Talk:Penn State–Pittsburgh football rivalry

Untitled
Eastern football just became too small for Penn State. The Big Ten was the correct choice at the time. They are not a basketball power, or urban, and besides WVU are the only competitive large state university in the NorthEast. When the Big Ten invited PSU it was a logical move. NorthEast football fans should move on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.254.235.104 (talk) 02:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

From what I hear, in the Big 10, only Ohio State views Penn State as a serious rival. While it's true that Michigan State and Penn State play for a trophy, fans of both schools do not really see this as a true rivalry. Meanwhile Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia all view Penn State as a serious rival. Whoever said that many fans of both the Big 10 and Northeast football was not pleased with PSU joining the Big 10 was 100% correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.3.8.253 (talk) 18:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that MSU is not really any rivalry to speak of. I do not agree that Syracuse and PSU are rivals however. I will fix some stuff, but some of it needs a citation so I can't put it in.

Superbowlbound (talk) 20:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * You must be a little younger than me. When Penn State used to regularly play Syracuse, SU students would sometimes come down to State College and paint the Nittany Lion statue orange. The games were also intense though I believe PSU generally got the better of SU.


 * Maybe, but I did know that. 'Cuse isn't any good anymore and I don't think they play each other too much either. It is kind of a dead rivalry, not in the same way as this one though. Superbowlbound (talk) 19:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I would say they don't really have any rival in the true sense of the word, which would be a reciprocated rival, like a Auburn-Alabama, Texas-Texas A&M, Florida-FSU. Certainly they have no true rival in a historical sense. The PSU wikipedia community lists their rivals in this order: Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes, Michigan State Spartans, Minnesota Golden Gophers.   Judging only by the Ohio State wikipedia community, they have their rivalries listed on their football page this way: Michigan Wolverines, Illinois Fighting Illini (traditional), Penn State Nittany Lions (designated by Big Ten).  Michigan's wikipedia football page lists them in this order: Ohio State Buckeyes, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Michigan State Spartans, Minnesota Golden Gophers, Penn State Nittany Lions.  Michigan State lists them this way: Michigan Wolverines, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Penn State Nittany Lions. No other schools list them as a rival.  No school lists them as more than their 3rd biggest rival, so these obviously aren't reciprocated to the same degree as what one thinks of traditionally as rivalries. However, at least OSU and MSU are the rivals designated to them by the Big 10, so if they want to list them as rivals, I guess that's up to them, but they do not have any rivalry like the Pitt vs WVU rivalry in the Big Ten. CrazyPaco (talk) 23:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting. It's a shame PSU did not join the Big East (in my opinion), because Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Syracuse all had some very heated rivalries with Penn State when they used to play regularly. Syracuse viewed Penn State as its biggest rival while Penn State 2nd biggest rival was probably Syracuse (though some would say West Virginia).

Table of Game Outcomes
Why does the info table end with the 1978 game? Is there some reason it was never fully updated to include games up to the last one in 2000? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Some kind of scientist (talk • contribs) 00:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * no, that's is just all the farther it has gotten, feel free to fill the rest in CrazyPaco (talk) 04:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I finished off the series CrazyPaco (talk) 04:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

This rivalry was never called the "Pennsylvania Classic"
As far as I can ascertain, the Pitt-PSU rivalry has never, ever been referred to as the "Pennsylvania Classic". That was the former name of the PGA tour's 84 Lumber Classic and a former college hoops tournament in the 70s featuring Pitt, Penn State, Duquesne and Penn. "Pennsylvania Classic" is not a term popularly known or recognized, nor has it any reference in national or local publications according to multiple on-line archive searches. For instance, it has zero hits in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a term relating to the Pitt-Penn State series. Neither Pitt's nor PSU's web sites have any mention of this term as relating to the rivalry, and this includes Pitt's digital archives that includes all student yearbooks from 1907 to 1980 as well as many electronically archived media guides. Likewise, the use of the term referring to the school rivalry cannot be found in national publications such as Sports Illustrated's archive search or through Google's newspaper or book archive repository. Out of all of these searches, there is only one Penn State football book which is copyright May 2009 (that does not have an available preview) from Alphascript Publishing that is notorious for assembling wikipedia articles into books for sale without credit to the article contributors. This book has this term in its description and it undoubtedly, if using it for the Pitt-PSU rivalry, must have gotten this term from Wikipedia due to the lack of earlier sources. Wikipedia is in danger of becoming a self-perpetuating instrument this misnomer, as it seems to be the original source in violation of original research, so I have moved the page appropriately away from "Pennsylvania Classic" and redirected "Pennsylvania Classic" to its more appropriate page "84 Lumber Classic". I did so in a bold manner because of the seemingly imminent danger of the incorrect use of this term possibly taking on a life of its own.

A recent series between Pitt and Penn State's baseball teams has been termed "Keystone Classic", which was also used as the name of the college basketball tournament in the 50s, a two-night basketball doubleheader in the 70s, and a long standing horse race for freshman colt pacers in October at The Meadows, and that is as close as I have found for anything related to a name for the rivalry.

The only conclusion to draw is that there is no official or universally popularized name for the rivalry. If this is incorrect, please post any reference to the use of this term pre-December 2007, when this Wikipedia article was seemingly incorrectly renamed as such. I have not found any pre-2007 uses of this term, but would happily revert if appropriate reliable sources can be produced. CrazyPaco (talk) 21:36, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * All alphascript titles are wikipedia articles in printed form. It is self-stated by company. Kasaalan (talk) 19:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)