How are we going to start this week’s “U mad, bro?”

With me being mad. That’s how.

I was mad because I got locked out of my email. My stupid password expired. Why do they make me update that thing so often?!

So I couldn’t get to my usual material for “U mad, bro?”

But fret not. Twitter, Facebook and the comments section of my columns gave me plenty of ammunition.

More than I ever needed.

Michael replied to my podcast with Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News. In it, I referred to the ACC as being “terrible,” and I implied that the weak conference has allowed Pitt to stay afloat near .500.

That offended Michael. And no one does “offended” better than Pitt fans.

“Tim, your Pitt hate always is on display. The ACC is down by its impeccable standards, but far from terrible. Duquesne would finish in last place in that league if you want to compare that to the A-10. Pitt is staying afloat because they are improving game by game and steadily over the last two years.”

Let’s go through Michael’s stereotypical “any media member who didn’t attend Pitt, hates Pitt” paranoia. Point by point.

The school I attended is Syracuse. An ACC institution.

And I freely admit that the Orange aren’t all that good either this year. Yet somehow they are above .500 in conference play. The conference is keeping them afloat, too, Michael.

It’s not just my opinion. DeCourcy said the ACC is on the verge of being “historically bad.” He only had five teams in his current tournament bracket from the conference as of Tuesday, and two of them are in the “First Four” games.

Now, as far as equating Duquesne to the worst team in the ACC, I don’t know. Have you seen Wake Forest play this year? I mean, aside from beating Pitt, of course.

Look, no one is debating that Jeff Capel is getting Pitt better. He is. Negative commentary about the conference isn’t negative commentary about Pitt’s trajectory.

But, why should I bother differentiating? That doesn’t matter. You want to be aggrieved.

It wouldn’t be a Pitt response if it didn’t imply that somehow the school was being wronged by a media agenda.

Death. Taxes. And Pitt fans being too sensitive.

About everything.

Matt tweeted about the Hall of Fame induction debate over Barry Bonds.

Rose should go in before Bonds.

— Matt Furjanic Jr. (@MattFurjanicJr) January 22, 2020

OK.

Alan Faneca and Troy Polamalu should go in before both of them.

I wrote about the Browns’ plans to hire Bill Callahan as an offensive line coach onto the staff of first-time head coach Kevin Stefanski.

Steve thinks that’s a bad idea.

Not sure hiring “former head coaches” is a great idea for “new head coaches.” I think they are great for “veteran head coaches” that are clearly in control.

That being said, I’d bet Bill Callahan is as “professional” as it gets. Would have been a good hire by @steelers

— Steve Jericho (@3dirtymartinis) January 21, 2020

Good point, Steve.

Like, remember the disaster that happened when the Steelers assigned Dick LeBeau to Mike Tomlin’s first staff as defensive coordinator?

Pfft! I mean, nothing good came of that situat….

Wait a minute.

Mark commented during this week’s Madden-Benz Unfiltered Facebook Live stream (Mondays, 9:30 a.m.). He’s got some angst toward how Major League Baseball handled the Houston Astros cheating scandal.

“MLB should’ve dissolved the Astros Single A teams and had the other teams draft those guys.”

What does that do, Mark?

A lot of those guys were in high school and college when the 2017 season was happening. The future of the team has already been damaged by the league pulling first-round and second-round draft choices in 2020 and 2021.

The notion of dispersing A-ball prospects is silly.

If there is more discipline to be handed out, it should be at the specific players on the Houston roster back in 2017.

And that’s not going to work either. It would be too drawn-out, imprecise and impractical of a process.

Chuck chimed in during that stream as well. He’s a bit twisted about how Penguins fans jeered Matt Murray on Sunday.

“Embarrassed by the booing of Murray. I remembered when the fans cheered when Bradshaw got hurt because he was having a bad game!”

When it comes to showing off your sports talk credentials, “I was there when Bradshaw got booed” is somewhere between “I was there when Maz hit the homer” and “I was there before Mario even got drafted” on the ladder of proving your Pittsburgh bona fides.

Chuck, if you are trying to use your age to reflect your experience and wisdom, do better.

Because booing Bradshaw after getting hurt is much worse than a little mock applause after a few early goals.

However, to your greater point, I tend to agree. I don’t usually see how mocking your own players from the seats helps them do better.

As I wrote on Tuesday, though, I really don’t care how the fans responded to Murray. They can do what they want.

What I care about is how he responds to them. That’s part of the reason why I want to see him in the crease when the team returns to action.

Finally, John wants to know why I’m so mad all the time.

What went wrong Tim?

— John (@johnvstheworld) January 22, 2020

What went wrong?

Well, let’s see, first the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came. But then they got too big and fat. So they all died and turned to oil.

And then Twitter was invented. And I checked my mentions.

Any other questions?

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