Got into town on Thursday afternoon. That's what I usually like to do, especially if it's an interesting locale or a place I've never been before, so you can devote a full day (in this case, Friday) to sightseeing or doing whatever.
I was staying in a suburb area not too far from the airport, a Drury Inn in an area they call "Settlers Ridge." It's the No. 1 rated hotel in Pittsburgh on Trip Advisor. It seemed like a pretty new property, rooms were functional, pretty nice and stuff, but here's what blew me away: The hotel had fiber internet. It wasn't 1 gig or aything, but for hotel wifi? Best I've ever encountered. I tested it a few times and I was getting over 125 Mbps down and 150 Mbps up. That's clutch, especially if you were doing any video work (as I was doing).
Anyway, late Thursday afternoon, I headed into downtown Pittsburgh because I wanted to go to Pitt and pick up the media credential that I'd need for Saturday. I was able to get over to Pitt without much issue. But once you get on campus, which is situated not too far from the main downtown, it's a real headache trying to drive. More on that later.
Pitt's athletic department is situated inside their big arena complex, which houses a lot more than a basketball court. It appeared to house their recreation facilities and a student food court, in addition to a team shop in the lobby and an ACC Network studio. Seemed pretty nice. I kind of illegally parked so I didn't want to linger too long.
After that, it was a gridlock nightmare everywhere around the downtown area. It would take like 10-15 minutes to travel a city block. All lanes would become jammed and you've have intersecting traffic turning in and making it even worse. Once I left the arena area, it was pretty much impossible to circle back and even just drive by other areas of campus. Once I got a clear path to just get out of the downtown area, I did, chalking it up to rush hour.
I did make it over to the stadium area just get to get a quick looksee at Heinz Field (at least the exterior) as well as the baseball stadium (PNC Park). The Pirates had played the Mariners earlier in the day. I was on the same flight as John Evans and he was going straight to the game even though he was going to be late. He knows Dylan Moore and he had left him tickets at will call.
Then at dusk, headed up to "Grandview" which is the hillside that overlooks the downtown/stadium area. There's an area to take photos, etc. Upon leaving, my rental car tire (Dodge Journey) ran over a ridged sewer grate. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but it literally popped the tire and instantly deflated it. After roadside service came (took about an hour, could have been worse), I swapped it out later that night at the airport for a Jeep Cherokee.
My photo:
Speaking of cars, Dodge products just seem crappy in general. The Cherokee was only a slight improvement over the Dodge. The glossy infotainment screen was a fingerprint magnet and could blind you depending on the angle of the sun. I know I had the long car thread during the summer, but after using Android Auto I'd never buy another car that doesn't have it. So clutch for easy navigation when you're in an unfamiliar city. Neither the Dodge or Jeep had it.
On Friday, I was initially planning on taking a closer look at the University of Pittsburgh as well as a stop at the Heinz History Center (museum). The early afternoon traffic (12 noon, 1 p.m.) was just as bad as the day before. There was some climate change protest that shut down some streets making it more difficult. I never could get even close to the Pitt campus, was encountering the same awful traffic from the day before, sitting in traffic and advancing only like 30 feet in 15 minutes, so as soon as I saw an out, I got on a bridge and got the heck out of there. I honestly thought the traffic was a lot better in Manhattan on the couple times I've driven over there.
Knowing that WVU in Morgantown was like an hour-plus away, decided to drive over there to check out their campus. UCF has played WVU twice - 2003 on the road and 2004 in the Citrus Bowl. Never went to the game 2003.
Let's just say I was underwhelmed by everything in Morgantown. Set navigation for their stadium, so that was the first stop. I understand not to judge a book by its cover, but it's probably the ugliest stadium I've ever seen from an exterior standpoint, at least one that would be considered P5. It's situated right next door to their hospital so it's basically surrounding by concrete parking lots on all sides. It looked they did some minor "beautification" with a garden and Hall of Fame displays outside. Unfortunately, it was completely locked down. Couldn't find an open gate to get inside. WVU was playing on the road at Kansas the next day.
Their football facility seemed old and lack any sort of wow factor. They do have an indoor facility that looked newer. Everything just seemed sort of run down and not well maintained, whether it was roads, landscaping, etc. Their practice field is up some hill, surrounded by brush and wild, overgrown foliage.
I only drove by their arena, but it seemed pretty old and run down as well.
Next, drove to the main part of campus which wasn't anything special. Downtown seemed old and depressing like Huntington, but maybe less so. Roads were awful, potholes everywhere. So West Virginia pretty much.
I kept on wondering to myself what the appeal of WVU (and Pitt) is for someone from Florida unless they simply want to get away from home and experience something completely different.
