Pitt lost to Georgia Tech on Saturday night by a score of 26-19. The Panthers had a listless offensive effort throughout much of the game, and also lost starting tailback Israel Abanikanda along the way.
There are plenty of takeaways from this game, and none of them are pretty.
The worst loss of the Narduzzi era?
Pitt was a three-touchdown favorite coming into Saturday’s game with Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are not a very good football team and nothing they did on Saturday really changed that notion either.
Pitt lost to a bad football team at home on Saturday night. Georgia Tech fired its head coach on Monday, and looked better prepared to play in an ACC football game than the defending champions of the conference. Again, that’s not saying much either. Georgia Tech had less than 200 yards of offense and 9 points through three quarters. Pitt could not take advantage. This game wasn't about the Yellow Jackets, it was about Pitt and their lackluster play across the board.
Pat Narduzzi has been the head coach at Pitt since 2015, and no loss in his tenure really comes close to this one, in my opinion. Pitt came into this season with some decent exceptions, but there are clearly some underlying issues surrounding the team. They are underachieving on many levels and it really came evident on Saturday.
Pitt lost the turnover battle 3-0 and they committed 12 penalties. The Panthers were 2-of-12 on third down conversions. They did not take one offensive snap in the red zone until the final minutes. It was pathetic and inexcusable from top to bottom. Pitt is 3-2 to start the year, and there have been more questions about the team than answers in recent weeks and that’s not a good thing.
Pat Narduzzi walked the walk and talked the talk in 2021 with an ACC Championship, but he has his work cut out for him in the remainder of this year. The losses of Pickett and Addison have been felt quite a bit, and many of the returning guys aren’t performing at the same level as they did last season. It should be an interesting week of practice for this team as there are a lot of things that need addressed before the game against Virginia Tech.
Slovis is struggling
We have seen Pitt receivers drop passes this year. The offensive line has not been the greatest in pass protection either, and in fairness I have been less than enthused about the offensive play calling. Those are a lot of factors for a quarterback to work against, but Kedon Slovis just isn’t helping himself right now either. Sure he finished with over 300 yards and three touchdown passes against Georgia Tech, but anyone that watched the game knows that is not the story. He added some late touchdowns with the Yellow Jackets playing some softer coverage protecting the lead.
Pitt was missing its best offensive player for the majority of the game after Israel Abanikanda left with an injury. We have been asking the questions for weeks: What is Pitt’s offensive identity? And maybe, it really is just leaning on Abanikanda. Once he went down, they didn’t really seem to have a solid plan on what to do, which is puzzling against a pedestrian Georgia Tech defense.
Pitt struggled to take shots in the passing game from the start. The pass blocking was not great again, but often times Slovis looked slow to read the defense, identify receivers, and he would also panic in the face of pressure. He had a deer in headlights type look throughout most of the game.
On Pitt’s only three scoring drives, they played out of shotgun with tempo and it looked, well...good, but again the defensive approach by Georgia Tech probably played a role in that. The rest of the game, the play calling seemed stagnant and tried to establish the run without its top two running backs on the field.
Slovis has not been as good as many expected him to be, and that could be understatement. There have been some factors working against him with injuries and his supporting cast, but he has not lived up to the hype either. It’s that simple.
I don’t think Pitt has a quarterback situation brewing or anything. Slovis will start next Saturday against Virginia Tech. Nick Patti still isn’t healthy and Nate Yarnell is still a little green to throw in there for a conference game. Pitt needs Slovis to be better and that’s all this really is and they need to help cater a game plan to make that happen. He works better out of shotgun and tempo, which conflicts with Pitt’s best player being a running back, so it will be interesting to see how Frank Cignetti Jr. finds that right balance.
Pitt missed Abanikanda
Israel Abanikanda came into Saturday’s game as the ACC’s leader in both rushing yards and touchdowns. He left the game with 4:54 to go in the first half and never returned. At the time, Abanikanda had 31 rushing yards and was not off to a hot start in the game.
