Revisiting Pitt Greatness
The 1980 Pitt Panthers were one of the greatest college football teams ever assembled
Bill Maas (71) photo courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh
Some of the worst moments of Bill Maas’ football life came on the practice field at Pitt when he was a freshman. Little did he realize then that the 1980 Pitt Panthers would be the best team he’d ever play on.
Maas became an All-America defensive lineman at Pitt and a first-round draft pick of the Kansas City Chiefs. He would spend the next nine NFL seasons earning a spot in the franchise’s Hall of Fame. But over those 13 seasons of football Maas played beyond high school, he never found himself surrounded by the talent of that 1980 Pitt team.
There were 29 players drafted off that roster – 26 played in the NFL and 24 of them started games. Eight of those Pitt Panthers went to Pro Bowls and four have busts in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Of the five offensive linemen selected to the first-team on the 1980s NFL all-decade team, two played for Pitt in 1980 – Russ Grimm and Jimbo Covert.
The talent on that Pitt roster is what drew a Philadelphia kid across the state to play in Pittsburgh for the Panthers.
“I got to meet most of them when I was being recruited,” Maas said. “That was a big reason why I chose to go to Pitt. They had a lot of depth and both a swagger and confidence about them. They didn’t care who they played or where they played.”
But that first week of fall practice had Maas second-guessing his choice of schools.
“Every day after our flex-and-stretch period, (Pitt coach) Jackie Sherrill made me go best out-of-three against Mark May, Russ Grimm, Jimbo Covert…” Maas recalled. “Every single day – I dreaded it. I thought Jackie was trying to take my scholarship away. So I got to see those guys up front and in person. My first year in the NFL, I played against so many people who didn’t even come close to that Pitt line.”
Covert, Grimm and May played a combined 31 NFL seasons, starting 366 games, attending seven Pro Bowls and winning six Super Bowls.
Quarterback Dan Marino, linebacker Rickey Jackson and both Covert and Grimm have busts in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Those four plus linebacker Hugh Green, safety Carlton Williamson, Maas and May went to a combined 28 Pro Bowls. Marino, Jackson and center Jim Sweeney started 200-plus NFL games and Covert, Grimm, Green, Maas, May and defensive end Greg Meisner were all in the 100-start club.
That 1980 Pitt team went 11-1 and finished No. 2 in the country. The Panthers outscored the opposition 376-134, holding nine teams to single-digit scoring.
“We were bullies,” Maas said. “We wanted to beat everyone up on the offensive and defensive lines.”
The one loss came in October at No. 11 Florida State, 36-22.
“It was really humid,” Maas said. “Guys were dying. That was a tough one.”
The Panthers closed the season with victories at Penn State (14-9) and in the Gator Bowl against South Carolina (37-9). Pitt was ranked No. 4 and Penn State No. 5 heading into their game.
“Penn State was the big one,” Maas said. “We were both ranked. They had a bunch of guys going to the NFL as well.”
South Carolina took a No. 18 ranking into the Gator Bowl. The Gamecocks were led by Heisman Trophy-winning running back George Rogers, who would become the first overall pick of the 1981 NFL draft.
”I know Jackie wasn’t real thrilled that that’s where we were going,” Maas said. “He thought we deserved better. We went down there and just dominated. We just shut down George Rogers. I hadn’t played until that point. I was frustrated. But I understood. I was a freshman. But they put me in that game and on the first play I had a quarterback sack. On my third play I blocked a field goal. Two and a half months later, on the first day of spring ball, I was starting at right end.”
Maas became the highest drafted player off that 1980 Pitt team. He was selected by the Chiefs with the fifth overall choice of the 1984 NFL draft. There were six other players from that 1980 team that became first-round draft picks – Covert went sixth overall to Chicago in 1982, Green seventh to Tampa Bay in 1981, cornerback Tim Lewis 11th to Green Bay in 1983, running back Randy McMillan 12th to the Baltimore Colts in 1981, May 20th to Washington in 1981 and Marino 27th to Miami in 1983.
