Pittsburgh ? This is why Joe Flacco wanted to play in Pittsburgh.

The chance to be the quarterback in big games, in a supportive city passionate about football, in a stadium with a significant home-field advantage.

Only he didn’t expect it would be for this team, the Baltimore Ravens, in this AFC championship game against the Steelers, the team he spent several years watching from up close while practicing daily in the training complex it shares with Pitt.

No, Flacco came to the city six years ago to play for Pittsburgh, not oppose it, except his major college career didn’t work out as planned. Banished to Pitt’s bench, possibly overlooked during a coaching staff change, his path to Sunday’s AFC title game took a detour through college football’s back-channels to Delaware, making him a Blue Hen rather than a Panther.

“I never got a shot,” said Flacco, who transferred after throwing only four passes in two seasons at Pitt. “I still carry it with me that I’m a I-AA guy and I had to go down to the minor leagues of college football and prove who I was.”

That circuitous route didn’t keep him out of the big leagues. Now, his first championship game as an NFL quarterback will be in the stadium, Heinz Field, he planned to play his college career. That is only a subplot to his primary goal of becoming the first rookie quarterback to take his team to the Super Bowl.

If it happens to take place in the city that effectively shunned him, well only the better.

“I understand that the scale is a little bit bigger, but it’s still a football game,” said Flacco, only 13 months removed from playing in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA) title game. “But it’s still a football game. We’re going against the Pittsburgh Steelers, yes. I’m just going to look at my teammates and we’ll all have confidence in each other.”

Flacco’s Pittsburgh counterpart, Ben Roethlisberger, knows all about the pressures — and, perhaps, the nervous anxiety — Flacco is going through this weekend.

Roethlisberger went through the same experience as a rookie in 2004, when the Steelers were 16-1 going into their AFC championship game against New England but lost 41-27 partly because he was outplayed by Tom Brady.

Roethlisberger, whose own college career was played at Miami (Ohio) rather than one of the big-time schools, led the Steelers to the Super Bowl and won it a year later, but that followed another full NFL season.

“I just hope it (this AFC championship game) isn’t as bad as the first I had here,” Roethlisberger said, referring to the three interceptions he threw against New England as a rookie. “That’s been the key to everyone’s success or failure in the postseason, if you take care of the ball.”