A long time coming

Saturday night in Charlotte was a long time coming.

For Pitt’s football program, the 45-21 win over Wake Forest gave the Panthers their first conference championship since they split a four-way tie to claim the Big East title.

For Pitt’s coaches, the game was the culmination of seven years of recruiting, roster-building, player development, commitments, decommitments, transfers in and transfers out.

For Pitt’s players, 39 of which were on the roster the last time the Panthers came to Charlotte, beating Wake Forest was a sign that all the offseason work, all the late nights in the film room and the early mornings in the strength room, really was building toward something.

For Pitt’s athletics administrators, claiming the conference title further solidified, if only symbolically, the Panthers’ place in the ACC as a program of prominence.

And for Pitt’s fans, who have a longer history with this program than the players and coaches, who have experienced more vicarious success and disappointment than school administrators could understand, who have showed up week after week supporting a program that tested their loyalty, who traveled to Charlotte in numbers far surpassing their reputation…

For those fans, Saturday night’s win wasn’t just about 2021 or the ACC; it was about finally getting one that went their way.

It was a reprieve, a moment where the haunting memories of every gut punch from 48-14 to 45-44 had no choice but to take a back seat to the very immediate reality of the scene at Bank of America Stadium:

The scene of a championship.

The scene of Pitt winning a championship.

The scene of Pitt emerging as the best team in its conference, with no caveats, no asides, no disclaimers.

Pitt fans don’t have to answer any “Yeah, but” retorts about this one. Their team marched through the regular season, clinched the Coastal Division title with a 10-point win at home, finished the deal by avoiding a trap game to get to 10 wins and then accomplished its biggest goal is convincing fashion.

There were moments of angst, of course. Pitt’s defense gave up three touchdowns on Wake Forest’s first three drives and trailed 21-14 after the first 15 minutes.

But then, in one of the most drastic course-reversing’s in recent history, the Panthers’ defense stepped up its play and shut down the Deacons’ No. 3 scoring offense for the final three quarters.

Pitt pulled that off by getting pressure on Wake quarterback Sam Hartman. He threw for 118 passing yards, two passing touchdowns and one rushing score in the first quarter and 95 yards, no touchdowns and four interceptions in the final three quarters.

But the details are secondary. There will be film reviews and stat breakdowns and further analysis to consider the ‘how’ of Pitt’s win on Saturday night.

In the hours after the game, though, the ‘what’ is the important part. And so is the ‘who.’

The ‘what’ is a championship victory, a solid piece of hardware that surpasses anything Pitt has done in 40 years. Or more.

And the ‘who’ is all the people who have followed this program through ups, downs and more time in the middle than can be counted.

The coaches coached the win in Charlotte and the players played it. But the fans experienced it, and that’s been a long time coming.