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Bowl Game Lineups: Pitt Overlooked For Other Big East Bowls

Pitt is certainly glad they’re headed somewhere for the college football postseason, but the team dropped to the BBVA Compass Bowl Game after they were unable to land a spot in a more lucrative contest.

The Trib-Review reports that the Panthers were interested in a few other bowls instead, but were passed over:

Pitt officials were in discussions throughout the day with officials from ESPN and the other, richer bowls with Big East ties, but the Pinstripe ($3.6 million), Belk ($3.4 million) and Liberty ($2.875 million) chose schools with better records.

Rutgers (8-4) will play Iowa State in the Pinstripe at Yankee Stadium, Louisville (7-5) will meet N.C. State in the Belk in Charlotte, N.C., and Cincinnati (9-3) will face Vanderbilt in the Liberty in Memphis, Tenn. West Virginia (9-3) earned the conference’s BCS bid and will face Clemson in the Orange Bowl.

Pitt also had interest in the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl ($1.075 million) in St. Petersburg, Fla., because the Panthers have never played in that game. But that bowl has a contract with Conference USA and opted to select Marshall to pair with Florida International.

Any bowl, of course, is better than no bowl, but Pitt’s 6-6 record definitely scared some teams off. And when you throw in the Panthers’ poor travel history for bowl games, Pitt simply wasn’t all that attractive an option.

Photographs by dizfunk used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.