Drake And J. Cole Support The Panthers

Not a great time to be a Pittsburgh sports fan. The Penguins lost on Jaromir Jagr's number retirement night and are looking to miss the playoffs for the second straight season. The Steelers appear to be an above average team. Good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to compete for a Super Bowl. That would be a dream for many teams, but this is unacceptable for many Steelers fans. While the Pirates have some potentially excellent young players, even the most optimistic fans acknowledge that reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2015 is doubtful. Any hope right now is with the University of Pittsburgh's men's basketball team. Under head coach Jeff Capel, the team reached the round of 32 in the 2023 NCAA Tournament. After a slow start this season including losing 5 of its first 6 ACC games, Pitt is now 8-6 in conference play with wins at Duke and at Virginia. The team is definitely in the mix for a NCAA tournament spot. This has not gone unnoticed by some major players in the hip-hop world. 

In Pittsburgh last week, J Cole visited Pitt's basketball facilities. 

In addition, after rocking a Penguins jersey at a 2016 concert (resulting in me getting a cease-and-desist email), Drake sported a Panthers football jersey.

Steelers' Cam Heyward also got to meet J. Cole

Hail to Pitt!

J. Cole's picture at Pitt is from Pitt's men's basketball team's Twitter account.

The photo of Drake with Fridayy is from DJ Akademiks on Instagram.

The Cam-J. Cole picture is from Heyward's Instagram page.

Tough Sports Weekend

Playoffs and tournaments can be difficult for players and fans. At the end, there is only one winner. Take this past weekend. The University of Pittsburgh's men's soccer team advanced to the final four for the first time in school history. They had a tremendous season, but lost 1-0 to Indiana University on Friday night despite having more quality chances and possession than the Hoosiers.

Meanwhile, Ithaca College's women's lacrosse team defeated the #2 seeded Washington & Lee in the round of 16 on Saturday evening 16-11. I believe the announcers said that Washington & Lee had won 40 straight matches at its home stadium. The win was so convincing that Washington & Lee is now considering changing its name.* Ithaca then advanced to the quarterfinals, but lost 16-5 to the Salisbury University Steaks. Fine, it's the Sea Gulls, though I think the steaks would be a better nickname. Anyway, Ithaca had a terrific season and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Division III NCAA Tournament for only the second time in the school's history.

Both Pitt's soccer team and Ithaca's lacrosse team had amazing seasons. However, there's a bit of disappointment now. You hoped that there would be national titles, but like I mentioned above, there can be only one winner. That's the beauty of sports, right? You celebrate the successes and wins and you mourn the losses, but there's always hope for the next game or year.

On a completely different topic, ESPNU aired the soccer semifinals on Friday night. Immediately after the first match between Marshall and North Carolina, ESPNU went right to a short film about the Vanderbilt women's bowling team. There were no postgame highlights or interviews with coaches. There was not a preview of the Indiana-Pitt match. Apparently, we needed to see this film at that very moment. There weren't 2 or 3 people at ESPN or college soccer experts out there who could have filled 30 minutes of coverage?

Photos from Pitt's men's soccer and Ithaca's women's lacrosse Twitter accounts.

* The school really is considering changing its name, but the reason is because of Robert E. Lee. You know, the military leader of the confederate army who fought against the United States of America. Most places would consider him to be a traitor. Actually, I like my line above about the school being so embarrassed by its loss to Ithaca that they could no longer live with its name, so let's just go with that!

College Football Coaching Buyouts

I hate college football. I mean, I like college football, but I hate college football. Let's go back a few years. The first football games that I attended weren't Pittsburgh Steelers games. I have no idea how expensive Steelers tickets were in the early 80s or how easy it was to get tickets, but I attended several University of Pittsburgh football games during that time. My Cub Scout troop even got group tickets once or twice. Plus, Pitt Stadium was probably about a mile from my aunt and uncle's place, so we parked in their parking lot and walked to the stadium. While I don't remember the 1976 championship season (I was 1), the team was really good in the 1980s with All-Americans Dan Marino, Bill Fralic, Hugh Green, Mark May, and Jimbo Covert. As I got older, I was fortunate to get to watch other amazing players like Ironhead Heyward, Curtis Martin, and Larry Fitzgerald. So I do like college football.

With all of that written, let's be honest here. There are 130 Division I Football Bowl Subdivision teams, and of these teams, only about 15 teams have a legitimate chance of winning a national championship each year. First, you have to be in a power-5 conference (or have a very lucrative contract with NBC) to have a chance to win. UCF has proven to be an excellent team over the past two years, yet, they haven’t been invited to the college football playoffs. Then, you need a lot money. Money to hire the best coaches and for state-of-the-art facilities to recruit the top high school players. To have all of this money, you need a massive stadium and a large donor base to support the program. While I'm probably missing a few schools, here are those that have a true chance of winning each year, according to various betting sites:

Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, USC, Florida State, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Michigan, Auburn, Penn State, and Texas. I guess you could add Stanford, UCLA, and Miami in here too. That's the list.

