Notre Dame football returns in 68 days! Don’t miss today’s countdown as we look back on a rivalry that has been played, well, 68 times.
Another day down and just 68 more to go until we get Notre Dame football officially back in our lives. We’ll be breaking down plenty of position battles, starting spots and everything regarding the 2020 Fighting Irish football team.
Day 69 looked back at a recent Notre Dame All-American who made a game changing defensive play in a win over a then top-fifteen team. Now we move to 68 and an opponent who has come up here fairly often in recent weeks.
68: Total meetings all-time between Notre Dame and Pitt in football
I never think of Pitt as one of Notre Dame’s biggest rivals, probably because in my lifetime I can count on one hand how many times the Panthers have finished a season ranked in the top 25.
However, Notre Dame and Pitt have been playing nearly forever and the series has included some incredible moments even if the Panthers haven’t been a national championship contender like they were in the Dan Marino and Tony Dorsett days.
Notre Dame has dominated those 68 games, winning 47 of them and never losing more than three straight meetings in any point of the series that dates back all the way to 1930.
The series has had plenty of memorable moments, like when Allen Pinkett helped Notre Dame get a win at No. 1 Pitt in 1982, the 2012 comeback win that somehow kept Notre Dame’s unbeaten season alive or the 2018 thriller that again, somehow kept Notre Dame’s unbeaten season alive.
The most iconic moment in the history of this rivalry however may have happened when a pair of teams who finished the year a combined 16-10, battled to a three overtime game on the first day of November in 2008.
After blowing a 17-3 and being forced to overtime, Notre Dame played host to one of the more embarrassing moments for a grounds crew in sports history.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bU7wOJb58o&w=560&h=315]
The only thing worse was eventually losing that game and stumbling to a 7-6 final record after a promising 4-1 start.
They may not be on the schedule even close to annually anymore and they may not be in the national championship picture often, but the Notre Dame/Pitt rivalry continues to provide memorable moments all these years later and is the game that scares me the most in terms of an upset entering the 2020 season.
