Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson has held plenty of news conferences over the years, but few brought him as much joy as Tuesday, when, standing in the Hall of Fame room from Pitt's UPMC South Side complex, he announced that Pitt and Penn State have signed an agreement to play a two-game series in 2016 and 2017.

Penn State will play at Heinz Field on Sept. 10, 2016, and the Panthers will play at Beaver Stadium on Sept. 16, 2017.

It will mark the first time the two teams have played each other since 2000, when the Panthers, led by heralded freshman Rod Rutherford's long touchdown reception, beat the Nittany Lions, 12-0.

Pederson said that the renewal of the series is an exciting development not just for fans at both Pitt and Penn State, but for college football fans across the state.

"If you grew up in Pennsylvania, no matter where you grew up, you grew up with the Pitt-Penn State rivalry," Pederson said. "I think this is a great thing for a lot of reasons, and I think it is good for Eastern football. There are so many good things that are going to come out of this. It is a win-win for everyone involved.

"And I know this -- come Sept. 10, 2016, it is going to be at a fever pitch at Heinz Field."

Pederson said that while the two schools have kept an open line of communication about renewing the series, there hadn't been many opportunities to work out a deal that worked for both sides.

But this two-game series came about quickly because Penn State had an opening in its nonconference schedule in 2016 and 2017 and needed to get it filled, so Penn State athletic director Tim Curley approached Pederson about it Friday and the deal was quickly done.

"Tim and I have a great relationship. We've been friends almost since we both started out in this business, and so it was very easy to work out the details once we figured out a deal was possible," Pederson said. "And I appreciated him thinking of us and also working with us -- the way this is scheduled now, we wanted to have Penn State opposite of Notre Dame [in terms of home and away games] on our nonconference schedule.