Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh predates the Steelers. Pop Warner built an early dynasty here. Jock Sutherland's teams won national titles in the 1930s. The program wore blue and gold before the NFL franchise existed in the city, and it helped invent what Western Pennsylvania football looks like — physical, working-class, built to finish. Tony Dorsett's 1976 Heisman season and consensus national championship are the program's defining glory; Dan Marino throwing from the same stadium a few years later put the program in a different category of heritage. Pitt is not a fallen program asking to be remembered — it is an old power the sport has chosen to forget, which is a different and more irritating condition.

Pat Narduzzi has been here for eleven years. The 2021 ACC championship — 11 wins, Kenny Pickett as a Heisman finalist — was the moment that broke the silence, proof the old power could still win a conference title in the modern era. The years since have been 7-9 win seasons and Backyard Brawl losses to West Virginia, the kind of record that satisfies no one who grew up watching Dorsett's number retired at Acrisure Stadium. The 2025 season's headline wasn't the final record — 8-5, a Military Bowl loss to East Carolina — it was October, when true freshman Mason Heintschel took over at quarterback and threw for 423 yards in a 53-34 win over NC State. A freshman who wasn't heavily recruited breaking a program passing record in his fourth collegiate start, in the middle of the season, is either the signal the fanbase has been waiting for or a very good single game. 2026 will determine which.

The question the 2026 schedule will answer: is Heintschel the quarterback that ends the long wait for relevance in an ACC that Pitt has beaten once at the conference level in the modern era? The Narduzzi loyalty/Narduzzi fatigue fracture runs on exactly this — credit him for finding the freshman, or demand more than 8-win seasons from a program with nine claimed national titles. Either way, the Panthers play at Acrisure Stadium, on the Allegheny, in the same colors as the city — and the heritage the country keeps forgetting is still in the record books.