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!”

Mine?

NFL commercials.

Most sports idiosyncrasies and clichés don’t really bother me. But something that often goes overlooked, and which goes beyond a pet peeve to the point that it’s insulting, is the amount of commercials TV networks jam into NFL games.

In Sunday’s playoff game between the Tennessee Titans and San Diego Chargers on CBS, for instance, there was roughly 1 hour, 18 minutes of commercials. I know because I kept track, just to see how much of my life I was wasting.

Regular season games aren’t much different. During the December 9 game between the Eagles and Giants on Fox, there was an estimated hour and 12 minutes of commercials.

NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ESPN’s Monday Night Football are the worst, often pushing 90 minutes of commercials. You could watch an entire movie in that time, or drive from Philadelphia to the Jersey shore, or enjoy a sit-down dinner at a nice restaurant — with dessert and a couple glasses of wine.

Plus, most of the commercials are shown over and over again. During the Chargers/Titans game, I saw the same car ad in four consecutive commercial breaks. Is that really necessary? (I don’t even remember which car company it was.)

It isn’t just the volume and mind-numbing repetitiveness of commercials that’s bothersome, it’s the frequency. The average NFL game has at least six commercial breaks per quarter and 24 to 30 commercial breaks per game (including halftime). Unless a team mounts a long scoring drive, rarely will you see more than five continuous minutes of football during an NFL broadcast.

Throw in the 40-second play clock, a time-out here and there, officials’ convening to discuss penalties and a couple of coach’s challenges, you’re hardly getting any actual football.

Although college football games often run longer than NFL games, commercial breaks are less frequent (excluding major bowls) and you get more actual football because the play clock is shorter (at least for now).

Baseball games are long, sometimes going four hours, but it’s not because of batters’ adjusting their gloves or other rhythmic ticks of the game, which have gone on since the inception of the sport. It is mainly because commercial breaks are so long. But at least in baseball you know when they’re coming — between innings and during pitching changes. That’s it.

For the NFL, it’s anytime. Sometimes you even miss portions of plays because the broadcast isn’t back yet. Most networks take a break after an extra point, come back for the kickoff, and then take another break. During that Eagles/Giants game, there was a stretch in which I saw one play in nine minutes. On Sunday, CBS took breaks at virtually every change of possession, including fumbles and interceptions.

And the NFL doesn’t mind networks’ doing this.

Not to mention, it’s not as if you can flip around to other games. Even on Sundays in the regular season, the most games you’ll get at once are two — unless you buy NFL Sunday Ticket, which is available on DirecTV and nowhere else.

(Maybe cable companies could agree to show NFL Network on their basic digital packages if the NFL allows them to offer Sunday Ticket. That way, everybody would win, including fans.)

I have nothing against people making a buck. But can’t the NFL and television networks cut down on the frequency and length of commercial interruptions and instead charge a little more for advertising?

Most hour-long shows, like House or Lost, run 44 minutes and incorporate 16 minutes of commercials. NFL Replay or other condensed versions of games On-Demand — which eliminate a lot of filler and run between 30 and 90 minutes — only add to the insult of what NFL viewers have to put up with on Sundays.

An average NFL game, including normal stoppages but excluding commercial breaks, would take about 105 minutes. Using the ratio of 44:16 that many hour-long shows use, NFL fans should not have to endure more than 38 minutes of commercials per game.

Instead, watching the NFL is like fighting freeway traffic for a weekender in Atlantic City.

Michael Vick pled guilty today.

Guilty.

Just two and a half years ago, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback signed a 10-year, $130 million contract. It included $37 million in guaranteed money and was the richest deal in NFL history. It didn’t include the $7 million per year he made in endorsements with companies such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Kraft and Rawlings.

To varying degrees, virtually everyone has a vice or two. It could be cigarettes, wine, pot, chocolate, or dirty movies. In Michael Vick’s secret stash was a dogfighting ring.

Today — indefinitely suspended by the NFL, dropped from his endorsement deals and at risk of losing $22 million of that once-guaranteed money — Michael Vick admitted in court, yes, I did fund dogfighting. Yes, I did kill dogs.

Because none of us has a completely clean slate, the sane among us are hesitant to judge when others get into trouble. Not to mention, Vick isn’t the first NFL player to get into trouble. The list is long.

Leonard Little of the St. Louis Rams was drunk after a party one night, got behind the wheel of a car, and killed a woman. He was arrested six years later for again driving under the influence.

Adam “Pacman” Jones of the Tennessee Titans faces charges of inciting a riot in a Las Vegas strip club that led to gunfire and left a man paralyzed.

O.J. Simpson murdered two people.

There have been cocaine charges, spousal abuse charges, tax charges, gun charges. In the last seven years alone, more than 300 NFL players have been arrested. (That’s roughly one-fifth of the league in a given season.)

