There was some good, some bad and some ugly for fans of area sports teams the past weekend.
Start with the good, the Steelers beating Cincinnati – again — their fifth victory in the past seven meetings in the series. There is a reason why the Bengals are more correctly known as the Bungles.
Witness Sunday’s game-ending fumble by quarterback Joe Burrow.
In theory, this was the first legitimate test the Steelers faced this season. Cincinnati did come in at 2-0. I know, the Steelers also lost in week two to New England, which supposedly is a good team. Yet the Patriots are 1-2 and just got toasted, 35-6, by Jacksonville. So, let’s reserve judgment on New England of 2026.
Steelers fans awoke Monday to find their beloved team in a four-way tie for first (or last) in the AFC North with Cincinnati, Baltimore and Cleveland, each at 2-1.
We’ve mentioned here before that the Steelers don’t exactly have a testing schedule. And, in coming weeks they will face Cleveland twice, Indianapolis, Tampa Bay and New Orleans.
Do you really think Cleveland is a legitimate 2-1 team? Indianapolis is 1-2, as is New Orleans, and Tampa is 0-3 with an injured starting quarterback.
The Steelers easily could run off five more wins before getting into the meat of their schedule with games vs. Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Jacksonville and Baltimore. A contest against 0-3 Houston is thrown in as a breather in that run of anticipated challenging games.
Give the Pirates a smidgen of a good review for winning their regular-season finale to finish with the most modest of winning records for a 162-game season, that being 82-80. If the Pirates were better fundamentally, and if their ace Paul Skenes had produced another dominant season, they’d have made the wild-card round of the postseason.
Alas, IF, is a huge two-letter word.
In the bad category is Pitt football, more specifically the schedule.
Pitt won huge Saturday, by a 59-0 score. But, a big but, it was a win over Bucknell. ‘Nuf said.
There is a reason Pitt is 4-0, but does not show up in the Top 25 rankings of either the AP, or college football coaches.
Asked about this last week, Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said he “could care less” about such things. Pitt is playing the scorned team card. But, in truth, the Panthers have done nothing (yet) to prove they are a Top 25 team, with wins vs. UCF, Syracuse, Bucknell and Miami – no, not that Miami, but instead Miami, Ohio.
The ugly was Penn State, blowing a 17-0 lead, at home, in a 24-20 loss to unranked Wisconsin. Even the win was not enough to elevate Wisconsin into the rankings due to its other two wins being against Western Illinois and Eastern Michigan, and the loss coming in 41-13 blowout fashion to Notre Dame.
But, the loss was enough to get Penn State dropped from the AP Top 25. The Nittany Lions had been ranked No. 13 there previously. Penn State did hang on in the coaches rankings, at No. 22, down from No. 14.
Beating up on Marshall, Temple and Buffalo (the university, not the Bills) apparently does not prepare a team for finishing off a game vs. a Big Ten foe.
In view of that schedule, you could say Penn State was Nittany Lyin’ about its national standing.
