Five Takeaways from Pitt's 38-31 win over West Virginia

PITTSBURGH — Pitt won the Backyard Brawl on Thursday night with a 38-31 victory over West Virginia at Acrisure Stadium. The Panthers needed two late fourth quarter scores to prevail over the Mountaineers.

Here are five quick takeaways from the game.

The Brawl is the Brawl

Pitt entered this 2022 season with a preseason top-20 ranking and West Virginia was coming off a 6-win season in 2021. Naturally, Pitt fans expected the everything to align just perfectly with a beatdown of West Virginia to start the year, but...come on you should have known better. This is the Backyard Brawl. If 13-9 was a real thing that happened, then anything was on the table for Thursday night.

Pitt did not look sharp on Thursday. They did not dominate West Virginia, hell they were outplayed by the Mountaineers for large chunks of the game. Pitt had a bad fumble, a blocked punt, the offense looked jumbled, the usually stout Pitt run defense was gashed all game long.

It was not exactly a defining performance for this football program, far from it.

This team was losing in the fourth quarter to West Virginia on Thursday night, and the script everyone had in their head about this season was already started to go sideways, but nobody appreciated what could happen in a rivalry football game, and one to open the season at that.

West Virginia came to play and they exposed some things Pitt needs to address. Who knows where either season goes for these two teams, but the Backyard Brawl is bigger than the either individual team, and it can take on a life of its own. Crazy things have happened in the past, they happened tonight, and it will continue to future brawls. Pitt overcame it on Thursday, and that's the inly thing that matters for Pat Narduzzi's football team.

Slovis good, not great in debut

Kedon Slovis had a pretty tough act to follow, right? Kenny Pickett put on a season for the ages in 2021, and he will cast a long shadow on this program for a long time to come. I mean the guy was hanging over a 2021 ACC Championship banner to a standing ovation from a packed stadium. That alone is some added pressure for his replacement, but I thought Slovis was more than fine in his Pitt debut. He had a game-tying 92-yard drive in the fourth quarter when it seemed like West Virginia had all the momentum.

He was 16-of-24 for 308 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions, and that is a stat line most would take in a heartbeat. Slovis was sacked five times, and some, if not all of them were on him. Pat Narduzzi said he was ‘slow’ at getting the ball out on Thursday, and that was a more than fair assessment. But overall Slovis was solid and nobody is mistaking this performance as an all-time best, but he led his team to a win in a rivalry game.

That has to count for something.

Slovis averaged 19.3 yards per completion, did not turn the ball over, had a big drive in crunch time, and made some nice throws throughout the game. There are aspects of his game that looked slow at times, and the sacks were a concern, but for a debut in this environment, he was good.

Devonshire, defense make big fourth quarter plays

Teams typically do not rush for 190 yards on the Pitt defense. It just doesn’t happen, but it did on Thursday night. West Virginia’s CJ Donaldson hung 125 yards on the Pitt defense, while Tony Mathis contributed 71 himself. In addition to that, the Panthers didn’t have much of an answer for Bryce Ford-Wheaton, who posted a game-high 97 receiving yards and brought down two touchdowns.

It was not the defensive performance this group envisioned, but they made plays down the stretch.

MJ Devonshire was Johnny on the spot for that pick six, but he made a play on top of the play. He took it to the house and gave Pitt the lead with some impressive return skills on display. On the final drive, West Virginia quarterback JT Daniels was sacked twice. They applied pressure down to his last throw, which ultimately fell incomplete. It was not a banner effort for the Pitt defense, but they were opportunistic and found a way to make an impact late in the game.

Rodney Hammond steals the show

Pitt sophomore tailback Rodney Hammond did not start the game, but he certainly made his mark in the Backyard Brawl. He led Pitt with 129 all-purpose yards and posted two touchdowns. The Pitt offense seemed stagnant in the first half, but it found life when Hammond entered the rotation. His hard-nosed running helped take pressure off the struggling offensive line, and picked up the slack from Izzy Abanikanda who had trouble finding running lanes.

I think it was expected heading into the season that Hammond would receive carries and push Abanikanda, but after seeing that firsthand, you have to wonder if he can take on that lead role. I don’t fault Abanikanda for some of his runs, because there weren’t a ton of running lanes created by the offensive line. Abanikanda showed what he is capable of when he is in space when he scored that 24-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. But having said all that, something about Hammond’s determined running style might make him the more appealing first option going forward this season. He has a knack for finding holes, he runs hard, and seemingly always steps up in big games. Abanikanda is a very talented player, and one that will make a lot of plays this season, but there just might be something about Rodney Hammond.

A lot to fix with another big game ahead

SirVocea Dennis noted in the postgame that this team has sort of faltered after big wins in the past, citing last year’s Tennessee and Clemson wins and corresponding losses to Western Michigan and Miami, respectively.

The fact that it was on his mind shortly after the game tells me he knows it is a thing, and that it is something that will need addressed when Pitt hosts Tennessee next week. The Volunteers have a talented roster, a dynamic quarterback, and revenge on their minds after Pitt won in Knoxville last season. Tennessee rolled over Ball State on Thursday by a score of 59-10. It will be a great challenge for Pitt next week, and maybe they won't have time to have that post-big-win-hangover, because this is a really talented football team coming to Pittsburgh September 10th.

For Pitt’s part, the running game looked poor on Thursday, the quarterback took some bad sacks, add in some mental errors, and some shaky defense...there are a lot of things that need fixed before Tennessee makes its way to town, but for now Pitt is 1-0 and that is what counts the most.