For Pitt, UNC is the one that got away (more than once)

In their inaugural year as conference members, the Panthers defeated Duke in a wild 58-55 game in Durham and Virginia in a decidedly less exciting 14-3 game at home the next week. In 2014, Pitt added Virginia Tech to the list with a Thursday night win and then beat Miami in the regular-season finale on the road.

In Pat Narduzzi’s first season, Pitt finally got over the triple-option hump when a Chris Blewitt game-winning field goal knocked off Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

But there’s still one more division foe that Pitt hasn’t been able to beat, a team that has new ways to vanquish the Panthers in each of the last four seasons. That team, of course, is North Carolina, and Pitt will get its next shot at Larry Fedora’s bunch Thursday night at Heinz Field.

As the Panthers get ready for this year’s version of the Tar Heels, the 0-4 record against UNC from the last four years isn’t far from anyone’s mind.

“I mean, the last four times we played them, we haven’t come out with a ‘W’, and me, as an individual and I know everybody on the team is definitely looking forward to this game on Thursday night,” redshirt senior Jester Weah said Monday.

“It’s definitely been back and forth,

It’s not just that North Carolina has beaten Pitt every year the Panthers have been members of the ACC. Miami has a 3-1 advantage over Pitt in the last four years. Georgia Tech has a 3-2 record against the Panthers. Virginia Tech and Pitt have split the first four ACC games of the former Big East series. All told, those five teams have beaten Pitt 10 times in the last four seasons.

But with few exceptions - the double-overtime loss to Duke in 2014 and the fumble-fest against Georgia Tech the next week come to mind - North Carolina has cornered the market on gut-punching losses for Pitt.

It started in 2013 when Pitt hosted UNC a week after mounting a fourth-quarter comeback to beat Notre Dame at Heinz Field. The Panthers had momentum coming into that game, but the Tar Heels jumped out to a 24-3 lead at halftime and extended it to 27-3 in the third quarter. Pitt battled back, though, rattling off 24 unanswered points to tie the score in the fourth quarter before UNC receiver Ryan Switzer took a punt from his own 39, received some timely - and perhaps illegal - blocks and ran 61 yards for the go-ahead touchdown.

That was Switzer’s second punt return touchdown of the game, and while Pitt’s offense drove to the UNC 26 on the next drive, James Conner was dropped for a loss on fourth-and-1, cementing the Tar Heels’ win and Switzer’s villain status.

In 2014, Pitt went to Chapel Hill reeling from a two-game losing streak - the aforementioned double-overtime loss to Duke and subsequent fumble-filled loss to Georgia Tech - and the Panthers looked like they would get into the win column when they took a 21-7 lead in the second quarter, held a 28-19 lead in the third quarter and fell behind but then went ahead 35-34 on a Conner touchdown with 3:33 left in the game.

The Carolina magic showed up again, though, when Marquise Williams engineered a 13-play, 75-yard drive that saw the UNC quarterback scramble for a six-yard run on fourth-and-2. Three plays later, the Tar Heels were in the end zone for a 40-35 win.

In 2015, the Narduzzi-led Panthers were 6-1, riding a four-game winning streak and ranked No. 23 in the AP poll when they hosted North Carolina for a Thursday night. Quite quickly, though, it became apparent that UNC was the better team, as the Tar Heels took a 20-3 lead into halftime. Pitt managed 19 points in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to avoid what was probably the least brutal of the Panthers’ four losses to North Carolina.

The opposite end of the brutality spectrum came a year later. With its best roster in seven years, Pitt went back to Chapel Hill smarting from a loss at Oklahoma State a week earlier but still feeling confident. The Panthers took the lead on an Ejuan Price safety in the first quarter and stayed in front until the fourth quarter. In that final frame, Pitt held a lead of 13 points at 36-23, but Mitch Trubisky slowly chipped away at it, and a pair of two-yard touchdown passes to Bug Howard sealed the Panthers’ fate.

On the final drive of the game, with Pitt clinging to a 35-29 lead, UNC converted three fourth downs as Trubisky completed 10-of-15 passes for 83 yards and the eventual touchdown pass to Howard. Switzer caught five passes on the drive, including two of the fourth-down conversions.

In a series that has seen each team find new ways to decide its fate, the 2016 edition of the Pitt-North Carolina rivalry was easily the biggest gut punch the Panthers have taken.

“Absolutely,” Matt Galambos said this week. “We should have won pretty much every year. Usually had some type of lead and lost it. Especially last year at that their place. It was [definitely] a gut punch on that last play. And (UNC was the) only team in the Coastal I never beat.”

Galambos was part of Pitt’s 2013 recruiting class, and while three members of that class are still on the roster as redshirt seniors, the rest never counted North Carolina among the 29 wins they amassed in four seasons.

“It was definitely tough,” tight end Scott Orndoff, another member of that class, said via text message, “because 1) They were the only team in our division we never beat, and 2) Every single year we were in it at the end and seemed to let them slip away one way or another.”

If ever there were a year for Pitt to break the four-game losing streak, 2017 might be it. North Carolina is 1-8 this season, losing to every team other than Old Dominion in the first nine weeks. Offseason turnover and injuries have rendered this year’s Tar Heels punch-less on offense, and while the team’s defense seems to be improving, UNC’s inability to top score 20 points in the last six games has put the Heels in their current position.

That’s why Shakir Soto, a four-year player from Pitt’s 2013 recruiting class, thinks this should be the year for the Panthers.

“It sucks that we never got to beat them but we always played our hardest,” Soto said. “I'm very confident that my brothers will get them this week and that will make me very happy. Pitt seems to have found their rhythm so I'm excited to watch.”