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Five big plays in Pitt's loss to PSU

MORE HEADLINES - Narduzzi on mistakes and more in the loss to PSU | Postgame video: Narduzzi's press conference | Pitt gets blown out

Pitt suffered its first loss of the season Saturday night, and here’s a look at five key plays that turned the game.

Pickett gets picked off
Pitt had a lot of mistakes in the first half, but Kenny Pickett’s second interception in as many games should not be ignored. The Panthers were trailing 7-6 after Penn State missed a field goal, and Pickett had led the offense to the Nittany Lions’ 31 where he faced a first down from the shotgun. Pickett took the snap, looked to his right and fired a deep pass down the sideline for Tre Tipton, who had single coverage. But Pickett’s pass was underthrown and PSU cornerback Amani Oruwariye got in front of Tipton to pick it off. The drive - Pitt’s third of the game - was an opportunity to take the lead and momentum; instead, it turned into a Penn State possession.

Skipping the kick
Pitt had a decision to make when Darrin Hall was tackled inside the Penn State 5 late in the second quarter. The Panthers were still trailing by one point - 7-6 - and with the Nittany Lions set to get the ball to open the second half, the next play was a crucial one. It was fourth-and-3 from the 4, and Pat Narduzzi called a timeout to consider the options: kick for the lead or try for a touchdown?

Narduzzi opted for the latter and Ollison, who had already crossed the 100-yard rushing mark in the game, got the call. But Ollison was tackled for a three-yard loss despite running behind a jumbo offensive line, and the debate between three points and seven (or eight) found its answer: zero.

Ultimately, the decision to go for it rather than kick didn’t loom too large in a 45-point loss, but Narduzzi said he thought that moment was a turning point in the game.

Special teams issues
While football coaches often like to talk about the three phases of the game and place equal emphasis on all three, the reality is that special teams usually falls behind offense and defense. For Pitt on Saturday night, special teams didn’t necessarily fall behind the other two phases - they just fell apart, period. The Panthers made no fewer than nine major mistakes on special teams against Penn State, and those gaffes led to multiple point swings in Penn State’s favor.

There was the failed PAT after Pitt’s first touchdown. There was the missed field goal two possessions later. There was a fumbled punt. There was a fumbled punt return. There was a punt coverage breakdown that gave up a return touchdown to PSU. There were two illegal block penalties - one on a kick return, one on a punt return - and one facemask penalty on a kickoff. And when Maurice Ffrench tried to fair catch a kickoff but didn’t actually catch it late in the game, Penn State downed the ball at the 4.

The number of special teams errors could actually be 10 if the game-opening coin toss, where Pitt apparently wanted to defer and ended up taking the ball, is included. Even if it’s not, that’s still a world of mess on special teams.

A comedy of errors
The sequence around Pitt’s second possession in the third quarter may not have swung the game, but it was significant, nonetheless. After Penn State scored a touchdown to go ahead 21-6, Maurice Ffrench received the kickoff and tried to give the offense good field position. But redshirt senior Colin Jonov, who transferred from Bucknell as a walk-on this offseason, was called for an illegal block in the back. That put Pitt at its own 8, but the yard line became the 4 when tight end Tyler Sear was flagged for a false start.

Running back Darrin Hall lost three yards on his first-down run, pushing the line of scrimmage back to the 1. And from there, Kenny Pickett took a snap out of the shotgun and tried to scramble before throwing incomplete for Shocky Jacques-Louis, but while he was scrambling, left tackle Stefano Millin was flagged for holding. Since the penalty happened in the end zone, the play was ruled a safety and Penn State got two points out of it.

So that sequence went like this:

- Illegal block on a kickoff
- False start
- Run for a 3-yard loss
- Holding penalty in the end zone for a safety

The fifth penalty
Pitt’s first penalty on Saturday night was a defensive holding that led to Penn State’s first touchdown. The Panthers’ second penalty was a facemask on a kickoff. The third was a delay of game. And the fourth was a substitution infraction. But penalty No. 5, which came at the end of the first quarter, was a troubling one.

It was called on head coach Pat Narduzzi. The flag was for unsportsmanlike conduct and it came at virtually the same time as the substitution infraction. Penn State had substituted on offense, so Pitt, as is allowed in the rules, wanted to substitute as well on defense. The officials apparently didn’t give Pitt enough time, so the substitution infraction penalty was called and a sideline warning was issued as well. Narduzzi didn’t adhere to the sideline warning, and before the next play was snapped, another flag came out. The result was 20 yards of penalties - the substitution infraction and Narduzzi’s unsportsmanlike - that moved the ball from the Penn State 39 to the Pitt 41.

The Panthers finished with 14 total penalties. And while plenty of those penalties were damaging, Narduzzi’s was particularly rough. Even if he had a valid claim about the substitution infraction flag, and even if the unsportsmanlike conduct flag came quickly after the sideline warning, the head coach has to maintain his composure better.

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