There is an unprecedented level of apathy amongst PITT fans. There aren't a lot of us to begin with, but I've never seen it this bad. It's like a family that looks normal on the outside, nice house, two cars, go to church every Sunday, etc...but then once you are inside the house Daddy slaps Mommy at the dineer table, Little Johnny sits in his room with the lights out thinking about stabbing the neighbor's cat with a screwdriver while his sister is cutting herself in the bathroom.
First and foremost, 75% of PITT fans DESPISE AD Steve Pederson. Not simply dislike, I'm talking Hammas/Israel stuff here. These fans would rather not support the program at all or do the absolute bare minimum in order to keep their booster status hoping that they can put enough pressure on the administration to fire Pederson. To this group, EVERYTHING Pederson does is wrong. This dates back to his first stint as AD in the '90's. He is to blame for us no longer wearing the old script helmets, tearing down PITT Stadium, hiring bad coaches, causing malaria, space shuttle disasters, etc... This is a very insidious group and are loud about their displeasure. Conversely, NOTHING Pedersoon does is right. When we got into the ACC, this group was ecstatic but gave no credit to Pederson. Building the brand new basketball facility and the subsequent success of that program? Not due to anything Pederson did. Brand new baseball, softball and soccer complex? Pederson sat by idle with a dumb look on his face while others swooped in to get the deal done. Seeing a trend?
After the past three seasons where we've had no fewer than six head coaches either full-time or interim, which began with the firing of a coach (Wannstedt) who was VERY POPULAR with this group, the replacement being arrested for beating his baby mama; and the ignominious departure of Todd Graham after one season as our head coach, the feelings of rage of the 75% were only inflamed more. This morning on our Rivals board there are people actually proselytizing that the reason WVU is so good is because Pederson is so inept as an AD. What we are seeing now are these people simply giving up on thefootball program until Pederson is fired.
These people imagine a "PITT Guy" riding in on a white stallion, taking the AD position for free and magically making an on-campus stadium appear while the 1976 team storms out onto the field wearing old mustard and blue colors with PITT script on the helmet, steel mill belching smoke in the background while the sound of Styx bellows through the air from a transister radio. To these petulant man-babys, Pederson is anathema.
Honestly, Pederson is average as an AD. He has done a lot of good things to bring our program into the 21st century, but has had his share of blunders as well. But, none of this will ever stop me from attending PITT football games yet I am but one person. The vast majority of PITT fans are older due to how good we were in the '70's and early 80's. PITT has been everything from abjectly awful to a little better than average since then and lost an entire generation of potential fans. Combine this with the bandwagon nature of Pittsburghers who didn't graduate from PITT but would watch a good PITT team given the option, yet PITT defecates on the sheets at seemingly any and every opportunity to go to "the next level" and grab these fans...
...and you get "150 tops" as mentioned above.
