Pitt comes up 54 inches short

MORE HEADLINES - 10 thoughts on the loss at VT | Close but no: Pitt falls at Virginia Tech at the 1-yard line | Video: Narduzzi's post-game press conference | Narduzzi on the loss, Pickett, the timeouts, the goal line and more | Post-game video: Brian O'Neill

BLACKSBURG, Va. - All Pitt needed was a yard and a half..

54 inches to hold onto the slim hopes of a bowl game. 54 inches to salvage a decent win from a season that was bereft of such things despite plenty of opportunities.

And just like Pitt had opportunities for decent wins this season, the Panthers had opportunities to beat Virginia Tech on Saturday at Lane Stadium. Multiple opportunities, ranging from a missed field goal to a run defense that became porous in the fourth quarter.

But nothing was more acute, more precise, more on-the-point than the final four plays of the game. Pitt had four chances to gain 54 inches and beat Virginia Tech. And Pitt failed.

So while Saturday’s game goes down as another loss for the Panthers in 2017, their seventh defeat in 11 games, the 20-14 fall to the Hokies stands alone. Because unlike Penn State, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Syracuse, N.C. State and North Carolina, Pitt’s path to victory against Virginia Tech was very simple:

Gain 54 inches.

Jester Weah almost covered those 54 inches himself. On a desperation fourth-and-4 with Pitt holding the ball at its own 25 and trailing Virginia Tech by four points, Weah caught a pass from freshman quarterback Kenny Pickett, broke a tackle and took off running toward the end zone.

“I didn’t think anybody could catch Jester Weah,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said after the game. But Virginia Tech rover Reggie Floyd caught Weah, tripping him up enough to cause the redshirt senior receiver’s knee to drop before the ball crossed the goal line.

By the official stat book, Pitt needed one yard. In reality, it was closer to 54 inches. Either way, it was a goal that seemed attainable.

The Panthers ended up running four plays to gain those 54 inches, handing the ball to junior running back Darrin Hall, who had been stoned by Virginia Tech’s stout run defense throughout the game, on the first two plays before a rushed pass from Pickett to Weah was incomplete and a final handoff to Hall was turned away.

Four plays and no gain with the game on the line. Given Virginia Tech’s success in stopping the run, maybe handing the ball off three times wasn’t the best plan. But for the players on Pitt’s offense and its coaching staff, four plays from that distance are about more than the calls from the sidelines. That situation is about lining up and winning a game.

“I don’t care what the play call is,” redshirt junior left tackle Brian O’Neill said after the game. “As an O-lineman, you expect to score when you have the ball first-and-goal on the 2.”

“We can sit here and talk about play calls, but you gotta block them,” Narduzzi said. “You need a yard. You’ve got four downs to get a yard. We can second-guess and run four different plays; it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to get one yard.

“We know they’re a good football team. We know they’ve got a good run defense. But it’s a yard. We’ve got to be able to get a yard.”

Pitt didn’t get that yard, and a game that had quite a few interesting and even positive storylines, from Pickett’s maybe-move into the starting job and punter Ryan Winslow’s touchdown pass to walk-on backup long-snapper Nathan Bossory and Avonte Maddox’s return from injury, turned into just another loss in a season with plenty of them.

Maybe the Panthers lost in a different way on Saturday, but ultimately they still lost. And the postmortem on Narduzzi’s rough third season probably won’t spend much time on how close Pitt got at Virginia Tech in this game.