BLACKSBURG, Va. — The Pitt Panthers lost their fourth consecutive game with a 38-21 setback to Virginia Tech in front of a sold-out Lane Stadium on Saturday night. The Panthers fell behind 28-7 in the third quarter, but they managed to get themselves back in the game with two quick scores in three plays, but it was not nearly enough.
Virginia Tech was the better team throughout the game, and the Hokies put some separation on Pitt in the fourth quarter. Pitt is now 1-4 on the year, the worst start in the Pat Narduzzi era, and will enter the bye week with a lot of questions surrounding this team, coach, and program.
Here are my five takeaways from Blacksburg.
Jurkovec with another dreadful performance
Phil Jurkovec pieced together a solid first half performance against North Carolina, but his day ended early with an injury. Given the way backup Christian Veilleux played in his absence in the second half last week, it made sense to roll with Jurkovec as the starter for another try.
It turned out that OK first half against North Carolina was simply a mirage.
Jurkovec finished 11-of-22 passing for 235 yards and two touchdowns. His yardage total was certainly inflated by a 75-yard touchdown pass to Bub Means, and a 61-yarder to C’Bo Flemister on a screen pass. For the most part, Jurkovec was inaccurate, under duress, and incapable of leading Pitt’s offense in an acceptable manner for a team that entered the year with ACC title hopes.
Pitt was just 2-of-10 on third down conversions. The Panthers only achieved 9 first downs as a team for the contest. Pitt broke off two long passing plays, but otherwise punted six times, turned it over once, and also missed a field goal attempt.
Saturday marked the third time in four games that Jurkovec failed to complete more than five passes in the first half. He started the game against the Hokies just 3-of-12 in the first two quarters on Saturday. Jurkovec is simply not finding open receivers, but ultimatley saved his stat line a little by connecting on some big gainers. But man, that is no way to play offense in college football. There needs to be some level of continuity and consistency, and each possession for Pitt is an adventure with the current quarterback. The bye week should present a scenario where the team could start pressing forward with a new signal caller with the added time to prepare, because what they have is not working.
Pitt could not run the ball for some reason
Virginia Tech came into this game 122nd in the country in run defense. The Hokies were allowing 212.5 yards per game on the ground, but Pitt was not able to take advantage of that on Saturday. The total was ugly as Pitt finished with only 38 yards on 24 carries as a team.
Even if you take away the sacks, Pitt only dialed up 18 rushing attempts between its three running backs, and that still only generated 59 yards. C’Bo Flemister paced the attack with 10 carries for 41 yards, while leading rusher Rodney Hammond was limited to just 18 yards on seven carries, all in the first half. Hammond left last week’s game early with an injury and did not see any action in the second half on Saturday.
The rushing game just never seemed to generate any big plays and the longest run of the game for Pitt was a Jurkovec keeper for 12 yards. In last year’s meeting, Pitt ran all over Virginia Tech thanks to a record-breaking performance by Israel Abanikanda, but they could not generate that same kind of success on Saturday.
Pitt is obviously down three starters on the offensive line currently, but the Panthers did manage to have some success on the ground last week against North Carolina with the makeshift offensive line. Given Virginia Tech’s numbers defending against the run and Pitt's prior success against this defense, it made little sense why Pitt could not find any traction there and it is certainly a troubling sign going forward with Pitt’s inability to throw the ball. Pitt needs a stable running game to have any type of semblance on offense with the current state of the passing game, and right now they can't even turn to that.
Defense had too many lapses
Pitt’s defense allowed a pair of 50+ yard passing touchdowns and on the ground the Panthers surrendered nine rushes of 10-yards or more. Those are simply the facts and those numbers mattered more than anything else on Saturday.
There were certain areas where Pitt played OK on defense and they had some positive moments throughout the game, but when you allow multiple big plays coupled with back-breaking penalties then you are liable to allow 38 points to a bad team like Pitt did on Saturday
Sure, Pitt had 12 tackles for loss, two sacks, and a defensive touchdown. They made a couple of plays in the third quarter to give themselves a chance, but even then that all feels like a reach to give them too much praise.
