Pickett picks a perfect day for a breakout game

With the Coastal Division title there for the taking but Wake Forest providing considerable resistance to Pitt’s rushing game, the sophomore quarterback had to elevate his own performance for the Panthers to walk out of BB&T Field with a win on Saturday.

But at least one person believed Pickett was in line for something special - even before it became clear he would be the man of the hour.

“I told Kenny before the game that this was going to be his best game he’s played yet, and by far, it was,” redshirt senior running back Qadree Ollison said Saturday afternoon.

And Ollison turned out to be prescient, because while he and fellow senior running back Darrin Hall were held to 96 yards on 31 attempts - 325 yards less than they had last week against Virginia Tech - the offense was able to turn to Pickett, who put up the strongest performance of his career, completing 23-of-30 passes for 316 yards and three touchdowns as Pitt beat Wake Forest 34-13.

“Every week is a different week and you don’t know what a defense is going to give you,” Pickett said after the game. “It’s just kind of how the chips fell this week: we had to throw it a little bit and we made some plays. We were explosive like I said we were going to be all year. We’re clicking right now and we’re just going to keep the momentum.”

Pickett set career highs in passing yards and passing touchdowns on Saturday, but the game followed a pretty strong showing in last week’s win over the Hokies. For that one, he only threw 11 passes, but he completed seven for 162 yards and a touchdown.

That score at Heinz Field was caught by Maurice Ffrench, and he caught another one at Wake Forest when Pickett found him with a bullet in the fourth quarter to put the Panthers ahead by two touchdowns. Ffrench also made one of the best catches of the season in the second quarter when he pulled in a one-handed grab for 31 yards to set up Pitt’s first touchdown.

“We made some great plays and it started with Maurice Ffrench’s big one-handed catch down here on third down,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said after the game. “Kenny Pickett was outstanding the entire day with his run checks and obviously throwing the ball. I couldn’t be happier.”

Ffrench finished the game with six catches for 76 yards and a score, while redshirt senior Rafael Araujo-Lopes also caught six for 73 yards and redshirt sophomore Taysir Mack had three catches for 105 yards and a 63-yard touchdown catch late in the third quarter.

“Kenny’s a great quarterback,” Mack said Saturday. “I know he’s going to put the ball wherever it needs to be. And he’s just looking for us to deliver. He’s confident in us, he believes in us, and he showed that today.”

Mack and Ffrench both made big plays against Virginia Tech, too, and their emergence seems to be correlating with Pickett’s development. Maybe that was why Ollison believed the young signal-caller was in line for a breakout game.

“I just felt it,” Ollison said. “Kenny’s been getting better every single week. I tell you all that all the time: he’s getting better and better. He’s become a smarter football player, he’s becoming a real poised quarterback and he’s an amazing quarterback. He’s the leader of our offense - one of the leaders of our offense - and just the way he operates and the way he carries himself, he never gets rattled, staying persistent.”