Imagine my surprise Thursday night when, having watched Atlanta’s Braves eliminate Philadelphia’s Phillies from MLB’s postseason, I saw online that the Steelers were in process of losing in Cleveland.
I didn’t watch that Steelers game, couldn’t even if I’d wanted to due to it being a Prime exclusive. Remember, we remarked here previously about being unwilling to pay up for various streaming services to watch sporting events.
So, on a night the Phillies shuffled into postseason oblivion, providing pain to the Filthydelphian contingent that has migrated to Johnstown in search of public housing deals or fertile crime fields, we also no doubt had the local Steelers fans kicking dogs and pounding furniture over the latest lapse of their team, a 27-24 loss to the hated Browns.
I read – and later saw replays showing – that not only did the Steelers get their black and gold butts kicked, they also displayed public domestic discord fit for the late, lamented Jerry Springer’s shows.
They didn’t get to the staple surprise paternity test results of Springer and Maury Povich, but they came close enough for television purposes.
Ancient mariner quarterback Aaron Rodgers traded on-air F-bombs with head coach Mike McCarthy, and defensive stalwart T.J. Watt was seen grabbing a sideline headphone and cussing out those on the other end, presumably Steelers defensive assistants upstairs.
To say this is not exactly the Steelers way is to understate.
I confess to having had this trip to Cleveland, and the return match with the Browns, in the win column for the Steelers. And I won’t backtrack completely on my sentiment that the cheesey Steelers schedule should produce wins in coming weeks.
But, that increasingly depends on getting things solved internally and, at this point, that’s not a slam-dunk probability.
Now, we pivot to college football. With the Steelers already having played during the week, Pitt and Penn State join in rushing the calendar tonight. Didn’t football used to be a weekend phenomenon?
And, no, Pitt isn’t playing Penn State. That once-great rivalry has gone the way of $1-a-gallon gasoline.
Instead, Pat Narduzzi’s unbeaten, untied and unranked Panthers are looking in the mirror at Big Game James Franklin’s similarly rankings-challenged, unbeaten Virginia Tech. Tech is a 2.5-point favorite as I type this.
This is what passes for a mammoth football contest in the ACC, two 4-0 teams that don’t have a marquee win between them.
I would suspect the winner cracks the Top 25 national scene. We plan to watch this one, considering it’s available for viewing without the streaming surcharge.
Ordinarily, Penn State fans might be checking in on Big Game James tonight. But their attention almost certainly will be focused on their team’s game at Northwestern, admittedly starting 30 minutes later.
Penn State is favored by 2.5 points, despite last week’s embarrassing loss to Wisconsin at home.
First-year coach Matt Campbell has 24 players on the Penn State roster that he brought with him from Iowa State. Simply put, they’ve lost to the only legitimate foe they’ve faced in their new digs, sort of like the old days at Iowa State.
Another loss tonight and the fickle Penn State fans will be ordering moving vans so that Campbell and his transfer posse can return to the cornfields.
I can’t end this without making predictions. I think both Pitt and Penn State will prevail. Then again, I picked the Steelers over Cleveland, too.
