Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi on Aug. 10 confirmed talks between his school and Penn State about a renewal of their storied rivalry in football.
“From what I hear from a little birdie, there’s been conversations about getting that game back on,” Narduzzi said in an interview with Pittsburgh sports talk radio station 93.7 The Fan.
The logistics of future schedules, however, create some possible roadblocks to the teams’ first meeting since 2019.
In its heyday, the in-state rivalry was among the most impactful in the sport. Particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, meetings regularly featured national championship implications. Then both teams joined different
conferences in the early 1990s: Pitt to the Big East in 1991 and Penn State to the Big Ten in 1993.
Annual meetings ended, and the rivalry of mostly finger pointing about who was to blame began.
Pat Narduzzi tells Pittsburgh’s 93.7 The Fan that there have been “conversations” about renewing the Penn State-Pitt rivalry:
— Basic Blues Nation (@basicblues) August 10, 2026
“There’s some conversations about maybe getting that thing going.”#WeAre #PennState pic.twitter.com/jXJJdPkmcd
There have been two four-game, home-and-home series between the schools since, first from 1997-2000, then 2016-19. Figuring out when this latest drought ends will depend on how Pitt, now in the ACC, juggles its other major rivalry with Big 12 rival West Virginia and ACC-contracted matchups with Notre Dame.
The Panthers have long had a far bigger investment in possible renewals because of their smaller ticket-buying fan base. Their only consistent sellouts of Acrisure Stadium since their move to the ACC in 2014 come when the Nittany Lions, Mountaineers or Fighting Irish are in town to add their fans to the mix.
Consequently, Pitt is scheduled with the other two schools for a decade into the future. The Backyard Brawl against West Virginia will return in 2029 and renew annually through 2036. Notre Dame returns in 2028, 2031, 2033, 2034 and 2036, per FBSchedules.
Penn State’s dance card is a lot more open. Its non-conference schedules are full through 2028, but nothing has been set beyond that. Making the assumption that Pitt would not want to face all three in the same season to create one of the most difficult non-conference schedules in the country, we can begin to narrow the scope of the talks to a few likely dates.
A two-game series from 2029-2030 makes the most sense: Pitt is also otherwise contracted with Central Florida in 2029, but that would be an easy one to back out of if Penn State is on the table. From there, 2032 and 2034 could be added to the mix if Penn State is willing to set aside its usual preference to play non-conference home-and-home series in consecutive years.
The rivals recently ended a shorter drought in men’s basketball with the announcement of a November matchup at Philadelphia’s historic Palestra, so it appears relations may be thawing a bit between athletic departments.
Former Penn State coach James Franklin preferred to keep Pitt at arm’s length. He infamously said that his 2017 win over the Panthers was “just like beating Akron,” to the understandable chagrin of the Panthers. And he regularly pointed to the Big Ten’s nine-game conference schedule as a reason to avoid adding another high leverage game to the schedule. He did not personally agree to the most recent series, which was added late in Joe Paterno’s tenure as coach in 2011.
New coach Matt Campbell may have a different perspective for a couple of obvious reasons. For one, he grew up much closer to the rivalry in Massillon, Ohio, a two-hour drive east to Pittsburgh, and played at Pitt for a season in 1998. Franklin was an Eastern Pennsylvania native.
For another, he regularly played an in-state, non-conference rivalry against Iowa during his long tenure at Iowa State. The fit may seem more natural to him than it did to Franklin. So the resumption of talks appearing to coincide with his hiring last December makes some degree of sense.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Could Pitt, Penn State renew rivalry after Pat Narduzzi confirms 'conversations'?
