Despite failure ticket sales on par with previous years

Although former Pitt football head coach Todd Graham’s “high octane” offense tanked last…Although former Pitt football head coach Todd Graham’s “high octane” offense tanked last season, it appears season ticket sales for this year continue to cruise right along.

E.J. Borghetti, Pitt’s senior associate athletic director of media relations, said in an email that season ticket sales haven’t dipped, despite back-to-back underachieving seasons.

“Regular-season tickets continue to sell at a good pace and at a rate comparable to the two previous seasons,” Borghetti said, noting that Pitt’s athletic department doesn’t disclose numerical figures for season ticket sales.

After generating a great deal of enthusiasm among Pitt fans before the beginning of last season, Graham struggled to adapt his no-huddle offense to a Pitt roster comprised of players fit for former Pitt head football coach Dave Wannstedt’s offense, resulting in a disappointing six-win-and-seven-loss season.

In January, Graham left Pitt for Arizona State University citing family concerns, becoming the third coach to leave Pitt in two years. Additionally, this year’s football schedule includes home games against Youngstown State University and Gardner-Webb University — both of whom play at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision level, a classification for smaller colleges.

But the hiring of former Wisconsin offensive coordinator Paul Chryst appears to have re-energized Pitt’s downtrodden fan base.

Students who purchase a season ticket package receive a voucher entitling them to one free T-shirt at Pitt Stop, a seller of Pitt merchandise at the corner of Forbes Avenue and Bigelow Boulevard. The store’s owner, Chas Bonasorte, said he’s witnessed unprecedented success with the Panther Pitt promotion this year.

“We’re giving away 11,000 free shirts here on the corner in conjunction with the athletic department, with the free season tickets, and last year, two days before the game, we’ll have doubled giving out the [T-shirts],” Bonasorte said. “We’ve given out five- or six-thousand shirts already.”

Bonasorte also said the involvement of Pitt’s Student Government Board’s Traditions Committee in relaunching the Panther Pitt student section has helped generate enthusiasm among members of Pitt’s student body.

The Panther Pitt is a revival of a student football fan group that existed between 2002 and 2006. The group has begun a social media campaign in hopes of generating school spirit and increasing attendance among students at the Saturday football games.

With Pitt’s first game against Youngstown State only a day away, students have appeared to put the football team’s previous two seasons behind them, and are looking forward to a new start under Chryst.

Junior Andrew Banks said he purchased season tickets this year and cares about the team’s success “to an extent,” but that he doesn’t want to have a repeat performance of last season.

For some students, the game day experience at Heinz Field, Pitt’s home stadium, outweighs the team’s on-field performance. Junior MiIsha Reid said she viewed the games as an entertaining activity on the weekends.

“I just go because everyone’s there, and I really like the band. And it’s just like a social event,” Reid said.