Two other players became second-round picks (Jackson and Sweeney) and four became third-rounders (Grimm, Williamson, running back Joe McCall and Meisner). There was another student on the Pitt campus drafted by the NFL – but he didn’t play football. Basketball player Sam Clancy became an 11th round pick of the Seattle Seahawks in 1982 and went on to play 10 NFL seasons as a defensive end and collect 30 sacks.
Linebacker Sal Sunseri was one of the six players who earned All-America acclaim in their careers off that 1980 Pitt team. He became a 10th round draft pick of the Steelers in 1982 but suffered a career-ending knee injury in his first NFL training camp.
Wide receiver Willie Collier led the 1980 Panthers with 32 receptions, averaging 17.4 yards per catch with six touchdowns. He went undrafted in 1981 but signed and was eventually cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers in training camp. But Collier resurrected his career in the USFL and was a key contributor on the two-time champion Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars, catching 142 career passes with 13 touchdowns.
The 1980 team abounded with greatness … but the greatest was Green.
“Hugh was the best athlete,” Maas said. “In today’s NFL, he would be unbelievable. He’d be a matchup problem, because he was a little bit undersized but was cat quick, a cross between a linebacker and a safety. He did things that you just said, `Wow.’”
Green was a four-time Big East selection and a two-time unanimous All-America. He won the Walter Camp, Lombardi and Maxwell awards as the top defender in college football in 1980.
Jimmy Johnson – yes, that same Jimmy Johnson who won two Super Bowls as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame – was the defensive coordinator at Pitt when Green arrived on campus in 1977.
“The very first practice, we’re in shorts,” Johnson recalled. “I had a senior outside linebacker starting. But then I saw Hugh Green out there running and jumping. The next practice I switched them. I made Hugh the starter and moved the senior to the other side. Then in the third week of the season he (senior) gets hurt, so I put this other freshman in there. Rickey Jackson made 10 tackles that day and ended up starting the rest of the year.”
During the summer between his freshman and sophomore seasons, rather than go back home to Mississippi, Green lived with the Johnson family in Pittsburgh. When Johnson was named the head coach at Oklahoma State in 1979, Green wanted to follow him to Stillwater. In fact, he spent the summer between his sophomore and junior seasons living with the Johnson family in Oklahoma.
“The bulk of the (Pitt) staff came with me to Oklahoma State – (Dave) Wannstedt, (Ton) Wise, (Bob) Leahy, (Larry) Holton – and Hugh wanted to transfer,” Johnson recalled. “Jackie (Sherrill) was calling down here every other day. I told him, `Hugh, you’re up for all kinds of awards, you’re on a great team and you’re in the running for the Heisman Trophy and everything else. We’re on probation here in Stillwater. We’re not going to be on television and it’s not fair for you. I’m not going to let you transfer.’”
So Green returned to Pittsburgh to finish off one of the greatest college careers ever by a defensive player. This year The Associated Press named him as a starting defensive end on the all-time college football team. The Panthers have retired Green’s jersey number 99.
Green collected 53 sacks at Pitt. He never achieved the heights in the NFL that he did in college because of injuries. His 1984 season ended after eight games because of a car wreck and his 1986 season ended after three games because of a knee injury. Still, Green played 11 NFL seasons and went to two Pro Bowls.
Players off that 1980 Pitt team played a combined 174 NFL seasons and 2,236 games, starting 1,625 of them. Grimm and Williamson won three Super Bowls apiece, Grimm with the Redskins and Williamson the 49ers. May won two Super Bowls with the Redskins and Covert and Jackson one apiece, Covert with the Bears and Jackson the 49ers.
Not a single player from that 1980 Pitt team came from west of the Mississippi and 37 of them were from Pennsylvania, including Covert, Grimm, Maas and Marino. Pitt would go on to be ranked in the Top 20 every year from 1980 through 1983, finishing fourth in 1981, 10th in 1982 and 18th in 1983. The Panthers have finished in the Top 20 only six times in the 41 years since then – and never higher than 13th.
The 2025 Panthers open their season Saturday against Duquesne.