Now here is my problem. Each year, colleges that are not on this list fire their head football coaches and pay millions of dollars as a buyout, settlement, or per the terms of the contact.* Mike MacIntyre was fired by the University of Colorado and has $10.3 million remaining on his contract.

Texas Tech, Kansas, North Carolina, Charlotte, East Carolina, and Central Michigan are just some other schools that fired their football coaches recently. These are public institutions. Where is the money coming from? Taxpayers? Increased student fees? Here’s my new rule: If you’re not one of the 15 or so teams I mentioned, you’re not allowed to pay millions to coaches who no longer coaching at your school. I have no idea how this could be implemented, but why let details get in the way of a good and fiscally reasonable idea!


* The Louisville Courier Journal published a story in October 2018 showing that fired coaches in 2017 got over $70 million in buyouts.

I Don’t Understand The Shipping Process (2018 Edition)

I don’t do much online shopping, so when I do, I’m repeatedly baffled by how items are shipped. Back in 2012, I wrote about how one of my purchases was shipping from Maryland to Oregon to Virginia. Three years ago, I shared my confusion about why the same order of cat food needed to be divided and shipped from both Saline, Michigan and Rensselaer, New York. Today’s post is similar to the last one.

Dick’s Sporting Goods recently had an advertisement selling college sweatshirts for $19.98, originally priced at $59.99. I generally don’t like buying clothes online because I prefer to try them on to make sure they fit before making a purchase. I don’t want to deal with the hassle of sending clothes back if they don’t fit. Of course, I rarely go clothes shopping since I don’t have any free time for this, meaning that much of my wardrobe has been the same for years. Anyway, the advantage of buying clothing from Dick’s is that there’s a store about 2 miles from my home, so if it doesn’t fit you must acquit (and I can return them directly to the store).

As a lifelong fan of the University of Pittsburgh, I purchased this Pitt pullover hoodie:

I really like these Pitt colors, especially the bright blue! In addition, as a graduate of The Ohio State University, I bought this "foundation hoodie" to show that I’m a Buckeye.

Now the fun part. The Pitt shirt was shipped from New Stanton, PA. Meanwhile the Ohio State gear was sent from Louisville, Kentucky. Do they only have Pitt gear in Pennsylvania and Ohio State gear in Kentucky? That seems unlikely. There's not a warehouse somewhere with both pieces of clothing? Apparently not.

Please be on the lookout for my next blog post about my bewilderment of the shipping process scheduled for late 2021!

DeJuan Blair: The Song

If I had to select a favorite current NBA player, I would probably pick DeJuan Blair of the Washington Wizards. Of course, my selection of Blair has nothing to do with his NBA career, but rather that he is from Pittsburgh and played at the University of Pittsburgh. I attended a Pitt-Georgetown game at the Verizon Center in 2009 where Blair scored 20 points and had 17 rebounds. He also had 22 points and 23 rebounds when Pitt defeated the #1 ranked UConn and dominated Hasheem Thabeet. Blair really was fun to watch in college.

After starting his career in San Antonio and playing in Dallas last year, Blair joined the Wizards this season. Living in DC, I follow the Wizards, so I was excited about the former Panther coming to the nation's capital. While I rarely watch Wizards games, I always check the box score to see how Blair played. The other night, though, Blair wasn't listed in the box score. I did a quick search on Twitter to see what happened to Blair and stumbled across this (very NSFW) song:



I have no idea why this song is titled DeJuan Blair as the lyrics don't appear to mention him or have anything to do with him. I also have no idea who Woozy Wee is,* but based on this picture, I'm guessing that his dentist does. Although Woozy Wee's music isn't really my scene, I applaud him for naming a song for the great Blair and hope he has success.


* I did find a Weezy Wee who operates "a beauty & lifestyle blog written from the streets of Los Angeles." Weezy Wee and Woozy Wee do not appear to be the same person. This is not a sentence I ever thought I would type.

Weekend Questions

1. Why would the Original Hot Dog on the University of Pittsburgh's campus show the Los Angeles Dodgers-Chicago Cubs baseball game on its televisions instead of the Pitt-Iowa football game?

2. Why would the Pitt book store not play the Pitt-Iowa game on the store's radio?

3. Why don't more Pennsylvania turnpike drivers have E-Z Pass?

4. Is it absurd that someone would refuse to have 2% milk with Lucky Charms cereal instead preferring to have skim milk with the cereal?

