I recently ran into a University of Pittsburgh alum. He’s in his mid 30s. Unlike some Pitt alumnae I know, who have grown up, this guy still believes a football rivalry exists between Pitt and Penn State.

Sorry, Pitt Guy, but it’s time to face reality.

Your team hasn’t earned the right to be mentioned in the same breath as a program like Penn State, let alone be considered a rival of the Nittany Lions. To earn that right, you need to put the work in. You need to have built something called a winning tradition.

Pitt Guy even went so far as to say Joe Paterno is an overrated coach.

Well, I must say, he’s no Dave Wannstedt, but I think JoePa is pretty good.

Even though he is past his prime, Paterno is neck-and-neck with Bobby Bowden on the all-time career wins list. He built Penn State — not only the football program, but the university — into a treasured institution by building a winning tradition that has brought in fans, notoriety, respect and money.

“Twelve nothing.”

That’s what Pitt Guy said. That’s what every Pitt Guy says, as if that ends the conversation (a conversation which never should have begun in the first place — like getting cornered by a Hare Krishna or a telemarketer). 12-0. As if that’s the end-all, be-all.

“That was the score the last time Pitt and Penn State played, and Pitt won,” Pitt Guy said.

And?

That was 2000. Penn State also lost to USC that year. Does that mean USC and Penn State are rivals?

Not to mention, Pitt might have been able to beat Notre Dame last season, as bad as the Irish were. Would that have meant Pitt’s program is on par with Notre Dame’s legendary program? Would that have meant they’re suddenly rivals?

Face it, Pitt Guy, when you walk around in Happy Valley, no one cares a whiff about Pitt. That’s because your school’s football team is irrelevant, at least when it comes to big-time football. So, sometimes you’ve beaten Penn State … so what!

Pitt has a great football history — four consensus national championships, alumnae such as Marino, Dorsett and Ditka — but that’s exactly what it is: history.

Pittsburgh hasn’t won a consensus national title in 32 years and hasn’t been in contention for one in 27 years. In fact, 1981 was the last time Pitt lost fewer than three games in a season.

In contrast, in Paterno’s 42 years as head coach, Penn State has had just five losing seasons. Pitt has had five losing seasons since 1996 (and 10 since 1990).

Under Paterno, Penn State has won two national championships and has a case for many more — considering Paterno’s Nittany Lions have gone undefeated five times, had seven one-loss seasons and won at least 11 games 14 times.

Sure, it might be nice if Pitt and Penn state were state rivals, but it just ain’t happening. Are Pitt and Temple rivals? After all, they’re both city schools in the two biggest cities in the state. Maybe I’ll just declare to you, Pitt Guy, that Temple is now your rival.

No? Doesn’t sound good? I don’t want to hear it. Temple is your rival, and I’ll get mad at you if you say otherwise. (That’s how Pitt fans behave toward Penn State people.)

If Pittsburgh could be counted on to be a bowl contender every year, or merely competitive on a national level every few years, maybe a rivalry with Penn State could develop (or, in the minds of some, be rekindled). Maybe. But Pittsburgh hasn’t even accomplished that level of success. Why should Penn State care about you? Why should Paterno keep scheduling you? Simply because you want him to?

Look, Pitt Guy (especially the completely irrational “Western Pa. Pitt Guy”), it is tragically obvious you have an inferiority complex about your school compared to Penn State. You need Penn State to validate you. I’ll say it again: You need Penn State to validate you. Problem is, Penn State doesn’t need you.

Your real rival is West Virginia, whose national title hopes you destroyed at the end of last season. Be happy about that! Besides, Pitt is more of a basketball school now than a football school. You don’t consider Penn State a basketball rival, do you? Penn State would get stomped by Pitt on the hardwood.

If you wanted to go to a big-time college football school, you should have gone to a big-time college football school. In other words, you should have gone somewhere other than Pitt.

There are plenty of choices, like … oh, I don’t know … Penn State, for instance.

Have you ever been to Happy Valley on a Saturday in the fall? It’s a lot more hoppin’ than Oakland — or Heinz Field when the Steelers are renting it out to the local college.

