Pitt Football: More Schedule Analysis

by CardiacHill on Mar 7, 2026 11:00 AM EST in Pitt Football

Last week, I broke down Pitt's football schedule over at SB Nation Pittsburgh. Later in the week, ESPN.com's Brian Bennett did the same.

He sees the end of the non-conference schedule as a big test for Pitt:

Gut-check time: The final three nonconference games. No one in the Big East is playing a harder out-of-league schedule, with three tough BCS opponents (Utah is in the Pac-12 now, and Notre Dame is for all intents and purposes an AQ team). Playing Iowa, Notre Dame, South Florida and Utah in a five-game span is as difficult a stretch as any league team will see in 2011.

We'll know a lot more about the Pitt team after those two games than we'll know after the opening two games against Buffalo and Maine. Utah at home will be a tough game, but even if Pitt goes flat against Iowa and/or Notre Dame, they have games against Rutgers and South Florida to try to regroup before Utah.

Bennett points out that Pitt again has the toughest non-conference schedule in the Big East. I haven't looked at the others yet, so I'm not sure how accurate that is. But with this schedule, I'd say that 3-2 would be a fair record in the non-con and 4-1 would be a great one.

5-0? Sorry, don't see it.

Poll

How will Pitt fare in the non-conference games?

Panthers Fan Confidence Poll

Last tallied on 03/02.

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the BE kind of screwed them with a conference game Thursday game after a Saturday game. Especially with Notre Dame the Sat. game(and South Florida has UTEP).
Going to be hard to start 1-0 in the conference.
You would think the conference would want the teams to be at their best in an ESPN showdown.

by nole9 on Mar 7, 2026 9:10 PM EST reply actions