Here is a quick look at the inside Pitt football fan’s heads done by our commenter Hobie…

The more I read the Pitt POV, the more I realize that the blog’s articles and fellow POVers’ comments reflect my dual psyche about Pitt football. Reading the POV is like reading my own mind. Maybe it’s like reading yours too. Let me explain.

I really enjoyed Dr. Tom’s article: Preaching to a Tough Congregation.  Revisiting past great players (Ditka, Dorsett, Marino, Fitzgerald and more recent ones too) and victories against long time opponents West Virginia, Penn State and Notre Dame was wonderful. The past three to four decades are not all discomfort and yoi.  I expect Pitt will have more great players and nationally significant victories in the future, maybe even the near future.

When I read GC’s article: Power is Everything, I scratched my head as GC seems to be doing wondering about the excellence of current recruits and the quality of the depth of the supporting players.  I think we play a challenging enough schedule.  Remaining healthy, who knows?  GC concludes by drinking, not to the present, not to the future, but to the past Pitt greats who’ll be enshrined in Canton.  Skoal, GC.

These articles seem to be the two sides of the Pitt football coin.  If I have misinterpreted the intentions of either author, I apologize.  The interpretations are mine, but they show my dual psyche.  I both celebrate Pitt football and am wary of it.  You too?

I see these same conflicting ideas – optimistic (seeing victories worth celebrating and hoping for the future) and pessimistic (seeing celebratory victories as “lucky” aberrations and expecting the mediocrity to continue) – repeated continually throughout the comment chains on the POV, no matter what the article.

I know there are great players and highlight victories to celebrate over the past three to four decades and I realize there are some great players and victories to come.  I also seem to be conditioned by our decades of mediocrity at best to expect the worst.  This out of my frustration and disappointment from hoping for the best.  You too?

Perhaps you too have a dual psyche.  Are we not all in the same boat – optimist and pessimist?  Don’t the pessimists, deep down, hope the optimists are right?  Don’t the optimists, deep down, fear the pessimists are right?  That’s my dual psyche. Yours too?

I believe this dual psyche is called cognitive dissonance.  Cognitive dissonance, as I understand it, states that one can’t hold two contradictory ideas at the same time, for long.  One of the ideas has to change or somehow they must be reconciled.  I can’t both celebrate Pitt football and be wary of it.  I don’t see the reconciliation.  Something must change.

I hope it’s the Pitt football program changing for the best.  But I fear ….  and if I no longer have hope for the future, can I remain a fan?  Yoi and double yoi.  I’m a tortured soul.

You too?

Hobie