The details are a little different, but the outcome is the same. When Pitt found itself trailing by double digits in the fourth quarter on Saturday against rival West Virginia, it turned to its redshirt freshman quarterback, Eli Holstein, to save the day.
Holstein and the Pitt offense overcame a 10-point deficit to the Mountaineers, and posted two touchdowns in the final five minutes to execute yet another stunning come-from-behind victory in as many weeks to keep the Panthers undefeated at 3-0 to start the 2024 season.
“He's got a lot of toughness to him,” Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said after his team’s 38-34 win over West Virginia. “He's got moxie. He's a football player. That's what quarterbacks are supposed to be. We've seen quarterbacks like that here at Pitt before. He finds a way to get it done.”
Holstein finished the day 21-of-30 for 301 yards and three touchdowns, and had zero turnovers. He added 59 yards on the ground, as his feet became one of Pitt’s biggest weapons in the game’s decisive fourth quarter.
The word ‘gamer’ can be used to describe him, and maybe sometimes that’s an overused cliché, but man, Holstein has some serious game.
“The dude's so poised,” said sophomore wide receiver Kenny Johnson after recording five catches for 79 yards against West Virginia. “Like, there's never a point in time where I'm worried. He just gives us confidence. Like, our quarterback is the most poised guy in our room. So it's really helpful in those situations.”
Pitt keeps finding itself in ‘those situations’ where the team is in need of a dramatic comeback to get a win, but it’s good to have a player comfortable when the pressure is on, and it’s a trait Holstein admitted that this whole team certainly possesses.
“When you're backs against the wall in a big game like this, you know you have to step up,” said Pitt’s quarterback after only his third collegiate start. “We got great guys on this team, great leaders that have been in situations like that and we were in a situation last week. We knew, ‘hey there's a couple things we got to do and we're gonna be able to win this game.’”
Pitt overcame a three-touchdown deficit last week in a road win against Cincinnati. That comeback bid was a greater point total, but it also started while the game was in the third quarter. On Saturday, Pitt did not have that kind of time.
The Panthers got the ball back with 4:55 remaining and trailing West Virginia, 34-24. At that point, the momentum was clearly on West Virginia’s side, as Pitt’s offense had done very little in the second half prior to that.
All the sudden, Holstein started to find something, and it came with his legs and not his arm. The freshman quarterback broke off runs of 11 and 24 yards to kickstart that drive.
“I just, you know, saw the play was there to make and I just wanted to make the play,” said Holstein. “I knew my team needed me to step up and make plays when it was there and those were some of the plays that I needed to make.”
In return, his wide receivers started making plays for him. An unlikely hero emerged Saturday, as junior wide receiver, Daejon Reynolds, hauled in a 40-yard touchdown pass with Mountaineers draped all over him. It was Reynolds’ first catch of the year, on the first target he received this season.
“I thought it was holding at first,” Holstein recounted. “I was like, ‘hey at least we're gonna get the penalty’ and then I saw him come down with it and I was like, ‘hell yeah.’
There were 66,087 fans at Acrisure Stadium who also said ‘hell yeah’ in that moment, too.
After a key three-and-out by the Pitt defense, the Panthers got the ball with 1:59 remaining, which was plenty of time for Holstein to work with at that point. You could easily hype it up up as some heroic drive, because it definitely was, but he carved up the West Virginia defense so easily on that possession. It only took six plays for Pitt to score.
“It was awesome,” Holstein said of Pitt’s go-ahead drive. “Nobody was skittish, nervous, or anything. We were all confident in what we can do and we had a two-minute drive last week, so we knew we could do it.”
It’s one thing to say it, but another thing to keep doing it. It’s an amazing start to a career, and it’s one his teammates aren’t dismissing by any stretch. They know there is something about him, especially when the team gets backed into a corner.
“Sometimes you just know,” senior linebacker Brandon George said of Holstein’s fourth quarter poise. “When you talk to somebody and they show the amount of confidence, the amount of will, the amount of grit that somebody, when you talk to them, that's how you know. That's how I knew that he was gonna be a good football player. And he's been a great teammate, great brother for us.”
It’s been a whirlwind three weeks for Holstein. He went from winning a hotly contested quarterback battle over Nate Yarnell, to making his first career start. Then it was his first road start. Of course, now he crossed off his initial Backyard Brawl. He keeps checking every box and handling everything thrown his way in impressive fashion.
It is something that shouldn’t be this easy, but he continues to show the lights are never too bright.
“I got a lot of people that trust me and they believe in me,” Holstein said when he was asked to reflect on what he accomplished. “Ever since I got here, they talk to how much trust and belief they have in me, that I'm going to be able to go out there and make the plays that they need me to make. They put me in a position to make those plays, I’ve just got to trust myself that I'm gonna make those plays.”
The plays are being made, especially in crunch time, that’s for sure.
