College Football Insider Predicts Where Pitt Falls in Realignment

Action Network's Brett McMurphy believes the Pitt Panthers will be attractive to the coming super leagues.

PITTSBURGH -- May is typically a quiet time in the college football calendar. Spring football is long gone, fall training camp is months away and barring any major moves in the transfer portal, everyone can enjoy a lazy summer. But that has not been the case the past two seasons, as conference realignment heats up and threatens to leave teams like the Pitt Panthers on the outside looking in at the highest levels of the sport. 

Pitt's conference, the ACC, appears to be bursting at the seams, with roughly half of the league reportedly looking for ways to break the grant of rights agreement and pursue membership in a bigger, richer league. So where does that leave the Panthers? Action Network's Brett McMurphy tried to answer that question in an appearance on 937 The Fan this week. 

“Hello, Big 12," McMurphy said about what Pitt's next move could be. 

Like most in the industry, he sees college sports heading towards an increasingly more polarized world with the Big 10 and SEC separating themselves through obscene advantages in wealth. Where Pitt fits into that picture depends almost entirely on how attractive a television product they are. An ACC title, consecutive ranked finishes and a New Year's Six Bowl Game appearance help their case but it's still murky at best.

That said, McMurphy believes that Pitt has enough weight behind it in terms of tradition and national prestige, combined with a current upward trajectory to make them a candidate for relegation to one of those super leagues. 

“I think it’s desirable. It’s not an Alabama or a Texas or a USC but then again, who is?" McMurphy said. "But ... the No. 1 metric right now is your value to the TV networks and I don’t specifically know where Pitt ranks in that whole totem pole listing of schools, but I think they would be in the upper half.”

McMurphy sees the Big 10 as the most likely landing spot for Pitt. Regional integrity is still somewhat important to the conference and he added that there's a chance bringing West Virginia along with them could make for an attractive package deal. 

Worst case scenario, McMurphy thinks Pitt could go join the growing Big 12 along with some of its old pals from the Big East like Syracuse and Boston College, but that they still have as good a chance as any of those in a second tier below the Clemson's and Florida State's of the ACC of landing on their feet in a super conference. 

“I think Pitt would be fine in this musical chairs of conference realignment if the Big 10 or SEC got up to 24 schools but there’s no guarantee either way," McMurphy siad. 

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