It’s easy to look at Pitt’s loss 26-21 to Georgia Tech on Saturday night at Acrisure Stadium and see the obvious mistakes.

Three turnovers. 12 penalties. Those are the things that lose games, people often say.

Coaches often say that.

But the simple reality of Pitt’s first ACC loss of the season, the simple truth of one of the worst losses in the Pat Narduzzi era with the Panthers, is that the blame for the loss falls squarely on one side of the ball.

And it’s the side of the ball that has been a major question mark for the Panthers all season.

It’s the offense, and after questionable performances that raised red flags about the effectiveness of the unit throughout the first four games, the ineptitude came to a head on Saturday night.

In front of a thin crowd that dwindled as the rain fell and the home team’s fate became more and more inevitable, Pitt’s offense was all of the worst things it had been this season - all of them, all at once.

Kedon Slovis looked indecisive, although that might have been due to his receivers playing poorly. The rushing attack struggled to get consistent yards, but that might have been due to no threat of a passing game.

Most of all, the Panthers simply seemed to have no idea who they were when they took possession.

Facing a Georgia Tech team that had fired its head coach five days earlier after giving up 600 rushing yards in its previous two games, Pitt came out throwing. But the Panthers’ passing attack hadn’t really been stretched out since Week Two against Tennessee, and the rust was showing.

Kedon Slovis threw incomplete on his first three attempts - Pitt’s first three plays in the game - and completed just two of his first 10 passes thrown for a grand total of eight yards, three of which came on a second-and-8 pass to Ryan Jacoby, a converted offensive lineman wearing No. 84 and lining up at tight end.

He did a little better after that, completing four of his final six passes in the half for 53 yards, including a 29-yard touchdown pass to Gavin Bartholomew.

That was as good as it got, because in the second half, the general ineptitude became very specific and very severe.

Vincent Davis lost a fumble to end Pitt’s first drive of the third quarter. Slovis was picked off on the third drive. Davis lost another fumble on the first play of the fourth possession. And a promising march to midfield after Georgia Tech went ahead 19-7 was sunk by an intentional grounding penalty and a tipped pass that offensive lineman Marcus Minor “caught” for a 10-yard loss.

When the game was all but set, after the Yellow Jackets took nearly five minutes off the clock, Pitt’s passing game finally did something. Slovis completed 6-of-9 passes on a 99-yard all-passing drive, concluding with a 26-yard touchdown pass to Jaden Bradley, and then capped another long touchdown drive with a second scoring throw to Bradley.

To say it was too little and too late is an understatement.

Actually, it was too little and too late.

Pitt simply did too little to develop its passing game throughout the first third of the season until it was too late to survive an emotional effort from a Georgia Tech team who provided more resistance than expected.

Now the question becomes whether this Pitt team, with its aspirations of Coastal titles and ACC championships and possibly something more, can solve a gigantic issue with the midpoint of the season approaching.

The Panthers haven’t figured out their offense through the first five games, and if they don’t figure it out soon, the next seven promise to be just as challenging as Saturday night.