Certainly, Penn State isn’t the perennial power it used to be, but it is still a major national program. So, Pitt Guy, stop acting like a spurned stalker. (Pitt’s touchdown chant, regardless of who the Panthers are playing, is “Penn State sucks!”) The way Pitt Guy acts toward Penn State is like me believing I have a relationship with Scarlett Johansson and then getting angry when she doesn’t know who I am.

Hey, Pitt Guy, move on already! Let it go. The hot chick doesn’t want you.

Unfortunately, being called crazy only seems to get your engine running. Reality just doesn’t get through. Reminds me of Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, when his dream girl tells him he has a one-in-a-million shot of ever being with her: 

“So you’re telling me there’s a chance!”

In other words, after all the bowl games are played, two teams would be selected to play in one more game for the ultimate crown. The idea is seen as a compromise, not quite a playoff but something close, something to appease us simple folk who like our sports decided on the field.

Problem is, a plus-one wouldn’t work either.

Sure, it might help out in some years. But all you have to do is look at the current 2007-08 season to see a plus-one would be nothing more than another inadequate BCS “tweak.”

USC, Georgia, Missouri, West Virginia and Kansas all have cases to be in a playoff that would include the winner of Monday’s game in New Orleans between LSU and Ohio State. Even if you throw out the last three teams, which lost at the end of the regular season and are perceived as weak (their main flaw is they’re not traditional powers), you’re still left with four national title contenders.

LSU, Ohio State, USC, Georgia.

After Monday’s game it will be down to three. A plus-one would solve nothing.

With several of the bowls that have been played, we’ve already begun what could be a great playoff. As Southern California coach Pete Carroll said, “It would sure be fun to keep on playing and hash this thing out.”

If you’re going to tell me with a straight face that USC and Georgia blew their chances at a national title because they lost in October, there’s this fantastic padded room I’d like to show you. College football is the only sport in which it doesn’t matter if you develop into a great team — because what you did in Week 4, when your redshirt freshman DB was still learning coverages, outweighs what you become.

Remember the movie Hoosiers? An all-time classic. Good it wasn’t about college football because that team lost early — and to lowly East Muncie High for god’s sakes!

Besides, if anyone doesn’t deserve to be in the conversation it’s Ohio State, which played one of the lightest schedules of any major team and lost its second-to-last game of the season. At least two-loss LSU played against the big boys. On the other hand, even though the Georgia Bulldogs “didn’t even win their own conference” (which suddenly figures into the BCS equation now?) they only lost one game, not two, and they played against the SEC big boys. And would you really pick against USC right now?

But forget all those debates, because they don’t really matter. 

The bottom line is we won’t get to see these teams play each other. That’s the real crime. So don’t tell me “the regular season is the playoffs,” because it obviously is not.

Even if you wanted to play sports on paper — which is never a good idea — you can’t. There is no so-and-so beat so-and-so, who lost to so-and-so, so…. Some of these teams didn’t even have common opponents.

Plenty of arguments can be made for maintaining the BCS system, but there are no good arguments against a playoff.

The notion that more football would be bad doesn’t really fly with most football fans. Logic and love of the sport seem to get in the way, especially when you’re talking about a small number of elite teams fighting it out for a national title. (Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Oh, the horror!) 

None of the tweaks and changes to the BCS system work. It was only a year ago when the BCS National Championship Game became a separate entity and already it is insufficient. But the primary goal in college football isn’t winning, it’s money. At the expense of all else. That’s why winning a major conference guarantees the money of a BCS bowl berth but not necessarily a chance to keep playing for a national crown.

Yet people with a hand in the pie are making more money than ever with the current, so-called championship game, right? And a plus-one would add to the pot. So imagine adding even more games! They could be called… The BCS Playoffs.

Ah, see it sparkle! Click your heels three times. Feel the way it rolls off your tongue.

All of a sudden, BCS would cease to be a four-letter word. The overwhelming majority of fans would be happy, and money would flow like beer on Bourbon Street.