Pittsburgh Steelers second place in their division, or with a record better than .500 (). Pittsburgh did make history in by signing Byron White, a future Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to what was at the time the biggest contract in NFL history, but he played only one year with the Pirates before signing with the Detroit Lions. Prior to the 1940 season, the Pirates renamed themselves the Steelers. During World War II, the Steelers experienced player shortages. They twice merged with other NFL franchises to field a team. During the 1943 season, they merged with the Philadelphia Eagles forming the
2008 East Carolina Pirates football team 2000. Virginia Tech won that meeting and lead the head-to-head record 9-4. After a blocked field goal placed the Hokies up 16-13 over the Pirates, T.J. Lee would return the favor by blocking a Hokie punt and running it back for the game-winning touchdown, leading the Pirates to their first victory over Virginia Tech since 1992. This was the first time since 2002 that a Conference USA team had defeated a ranked BCS-conference team, and also made the Pirates the first C-USA team ever to defeat ranked teams in consecutive games (counting ECU's win over Boise State in last season's