Having said that, Pitt’s star running back was averaging 25 carries the past three games. He was going to get more touches, and given Georgia Tech’s 120th rushing defense entering the game, he likely would have broken off some runs and kept the chains moving.
Pitt just did not have an offensive identity without him on the field following his injury aside from two late touchdown drives against a prevent defense. In addition to Abanikanda’s absence, Pitt has still been without sophomore back Rodney Hammond, who missed his fourth straight game on Saturday. The losses of Pitt’s top two backs were felt in this game.
Vincent Davis and C’Bo Flemister had to carry the load. While Davis came up with some nice runs and finished with 80 yards, any positive impact he had was negated by his two fumbles as well. They were costly, as Pitt lost the turnover battle 3-0.
Saturday’s game was a clear indication that one, Pitt is better at running the football than throwing it right now, and two they are better when Abanikanda and Hammond are the ones doing the running. Davis and Flemister are fine to give a guy a break here and there, but the offense changes considerably without Abanikanda (and Hammond) on the field.
The defense played well enough to win
Georgia Tech had 158 yards of offense and nine points through three quarters in Saturday’s game against Pitt. The Pitt pass rush was causing issues and they were getting off the field on third downs. They were doing what they needed to do. That type of effort was plenty for a ranked team at home to knock off an opponent with a 1-3 record that just fired its coach.
Apparently it wasn’t.
Pitt’s offense could never really capitalize and the Panthers were trailing 9-7 entering the fourth quarter. The Pitt defense faltered down the stretch, and that could have been a factor of fatigue or the short field the offense kept giving Georgia Tech. Three second half turnovers really changed the outlook of the game. Of Georgia Tech’s 26 points on Saturday, 13 of those came off of turnovers.
Pitt had four sacks and 11 tackles for loss on Saturday. They held Georgia Tech to 5-of-17 on third down conversions. In a lot of respects, they did everything they usually want to do in a game on defense. The Yellow Jackets finished with 236 rushing yards, and 130 of those came in the fourth quarter. Pitt did not come up with a big stop when it needed to in the fourth quarter, and Georgia Tech gashed them for some long gains that kept the game out of reach.
Pitt also missed some chances at some game changing turnovers throughout the game. On Georgia Tech’s first play from scrimmage, Erick Hallett made a break on the ball and nearly had a pick six. The ball fell to the turf, and it really felt like it was a bad omen from the start. Hallett dropped another interception, as did Tylar Wiltz. Pitt’s defense played well enough to win for three quarters on Saturday, but as a group they missed some opportunities to shake up the game with some splash plays and also the big yardage allowed in the fourth quarter ended their performance on a sour note.
Nothing for the remainder of the season is guaranteed
Georgia Tech came into Saturday’s game as very likely the worst team in the ACC. When the season ends, I tend to think that still may be the case. The Yellow Jackets might not win another game all season.
Saturday’s outcome was just as much about Pitt losing as it was about Georgia Tech winning. I think what changed today for the Panthers was their piece of mind. This game had to be a humbling loss for the head coach and his staff all the way down to the players.
The 2022 Pitt Panthers came into this season with sky-high expectations, and maybe there were some skeptics from the outside after losing Kenny Pickett. But internally, this team expected to win a lot of games this season and not only that, but they thought they would look good doing it. There are a lot of players with NFL aspirations, and in a lot of respects those guys are not showing up as well as they did last season.
Through five games, this team just feels like it is underachieving to me. In theory, Pitt can go out and win the next couple of games and still be in contention to win the ACC Coastal. As Pat Narduzzi always says after a loss, ‘Our goals are still in front of us’ and that’s certainly true. The ACC Coastal is still very much a mess from top to bottom, but I think Saturday’s game with Georgia Tech will be a wake up call in that they can’t take anything for granted for the rest of the season.
Pitt wasn’t able to stroll onto the field and win a game on Saturday. They actually needed to put forth a better game plan and execution and focus on the little details, all the things they preach quite often. Virginia Tech looms next week. The Hokies seem like another beatable opponent, but as we saw today, Pitt can’t go into that game with the same mindset.
Flush this game, do whatever. But Saturday was not good enough.