Kyrone Drones, Virginia Tech’s backup, was eating them up all game. Aside from his fumble, Drones was nearly flawless and helped pick up big gain after big gain. On a third and goal from the ten, Drones crossed the goal line and carried Pitt defenders into the end zone. Earlier in the game, he picked up 18 yards on a 2nd and 20 following his own intentional grounding penalty. Even when Pitt had him on the ropes a little, he stepped up and buried them. Drones finished with 228 yards passing and three touchdowns, plus 41 yards and two scores on the ground. He was exceptional and gashed the Panthers multiple times.
Not to mention, Virginia Tech tailback Bhayshul Tuten rushed for over 100 yards, the third running back to do that against the Pitt defense in five games this season. The Hokies for good measure, were 8-of-16 on third down attempts and 2-for-2 on fourth downs.
Pitt has always been able to count on its pass rush, its run defense, and getting off the field on third downs. Those have been staples of the team’s defense for 4-5 years now, and none of those elements really showed against Virginia Tech. Pitt made plays behind the line of scrimmage, but the vaunted pass rush they have developed through the years seems absent this season.
Stubbornness, perhaps?
Pat Narduzzi conceded in his postgame press conference that there needs to be changes on offense and all over the team and with a bye week on the horizon, there would be a large self scout to figure out the failures. That's all well and good and what you would expect him to say, but his press conference carried a similar tune to some of his previous postgame remarks.
Narduzzi was still quick to defend Jurkovec, or at least, he made sure the blame still goes around for everyone on offense. I get it. Jurkovec’s offensive line, which is down three starters, was not good against the Hokies and he faced a lot of pressure. I get the running game couldn’t get going, which would have helped his quarterback, and yea the defense had trouble getting off the field, limiting the offense's chances.
Again, all true. He's not wrong, but it's painfully obvious to watch that this team has no chance with its current quarterback. He had three completions before halftime, it's time to start calling it what it is. We'll see if changes are indeed made, but they have employed a similar offensive attack in four straight games with similar results each time. The extra week to prepare better do a world of wonders, because each week at practice this team is not getting any better.
Many people, myself included, thought Pitt could win 8 or 9 games this season. I think in a different world with a different quarterback and different offensive coordinator that actually could have been possible. There are holes on this roster, some inexperience too, but good quarterback play would probably hide those.
I understand there are not good answers to the problems at hand with what they have internally, but openness to change has to be in the mind of Pitt's head coach, who is in the midst of what is tied for his longest losing streak of his career. Starting a new quarterback with the makeshift offensive line might not be an easy call to make, but it can't be easy trotting this same plan of attack out there game after game and getting similar outcomes.
There is a time to stop being stubborn, admit some poor decisions were made, and start pressing ahead with being mindful of the future.
That time seems like now.
A long two weeks
Pitt fans have not just had a flat out, terrible, no good season in a while. The team's last losing season happened in 2017 with a 5-7 mark, and the last real bad season was probably 1998 when the Panthers went 2-9. I do not know where this thing ends exactly, but it sure looks like the 2023 team is heading the way of a below .500 finish as well.
Pat Narduzzi’s 1-4 start is the worst of his nine years as Pitt's head coach. This current four-game losing skid Pitt is riding ties a career-long for him, and that run occurred back in the 2020 season. Pitt has been one of the best programs in the ACC over the past two years, but has taken a major regression back in a year where it seemed like it could continue to make a run towards being one of the league's upper echelon teams.
There is a lot to think about from assistant coaching hires, recruiting misses, and in-game coaching. There are some obvious flaws anyone could all pick out about this team and program without doing much thinking on it. So what's the best way to help digest this fourth consecutive loss, well how about a bye week so now there are two weeks between the Virginia Tech loss and Pitt's next game with Louisville on October 14th.
The bye week certainly may be a blessing for Pitt as a team so they can heal up some injuries and in theory fix some issues, but for the rest of us who are following and covering the team, there are a lot of things that need examined to explain why the season is going the way that it is, and what it means for the future of the program and head coach.
