College football has been in a state of flux for about half a decade now. The advent of NIL and the transfer portal, major conference realignment, and College Football Playoff expansion have transformed the sport in a matter of years. And there’s no reason to expect that the change is slowing down anytime soon.
The NCAA has been begging Congress for an antitrust exemption to curb rampant spending, but the proposed Protect College Sports Act, which aimed to address ballooning costs along with a host of other so-called “problems,” is unlikely to pass this fall. So, with the Big Ten, backed by FOX, and the SEC, backed by ESPN, jostling for power, who knows what the sport could look like come 2030?
So, when Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi attempts to float a rumor that there have been discussions about renewing the Pitt/Penn State rivalry, as he did on Monday with Joe Starkey and Bob Pompeani on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh, there’s no reason to put any stock in it.
College sports are too uncertain to trust scheduling agreements a half-decade out
There very well may be discussions ongoing about renewing the rivalry, which had a four-year stint from 2016-19 to reach 100 all-time contests. After a brief upcoming hiatus, the Backyard Brawl between Pitt and West Virginia is coming back in 2029.
Pitt has desperately wanted to play Penn State for years, but as we learned in 2016, there’s no upside to Penn State playing Pitt, and a whole lot of downside. Still, Penn State is one of the few holdouts in the Big Ten that doesn’t regularly schedule a Power Conference opponent as one of its three non-conference games, so there could be momentum to increase the strength of schedule beyond the 10 Big Ten games.
Those seem like the ideal conditions to reignite the rivalry. And yet, even if the two sides get something on the books for 2030 or beyond, it's hard to be sure those games are going to happen until we get there.
The NCAA has no control over college football, and Congress is failing to provide it. It’s gotten to the point where SEC commissioner Greg Sankey presented self-governance as a legitimate possibility at SEC Media Days this summer. Unless the federal government, which for some reason feels compelled to 'save college sports,' passes legislation, there’s a very real possibility that Big Ten and SEC football will break away to form a college football super league.
Maybe that includes the ACC and Big 12. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s not a super league, but a scheduling agreement for an SEC/Big Ten challenge to increase TV revenues. Maybe it’s further expansion of conference schedules. Or it could be a further expanded CFP that cuts into a week of the regular season.
That super league could take the top 68 teams or 72 teams in the FBS and reorganize them geographically so Pitt and Penn State play every year. That’d be the best possible outcome for the sport to preserve old rivalries, but as things stand, Penn State has little incentive to play Pitt and even less certainty about where the sport is heading.
We don’t know what’s next for college football. But more change is coming, so every future scheduling agreement, real or rumored, is perpetually subject to change.
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