MORE HEADLINES - Narduzzi: "It's a disappointing game" | Video: Narduzzi after the loss to UNC | Box score: UNC 34, Pitt 31 | Pitt drops a disappointment on Thursday night
Pitt is not one of the best teams in college football, but the Panthers should not have lost to North Carolina Thursday night at Heinz Field.
Pat Narduzzi knows it.
“I give them credit, but it’s not what they did,” Pitt’s head coach said after the game. “It’s what we did.”
And what Pitt did is give the game to the Tar Heels. From the opening kickoff to a blown touchdown opportunity to wasting multiple chances in the fourth quarter, the Panthers handed the game to North Carolina - an act that flew directly in the face of “Take it“ - Narduzzi’s team slogan for 2017.
“I really don’t know how to explain it,” Narduzzi said. “We talk all the time about taking it, and we found a way to give it away, really, in my opinion.”
The giveaways started on the opening kickoff, which UNC receiver Anthony Ratliff-Williams took 98 yards through multiple would-be tackle attempts to give the Tar Heels seven free points. UNC’s struggling offense didn’t have to earn those points; Pitt gave them away.
Then, in the second quarter, Pitt was set to take a 24-21 lead on a Quadree Henderson touchdown run when the ball popped out short of the goal line. UNC recovered the fumble in the end zone and returned it 66 yards. Tar Heel kicker Freeman Jones connected on a 51-yard field goal from there after UNC’s offense failed to gain a single yard, but the fumble had turned into a 10-point swing that, once again, the Tar Heels really didn’t have to do anything for. Pitt gave it to them.
And finally, in the fourth quarter, after going ahead 31-27 on the strength of its run game, Pitt’s offense shifted into a pass-focused attack. Ben DiNucci dropped back on eight of the 10 plays on the Panthers’ final two drives, completing 2-of-5 passes for 17 yards, rushing for a gain of nine ards and getting sacked twice for a loss of 10 yards.
DiNucci and Narduzzi said after the game that UNC had changed defensive fronts in the fourth quarter, which made it more difficult for Darrin Hall and the run game to get going. But Hall had just two carries on those final two drives; jet sweeps, which were averaging 10 yards per play throughout the game, were not deployed on those possessions either.
In between those two drives, North Carolina built its strongest offensive possession of the game, driving 58 yards for the game-winning touchdown and not facing a single third down in the process.
“We had that problem; we thought we solved it - finishing the game in the third and fourth quarter,” redshirt junior linebacker Oluwaseun Idowu said after the game.
While Thursday’s game continued Pitt’s five-game losing streak against North Carolina, it broke the Panthers’ two-game winning streak this season. They had beaten Duke and Virginia playing good defense and running the ball well, and they seemed to be heading in the right direction down the stretch.
“You definitely saw that we were steadily getting better,” Idowu said. “We were looking good. You want to play your best defense, your best football, toward the end of the season, looking at the end of the season like, ‘Guys, we had a really good series of games that we put together there.’ And I think we were definitely going in that direction, the direction that we wanted to.”
Now Pitt is 4-6 overall and 2-4 in the ACC. The Panthers have two games remaining to reach bowl eligibility, and those two games are against the two best teams in the Coastal Division (and two of the three best teams in the ACC). Pitt’s momentum from the last two games is gone and the hopes for a spot in the postseason are on life support, simply because the Panthers couldn’t do what they talked about all season.
They couldn’t take it.
“A loss like this really hurts,” Idowu said. “After working hard for the bye week and coming up to primetime and putting all the work in and the game plan and playing your butt off and losing like this, it hurts a lot.
