Don’t leave Heinz Field before the final whistle

Pitt’s football team nearly pulled off a stunning comeback Saturday afternoon behind the… Pitt’s football team nearly pulled off a stunning comeback Saturday afternoon behind the efforts of quarterback Tyler Palko. Despite being faced with terrible field position and a stagnant offense through the first three quarters of their contest with Nebraska, the Panthers were only one desperation pass away from erasing a 24-7 deficit and sending the game into overtime.

It’s too bad that most of their fellow students in the crowd didn’t feel the need to stick around for it.

Take this as a message to the student “fan” section at football games because, in my mind, Saturday was inexcusable. Students may think this year’s team is down and that coaching changes are needed, but until these students start showing the support that the program needs, their opinion is nullified by the many disappointments I witnessed this weekend.

The very fact that Heinz Field was not sold out simply boggles my mind. Pitt was playing Nebraska, a program ranked third on the all-time NCAA wins list, easily Pitt’s best non-conference game of the season. The game was even nationally televised by ABC, exposure that Pitt’s program may need more than ever to recruit the kind of players that will get it back to the level fans want.

OK, so even though some nosebleed seats were vacant, surely students would be fighting for the front row seats well before the noon kickoff rolled around, right?

Apparently getting to a game on time is too much to ask of Pitt students, even when they pay obscenely low season-ticket prices. The section wasn’t even completely full at the start of the game, a game that Pitt and head coach Walt Harris absolutely needed to win. Some consider this to be a make-or-break year for Harris, and a win over Nebraska would have helped his cause tremendously.

Was the noon kickoff too early for students to get up? Is Nebraska not a worthy enough opponent? I just don’t understand why Heinz Field wasn’t sold out and the student section flowing like the ketchup bottles atop the scoreboard.

For those who went to the game, either early or right after kickoff, I applaud you because you still made an effort to actually support your team, and there is no substitute for that. And to those who stayed for the entire game, I applaud you once more for sticking with your team through frustration. But to those of you who left early, I have nothing positive to say.

The Panthers trailed by two touchdowns in the third quarter when many of these “fans” started to crawl out of the gates of Heinz Field quicker than Marcus Furman returned a 96-yard kickoff for a touchdown. I felt like I was back in my hometown of Syracuse watching fans race out of the dome.

It’s no wonder the offense played a lot of unmotivated series on offense; how much motivation can one get from glaring at empty rows of yellow seats? Maybe Pitt fans forgot who the Panthers were playing, but a 24-10 score is not worthy of giving up, especially since, 10 years ago, Nebraska would have never even bothered coming to Pittsburgh to play the Panthers.

I admit it was difficult to watch for most of the game, but how can fans honestly criticize coach Harris and the program itself when they are not even willing to stick around and support the team? Even more, how can they even call themselves fans?

This goes double for students, who are supposed to be the voice of the crowd and the reason for teams having home-field advantage.

With the number of Nebraska fans almost equaling the number of Pitt students at the game, the home-field advantage was given away quickly, and nothing can help a visiting team more — especially one running an offense it isn’t comfortable with — than a quiet atmosphere. Pitt could have won that game, but with the crowd taking themselves out of the game, literally, it’s unbelievable that the Panthers could still muster up the courage to almost tie the game up.

This message doesn’t apply to all fans because there are some out there who come to every game, cheer for the Panthers until the final whistle blows, and even applaud the team as they leave the field. But to those who don’t, take note of these fans. Also, remember that Pitt football was a lot worse in the ’90s, when Pitt didn’t have a winning season the whole decade. And while Pitt may be fighting to duplicate last year’s record, the program is still elevated from the pre-Walt Harris era.

So please, if you are going to go to the rest of the Pitt football games, stay until the end or give your ticket to somebody who will. The Panthers need even more of your support in the coming weeks when the Big East kicks off, and, with the Big East being down, this is as good an opportunity for the Panthers as any, even without Larry Fitzgerald.

Geoff Dutelle is a staff writer for the Pitt News and knows what it is like for his team to lose heartbreaker after heartbreaker… he is, after all, a Bills fan. E-mail him at gmd8@pitt.edu.