Off week emphasis pays off

When Pitt took the ball with a tie score, 1:14 on the clock and one timeout left in Saturday’s game against Duke at Heinz Field, the outcome seemed to be inevitable:

The Panthers and Blue Devils would be going to overtime at 45-all and for the second consecutive home game, Pitt’s fate would be decided in an extra period. After all, Pitt’s offense, which had shown some signs of second-half life for the first time all season, surely wouldn’t be able to drive 45 or 50 yards for a game-winning touchdown, and an 82-yard drive for a touchdown was certainly out of the question.

That line of thinking seemed to be well-founded in logic and precedent. Logic, because the Pitt offense has been very good at running but not so great at throwing, which is more than a little important in a two-minute drill. And precedent, because the Panthers had failed in attempting to move the ball quickly and efficiently in those situations this season, most recently in the loss at Notre Dame when Pitt took the ball trailing by five with 2:35 on the clock and went three-and-out, losing 19 yards in the process.

A week earlier, Pitt really didn’t even attempt a two-minute drill, settling for a field goal drive to force overtime against Syracuse.

So Saturday’s crucial Coastal matchup would be decided in overtime. That was the direction things were going.

Until they weren’t. Because in the off week, offensive coordinator Shawn Watson and the offensive staff made the two-minute drill an emphasis.

“We really did some maybe overhaul for two-minutes last week,” head coach Pat Narduzzi said after the game. “The open week coming out of Notre Dame where we didn't make some plays [late in the game] offensively, we did and got after it pretty good against each other. Obviously it paid off today.”

It paid off because Pitt got into Alex Kessman’s field-goal range with a screen pass to a Darrin Hall and a nice throw-and-catch to Rafael Araujo-Lopes. Then, from the Duke 25, the Panthers decided to go even bigger.

They decided to go for a touchdown. Sophomore quarterback Kenny Pickett took a shotgun snap, dropped back three steps and threw deep to the end zone for junior receiver Maurice Ffrench, who slid under a Duke defensive back to grab the game-winning touchdown.

“It was man-on-man and a fade route and I had to win,” Ffrench said. “I knew I had to win because it was man-on-man so I had to take the opportunity…It was the perfect call at the perfect time.”

“In that situation,” Pickett said, “you’re either throwing for a touchdown or you’re getting the ball out of your hands and throwing out of bounds, because with the time, we had no timeouts so the big thing in my head was, ‘Don’t take a sack here, got to get the ball out of my hand quick.’ I saw the pressure; we’d seen it before. I saw they had Maurice singled up and I threw that ball a hundred times - a thousand times - to him before, so I knew that if I had to throw it quick, I knew the area that he would be in on my third step. So that’s where I put it up and he did the rest.”

Pitt drove 82 yards on seven plays in 1:09 to win a crucial conference game - one of the best drives of the season and a reflection of the work done during the off week.

“It’s very important, especially in a game like this when there are two offenses going back and forth, back and forth,” Ffrench said. “We failed previously when we had a two-minute and we didn’t get the job done, so in practice that was a huge emphasis, making sure that we got our two-minute, making sure that everybody know their job and making sure that we executed at a high level.”

“We did it multiple times throughout the week and obviously it showed today,” Pickett said. “It really helped us. The timing was there, everything we needed to be was there.”