their NFL teams. An injury in that game might have changed their futures.
Pitt has earned a bowl berth this year by virtue of its third eight-victory regular season under coach Pat Narduzzi.
There are eight so-called First Tier bowls that Pitt is eligible to attend. A ninth, the Orange Bowl, is reserved for the ACC champion, either Clemson or North Carolina.
Going strictly by won-loss records — and that doesn’t always happen while closed-door deals are struck on Selection Sunday — Pitt is tied with Duke for the fourth-best record in the ACC.
A possible destination for the Panthers when bowl bids are issued Sunday appears to be the Pinstripe Bowl in the Bronx, N.Y., a football game played in one of the most famous baseball venues in the world, Yankee Stadium.
ESPN bowl analysts Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach predict Pitt will play Iowa (7-5) in the Pinstripe on Dec. 29. That’s more than a month after Pitt’s last regular-season game, but that will give Narduzzi plenty of time for those bonus practice sessions he cherishes.
Here is a look at Pitt’s seven other possible destinations:
• Fenway Bowl vs. American Athletic Conference, Dec. 17 — Another baseball venue, but Pitt might not fit here because it is at the end of final exam week.
• Military Bowl vs. AAC, Dec. 28 — With all the pageantry the Naval Academy has to offer (but without its football team), the game played in Annapolis, Md., would be a good destination for fans, who wouldn’t have to travel far and would get home in time for New Year’s Eve. Pitt lost to Navy, 44-28, in 2015, in Narduzzi’s first bowl game. The Panthers had no answer for Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds, who ran for 144 yards, threw for 126 and caught a 47-yard pass on a trick play.
• Holiday Bowl vs. Pac-12, Dec. 28 — Pitt has played a bowl game in California only four times (four Rose Bowls in Pasadena between 1928-37). ESPN believes a higher-ranked ACC team, either Florida State or the ACC championship game loser, will appear here in San Diego.
• Cheez-It Bowl vs. Big 12, Dec. 29 — The game will be played in Orlando, Fla., a city Pitt hasn’t visited for a bowl game since 2001, a 34-19 victory against N.C. State when the Cheez-It Bowl was called the Tangerine Bowl. Antonio Bryant caught seven passes for 101 yards and two touchdowns on a bad ankle.
• Duke’s Mayo Bowl vs. Big Ten, Dec. 30 — The game has been played in Charlotte, N.C., since 2002 under several names. When it was called the Continental Tire Bowl in 2003, Pitt lost to Virginia, 23-16. Six years later in what was known as the Meineke Car Care Bowl, Pitt won its 10th game when Dan Hutchins kicked four field goals in a 19-17 victory against North Carolina.
• Gator Bowl vs. SEC, Dec. 30 — Pitt beat South Carolina, 37-9, in the 1980 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., when Dan Marino and Rick Trocano each threw a touchdown pass, and Heisman Trophy runner-up Hugh Green got some vengeance on the Heisman winner, South Carolina running back George Rogers. This time, it might be Notre Dame and South Carolina.
• Sun Bowl vs. Pac-12, Dec. 30 — They say El Paso, Texas, is a fun place to visit this time of year, but the Pitt offensive units of 2008 and 2018 would disagree. Pitt lost to Oregon State, 3-0, and Stanford, 14-13. Third time is … well, you know the rest.