But, O.J. aside, there is a fundamental difference between what most of those players arrested did — ugly as some of their crimes were — and what Michael Vick did. The difference is intent, or more specifically, a line of depravity that most people, not only in the NFL but in society, don’t ever and won’t ever cross.

That’s why many of us have absolutely no problem judging Michael Vick.

What Leonard Little did was ignorant, reckless and horrendous, but his intent was to drive home, not to kill someone. Physical assaults, as hellish as they can be, for the most part are rage and insecurity problems, not sadism. Illegal gun possession, although potentially dangerous, is a crime of stupidity.

The essence of Michael Vick’s crimes was the intent.

Mike intended to pit one dog against another in fights to the death. When Mike put nooses around dogs’ necks and strung them up in the woods, he intended for the dogs to die. When Mike held dogs’ heads under water, as the terrified animals writhed under his hands and struggled for their lives, he intended to kill them.

It was the violence, and in fact the very killing of the dogs, from which Michael Vick derived pleasure. It’s what he got off on when he dipped into his stash.

Any criminal psychologist will tell you it isn’t a giant leap, mentally and emotionally, to go from murdering animals to murdering a person. It isn’t merely the fact that dogs are man’s cute best friend that repulses us about Michael Vick’s actions. It is the fact that Vick stands at the entryway to a whole other realm of sickness.

As dumb and as infuriating and as tragic as many NFL players’ transgressions have been, you have to be pretty low on the food chain to do what Michael Vick did. That’s how many of us feel.

“I made a mistake of using bad judgment and making bad decisions,” Vick, doing his sociopathic best to appear contrite, said at a press conference after his appearance in court. “Those things just can’t happen. Dogfighting is a terrible thing, and I do reject it.”

Made a mistake?

Eating pizza when you’re on a diet is a mistake. Going through airport security with a water bottle that has a hidden compartment and mysterious resin is a mistake. Flipping off the fans in Atlanta is a mistake. Giving a girl herpes, after going to a clinic and testing positive under the name “Ron Mexico,” is pushing it but could be interpreted in the most generous and forgiving light as a possible mistake.

Bankrolling a dogfighting ring for six years and murdering dogs — that’s not a mistake. It is a way of life. It is a way of life to the point that it is who you are.

That’s who Michael Vick is. He’s a guy who couldn’t read a defense and couldn’t always put the ball between the numbers, but he could run fast, juke, and throw far. He was Mr. Potential. (“If he could just learn to run an offense and be a leader, with his speed he’d be the best ever,” his coaches said as they salivated, only to be fired later when the team underperformed.) And Vick is a guy who liked to fight and kill dogs.

The outrage over Vick is not a race thing either. Race is a factor in all walks of life every day. Racism is America’s disease, and it continues to affect lives in our country on the most basic levels. But that’s not what this is about and we all know it.

Michael Vick is not the victim.

If Peyton Manning or Tom Brady had run a dogfighting ring and killed dogs, the outrage would be just as prolific, perhaps more so. PETA would still be right there on the footsteps of federal court. Endorsement companies would still scramble to distance themselves. The NFL would still come down hard to make a statement. It would be scandalous.

For defenders of Vick, it certainly could be a class thing. But more than that, it’s a humanity thing. What Michael Vick did was inhumane. That’s who he is.

That’s why many of us get angry when we see players, former players and members of the media offer critiques of Vick’s somber apology. They tell us “It was suprising” … “It was what he needed to do” … “It seemed very sincere” … and, my favorite, “It wasn’t scripted because he wasn’t reading from a piece of paper.” They forget the depraved deliberateness of his crimes as well as his attempts just days ago to lie and cover up.

Why would anyone believe Vick is sincere now?

People in the media, who either don’t have time or don’t take the time to seriously think about what they’re saying to millions of viewers and listeners, are analyzing Vick’s P.R. campaign as if it’s synonymous with his personal rehabilitation — much like equating a political horserace to a candidate’s actual ability to govern. People are forgetting that this wasn’t just another sad screwup by an NFL player. People are forgetting about Vick’s intent, which speaks volumes about him as a person.

There was no fall from grace for Michael Vick, just ebbs and flows and tidal waves in public perception. Through college at Virginia Tech, through the richest contract in NFL history, through the endorsements, through the children of all races who looked up to him, through making the playoffs, through not making the playoffs, through the coaches who mistakenly put their careers in his hands, through the deliberate passing of an STD, Michael Vick has always been the same guy.

Try as he may — with lawyers, public apologies, fake sincerity, and sudden invocations of Jesus — you can’t buy a conscience. Just like you can’t grow one in jail or during a courthouse press conference. Don’t let him soft-sell you into believing otherwise.

Like he always tried to tell us, he’s just plain old Mike.