As for the game itself, got to the stadium around 1:30. Being a pro stadium, everybody is tailgating in a concrete parking lot, there are zero green spaces. Ran into Chez briefly. He and the fam made the drive over that morning from Philly. He's already planning ChezGate for the Temple game.
In the Sights & Sounds video I posted, you can see some of the "fan fest" type stuff they put on, not too different from UCF but on a much smaller scale. Some games for the kids, bounce house type inflatables. A band on a stage that nobody was really paying attention to. A merchandise trailer. Mascots of Dan Marino, Mike Ditka and Tony Dorsett walking around.
The most popular pregame festivity was the band doing a little concert outside of the south end zone in an area that overlooks the river.
Upon going through security, I thought it was interesting that I had to prove that my laptop actually turned on. They said it was to determine whether it was a laptop bomb or not. They barely went through my bags otherwise.
Heinz Field was similar to Raymond James Stadium in terms of setup. The pregame media buffet was legit - carving station, subs, french fires, nacho bar, cookies, brownies, etc.
Press box and radio booth were in the corner (like Ray Jay) so that suite holders have better sightlines (understandable).
Pitt announced a crowd of 42,056. I guessed 35-40K without knowing what the announced was. It was decent for my expectations, I know Pitt isn't Penn State in terms of support. The student section was very lively - lots of taunting towards UCF.
Students led the Pitt energy - didn't hear a lot from the rest of the crowd unless they were cussing out the refs.
Part of the official UCF ticket allotment included the literal worst seats in the house - upper deck end zone. Just terrible. I looked on StubHub late in the week and you could buy seats right behind the UCF bench for like $30. When UCF is playing a team in a huge stadium where tickets are cheap and plentiful on the secondary market, just wait and either buy from the school (so you know what you're getting) or do Stubhub/third party.
As a UCF administrator mentioned to me, UCF traveled way better to Pitt than a majority of ACC teams do. It's really hard to estimate because people were spread out all over the stadium, but I'm guessing the UCF crowd was around 3,000, give or take. If you were in the stadium, I'd like to hear what you thought.
UCF fans were very audible with the U-C-F chant, which several times led to Pitt fans doing an impromptu "Let's Go Pitt!" cheer to drown out the UCF fans.
It was Hall of Fame Weekend at Pitt and a couple notables were being inducted - Mark May and Johnny Majors (head coach during the glory years, before he went to Tennessee).
Although the game outcome left something to be desired for UCF fans, I'm really indifferent to ever playing Pitt again. The city itself was fine, not really a negative, but I could think of a lot of other places I'd rather visit.
I was staying in a suburb area not too far from the airport, a Drury Inn in an area they call "Settlers Ridge." It's the No. 1 rated hotel in Pittsburgh on Trip Advisor. It seemed like a pretty new property, rooms were functional, pretty nice and stuff, but here's what blew me away: The hotel had fiber internet. It wasn't 1 gig or aything, but for hotel wifi? Best I've ever encountered. I tested it a few times and I was getting over 125 Mbps down and 150 Mbps up. That's clutch, especially if you were doing any video work (as I was doing).
Anyway, late Thursday afternoon, I headed into downtown Pittsburgh because I wanted to go to Pitt and pick up the media credential that I'd need for Saturday. I was able to get over to Pitt without much issue. But once you get on campus, which is situated not too far from the main downtown, it's a real headache trying to drive. More on that later.
Pitt's athletic department is situated inside their big arena complex, which houses a lot more than a basketball court. It appeared to house their recreation facilities and a student food court, in addition to a team shop in the lobby and an ACC Network studio. Seemed pretty nice. I kind of illegally parked so I didn't want to linger too long.
After that, it was a gridlock nightmare everywhere around the downtown area. It would take like 10-15 minutes to travel a city block. All lanes would become jammed and you've have intersecting traffic turning in and making it even worse. Once I left the arena area, it was pretty much impossible to circle back and even just drive by other areas of campus. Once I got a clear path to just get out of the downtown area, I did, chalking it up to rush hour.
I did make it over to the stadium area just get to get a quick looksee at Heinz Field (at least the exterior) as well as the baseball stadium (PNC Park). The Pirates had played the Mariners earlier in the day. I was on the same flight as John Evans and he was going straight to the game even though he was going to be late. He knows Dylan Moore and he had left him tickets at will call.
Then at dusk, headed up to "Grandview" which is the hillside that overlooks the downtown/stadium area. There's an area to take photos, etc. Upon leaving, my rental car tire (Dodge Journey) ran over a ridged sewer grate. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but it literally popped the tire and instantly deflated it. After roadside service came (took about an hour, could have been worse), I swapped it out later that night at the airport for a Jeep Cherokee.
