I was hoping to come here to vent some opinions about conference realignment in this free, once-resplendent blog, but apparently they even shut off comments on old main-page posts now. We couldn't even keep a conversation going on the main page in the comments if we wanted to. Maybe I'm reading too much into this site falling by the wayside, but it seems too convenient that this site suddenly went dark when the paid Pitt blogs started increasing their content. At first that mildly irked me, but now it's very frustrating that there's no free forum to discuss among a Pitt community. If this was a concerted effort by some outside entity, I hope they feel bad for what they've made of the years of passion and hard work Anson put in to create this community. It's antithetical to fandom and mirrors the what's going on in the broader NCAA landscape -- money over everything...

Speaking of which! The whole reason I came here was to talk about conference realignment. And it's really not that insightful or detailed, but like I said, comments are shut off everywhere else.

A prevailing notion seems to be that the best case scenario for Pitt (however unattainable it may be) is to land in the B1G. I firmly disagree. As someone who grew up near Pittsburgh, went to Pitt and is currently professionally affiliated with a B1G institution in the midwest, I can say the ethos of Pitt is much better matched in the ACC than the BIG. Pitt is urban, semi-private, medium sized, and most importantly NOT MIDWESTERN (I hear you. Counterpoint: UCLA and USC). Every so often there's a debate about whether Pittsburgh is in the midwest. I currently live in the midwest and previously lived in 2 major East Coast cities and also spent some time in the Triangle in NC. Pittsburgh is MUCH more similar to the east coast metro centers than to the midwest. And if you don't believe me, I defy you to live in the midwest and find out for yourself (you won't, because the lifestyle in the midwest is VERY different than what you like about living in Pittsburgh). And if that doesn't convince you that Pittsburgh is not midwestern, see: hills.

Side note: tailgating at Heinz Field is actually great. Many heralded B1G tailgates are just big open fields with nothing around but cornfields and the stadium. There's a million things to do on the Northside and downtown before, during and after a game that make it so much more exciting (and in many ways, more convenient) to tailgate at Heinz.

Anyway, my whole point is that, even though a hypothetical scenario where Pitt joins the B1G would mean I could attend a lot more games, I sincerely hope they find a way to be profitable, relevant, and successful in the ACC or a similarly aligned conference.