The disrespect thing is nothing new at Pitt, which was once snubbed from bowl participation even as it ended up finishing ranked third in the country in the old UPI (coaches) poll. That would be 1963, when some oddities associated with the end of that season, including a week's worth of games postponed in late November due to the assassination of JFK, didn't properly mesh with the awarding of bowl bids. John Michelosen's 9-1 Panthers powerhouse was thus left hoping for Army to upset Roger Staubach's Navy in one of the all-time Commander-in-Chief's classics won in harrowing fashion by the Mids, who instead earned the right to face top-ranked Texas in the Cotton Bowl. (There weren't a plethora of Famous Idaho Potato and Quick Lane-like bowls to extend invites in those days.) That would be it for the Panthers for the next decade, becoming the Rip Van Winkles of college football before Johnny Majors arrived from Iowa State and recruited a RB named Tony Dorsett. The rest, as they say, is history.
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