My photo:
Speaking of cars, Dodge products just seem crappy in general. The Cherokee was only a slight improvement over the Dodge. The glossy infotainment screen was a fingerprint magnet and could blind you depending on the angle of the sun. I know I had the long car thread during the summer, but after using Android Auto I'd never buy another car that doesn't have it. So clutch for easy navigation when you're in an unfamiliar city. Neither the Dodge or Jeep had it.
On Friday, I was initially planning on taking a closer look at the University of Pittsburgh as well as a stop at the Heinz History Center (museum). The early afternoon traffic (12 noon, 1 p.m.) was just as bad as the day before. There was some climate change protest that shut down some streets making it more difficult. I never could get even close to the Pitt campus, was encountering the same awful traffic from the day before, sitting in traffic and advancing only like 30 feet in 15 minutes, so as soon as I saw an out, I got on a bridge and got the heck out of there. I honestly thought the traffic was a lot better in Manhattan on the couple times I've driven over there.
Knowing that WVU in Morgantown was like an hour-plus away, decided to drive over there to check out their campus. UCF has played WVU twice - 2003 on the road and 2004 in the Citrus Bowl. Never went to the game 2003.
Let's just say I was underwhelmed by everything in Morgantown. Set navigation for their stadium, so that was the first stop. I understand not to judge a book by its cover, but it's probably the ugliest stadium I've ever seen from an exterior standpoint, at least one that would be considered P5. It's situated right next door to their hospital so it's basically surrounding by concrete parking lots on all sides. It looked they did some minor "beautification" with a garden and Hall of Fame displays outside. Unfortunately, it was completely locked down. Couldn't find an open gate to get inside. WVU was playing on the road at Kansas the next day.
Their football facility seemed old and lack any sort of wow factor. They do have an indoor facility that looked newer. Everything just seemed sort of run down and not well maintained, whether it was roads, landscaping, etc. Their practice field is up some hill, surrounded by brush and wild, overgrown foliage.
I only drove by their arena, but it seemed pretty old and run down as well.
Next, drove to the main part of campus which wasn't anything special. Downtown seemed old and depressing like Huntington, but maybe less so. Roads were awful, potholes everywhere. So West Virginia pretty much.
I kept on wondering to myself what the appeal of WVU (and Pitt) is for someone from Florida unless they simply want to get away from home and experience something completely different.
As for the game itself, got to the stadium around 1:30. Being a pro stadium, everybody is tailgating in a concrete parking lot, there are zero green spaces. Ran into Chez briefly. He and the fam made the drive over that morning from Philly. He's already planning ChezGate for the Temple game.
In the Sights & Sounds video I posted, you can see some of the "fan fest" type stuff they put on, not too different from UCF but on a much smaller scale. Some games for the kids, bounce house type inflatables. A band on a stage that nobody was really paying attention to. A merchandise trailer. Mascots of Dan Marino, Mike Ditka and Tony Dorsett walking around.
The most popular pregame festivity was the band doing a little concert outside of the south end zone in an area that overlooks the river.
Upon going through security, I thought it was interesting that I had to prove that my laptop actually turned on. They said it was to determine whether it was a laptop bomb or not. They barely went through my bags otherwise.
Heinz Field was similar to Raymond James Stadium in terms of setup. The pregame media buffet was legit - carving station, subs, french fires, nacho bar, cookies, brownies, etc.
Press box and radio booth were in the corner (like Ray Jay) so that suite holders have better sightlines (understandable).
Pitt announced a crowd of 42,056. I guessed 35-40K without knowing what the announced was. It was decent for my expectations, I know Pitt isn't Penn State in terms of support. The student section was very lively - lots of taunting towards UCF.
Students led the Pitt energy - didn't hear a lot from the rest of the crowd unless they were cussing out the refs.
Part of the official UCF ticket allotment included the literal worst seats in the house - upper deck end zone. Just terrible. I looked on StubHub late in the week and you could buy seats right behind the UCF bench for like $30. When UCF is playing a team in a huge stadium where tickets are cheap and plentiful on the secondary market, just wait and either buy from the school (so you know what you're getting) or do Stubhub/third party.
As a UCF administrator mentioned to me, UCF traveled way better to Pitt than a majority of ACC teams do. It's really hard to estimate because people were spread out all over the stadium, but I'm guessing the UCF crowd was around 3,000, give or take. If you were in the stadium, I'd like to hear what you thought.
UCF fans were very audible with the U-C-F chant, which several times led to Pitt fans doing an impromptu "Let's Go Pitt!" cheer to drown out the UCF fans.
It was Hall of Fame Weekend at Pitt and a couple notables were being inducted - Mark May and Johnny Majors (head coach during the glory years, before he went to Tennessee).
Although the game outcome left something to be desired for UCF fans, I'm really indifferent to ever playing Pitt again. The city itself was fine, not really a negative, but I could think of a lot of other places I'd rather visit.