5. Is the sign "Want a job? Let's "Taco" 'bout it" at the Breezewood Taco Bell a clever way to attract potential new employees?

6. If Pedro Alvarez is healthy, would you put him on the Pirates postseason roster?

7. Is an advertisement on the PA turnpike featuring a picture of Yoko Ono with the question "Would you take energy advice from the woman that broke up The Beatles" effective?

While this isn't trivia, feel free to answer any of these questions in the comments section below.

Don't forget that you can always like Sean's Ramblings on Facebook.

Why Does Delaware Hate Pitt?

Last week, an unscientific survey of Reddit users revealed the most hated college football teams by state. Naturally, The Ohio State University is the most hated college football team in Michigan, the University of Michigan is the most hated college football team in Ohio, Kansas University is the most hated college football team in Missouri, the University of Missouri is the most hated college football team in Kansas, and, um, the University of Maryland is the most hated college football team in Vermont.

While it makes complete sense that the University of Pittsburgh is the most hated college football team in West Virginia based on the Backyard Brawl rivalry between Pitt and WVU, I don't understand the hatred of Pitt by Delawareans.

Did Mike Ditka or Tony Dorsett slight Joe Biden? Are Delawareans upset that Pitt allowed Joe Flacco to transfer from Pitt to the University of Delaware? Did other Pitt fans complain about Delaware on blogs like this guy?

Looking at the raw data (who is the one person that voted Middle Tennessee State as the most hated college football team?), only 18 Delaware residents responded to this survey, so this is a small sample size. HOWEVER, I'm sure that these 18 people represent all Delawareans!

If you can't see the map very well, here are the full state by state results.

ICYMI the hate map creator went through and removed stuffed votes, creating a more believable list: pic.twitter.com/s5BdtWwNQL

— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) August 7, 2014

h/t DC Sports Bog

Pitt’s Home Non-Conference Schedule

A few weeks ago, the University of Pittsburgh’s men’s basketball team started the season by defeating the University of Rhode Island at Pitt’s Petersen Event Center. With that win and now four others at home to start the season, Pitt is now 80-1 (I believe) in nonconference games since the Petersen Event Center opened in 2002. This is an amazing record. However, after the Pitt-URI game, I saw someone on a message board post that they were not impressed with this record since “Pitt hasn’t played anyone.”



While my first mistake was reading a message board and now responding to it (this seems like the time I had an argument with a 16 year-old), I decided to look at Pitt’s nonconference schedule since they moved from Fitzgerald Field House. Sure, Pitt has played teams that never make the NCAA Tournament like New Hampshire, Maine, St. Francis (PA) and St. Francis (NY), Youngstown State, Howard and Penn State, but Pitt has also played some decent mid-major and major conference teams at home such as Ohio State, George Mason, Florida State, Georgia, Richmond, South Carolina, Auburn, Wisconsin, Dayton, and Oklahoma State over the years. Pitt’s only loss was to Bucknell during the 2004-2005 season, the same year that Bucknell upset Kansas in the NCAA Tournament.

Based on this list, I’m not sure who else the random message board guy wants Pitt to play prior to the Big East schedule. Generally, “major” conference teams play few true road games as part of their non-conference schedule as most games away from their home arena are part of a tournament at a neutral site. For example, Pitt already faced Maryland and Texas this year at Madison Square Garden in New York. Sure, there is the annual ACC-Big 10 challenge, but the Big East hasn’t had this type of arrangement. Yes, everyone wants to see more power conference teams play a more difficult non-conference schedule to include true road games at mid-majors, but that just doesn’t seem to be the reality.

Basically, Pitt has faced their share of tough home non-conference games over the years. That's what makes Pitt's home non-conference record so impressive. So, TAKE THAT, random message board guy!

(I really wanted to add the video of Ben Stiller from the final scene of Meet the Parents where he does that karate chop “take that” sequence, but I couldn’t find it on YouTube. This was the last sequence of the movie, right?)

Pitt Season Begins Tonight

The college football season officially begins tonight when the University of Pittsburgh travels to Salt Lake City to face the University of Utah. The entire University of Pittsburgh really isn't traveling to Utah (how would you move the Cathedral of Learning?), but the football team, marching band and other students, staff and alumni will go west. Anyway, I've been on record stating that I despise the Division I college football system (get a 16-team playoff!); however, the atmosphere of college football games are unmatched, and I enjoy watching the games especially the Pitt Panthers.

Therefore, in honor of the season-opener, I give you Darrelle Revis' incredible punt return in the 2006 Backyard Brawl between Pitt and West Virginia.