Kenny Pickett made his first career start for Pitt on November 24, 2017. As a true freshman, he engineered a memorable 24-14 upset victory over No. 2 Miami at Heinz Field. Three years later, Pickett likely played his final game at his home stadium and went out how he started: with a win.

Pitt dominated Virginia Tech on Saturday to the tune of 47-14. Pickett attempted a career-high 52 passes and threw for 404 yards, the second 400-yard game of his career. His two touchdown passes gave him 36 for career and he moved ahead of Pete Gonzalez for 8th all-time in school history in the category.

Pickett ran for a touchdown on Saturday and became the fifth player in Pitt history to account for over 8,000 yards of offense in his career. The New Jersey native started 18 games at Heinz Field during his career and posted a 13-5 record in those starts.

Pickett said it was an emotional week for the entire senior class. He admitted he choked up addressing the team on Friday night as well.

“It’s just an emotional time in most likely your last time playing at your home stadium, it means a lot,” Pickett said after the game “I think the team really rallied around that and played really hard which is the only thing that you could ask for.”

Pickett has always been a player that teammates have rallied around during his career. He has been a natural leader for this team since he took over as the starting quarterback at the end of 2017, and that was never more apparent then this week according to Pat Narduzzi.

Pitt’s game last week against Georgia Tech was called off due to COVID related issues. Those problems lingered into this week and it was clear Pitt would be without a number of players, including some starters. ‘Next man up’ is a cliche used by football teams all the time, but to Pickett it was clearly the message to his teammates this week.

“The kids found a way to get it done, but the confidence continued to rise, and it started on Tuesday's focus where Kenny Pickett had the focus and talked to the team and said, 'Listen, I don't care who's on the field; I'll play with any of my brothers here,' ” Narduzzi recounted of Pickett’s talk on Tuesday. “And to me that was key; when he said that I was like, here we go, let's go. That's your senior leadership. That's your senior captain. He didn't care who was in front of him. He said we're going to get this thing done.”

Pitt was without three starting offensive linemen against Virginia Tech. Also out was leading receiver Jordan Addison, and Pitt never really seem bothered by those absences on Saturday. The Panthers racked up over 550 yards of total offense and had touchdown drives of: 75 yards, 65, 99, 79, and 80. It was the best performance of the year for the offense and Pickett was the key to it all.

Pickett went back to that 2017 Miami game this week during his reminiscing. Pickett’s center and close friend Jimmy Morrissey pointed out before the game Pitt’s uniform combination in that upset win over Miami, and the jerseys they wore on Saturday.

“I mean time flies,” Pickett said. “It’s crazy, we wore all-blue uniforms that game versus Miami and Jimmy looked at me and said we’re rocking the all-blue again in, who knows, maybe our last game here, so it was definitely special and to see how that time went by.”

Pitt still has two games remaining this season, and the Panthers will look to play spoiler to No. 4 Clemson next week in Death Valley. Pickett has keyed some big wins before, and will look to do it again next week.

Pickett has not come out and officially declared he will be gone this season, but both his and Narduzzi’s comments suggest Saturday was likely his last home game. The Pitt head coach helped keep Pickett’s commitment ahead of signing day in 2017 and their careers have been tied to one another’s, even through some ups and downs the past three seasons.

“You know, the best thing about Kenny besides his arm and his feet and the way he can run is he's a leader,” Narduzzi said. “We’re going to dearly miss Kenny Pickett in another year, but we'll have a lot of time.”