Pitt looked to open with a statement
In the first game of what could be the weirdest college football season in memory, Pitt did something perfectly typical for this atypical point in time.
The Panthers walked onto the grass at Heinz Field and drubbed an opponent, sending Austin Peay back to Tennessee with a 55-0 loss.
Beating an FCS opponent is not to be taken for granted, of course; Pitt has a loss to Youngstown State on its record from 2012. But more recently, the Panthers haven’t exactly blown out FCS teams that came to Heinz Field.
Last year, Pitt barely got past Delaware 17-14 after a fourth-quarter comeback. In 2017, the Panthers needed overtime to beat Youngstown State. In 2015, Pitt hung on to beat YSU by one score.
But on Saturday at Heinz Field, the outcome was never in doubt, as the Panthers got on top of the Governors early and held them down until Austin Peay asked for mercy in the form of 10-minute quarters in the second half.
That request was accepted by Pat Narduzzi, and it was understandable. At halftime, Pitt led 42-0, had a 420-92 advantage in total yardage, a 139-1 advantage in rushing yards and nearly three times as many yards per carry as its guests.
And that was exactly what Narduzzi hoped to accomplish.
“We talked all week about coming out and making a statement. I told the guys about a week and a half ago, it might have been two and a half weeks ago when camp broke and we started working on Austin Peay, that we were going to come out and make a statement.
“Since I’ve been here, I’ve felt like we haven’t come out and exploded against anybody. I don’t want to say ‘played down,’ but the big emphasis was today to come out and play up. We were going to show that we were a different football team and really make a statement to the country about who we are and what kind of weapons we have on really all three phases of the game.”
The weapons that Pitt put on display took many forms. There was Kenny Pickett, the senior quarterback who threw for 277 yards and a touchdown on 14-of-20 passing and rushed for another score. There was freshman receiver Jordan Addison who caught seven passes for 35 yards. There were three other Pitt receivers who each caught a pass that gained 51 yards or more. There were four running backs who scored touchdowns.
And that was just on offense.
On defense, Pitt had three sacks, eight tackles for loss, two interceptions and one fumble recovery. And on special teams, the Panthers blocked one punt and returned it for a touchdown and then pressured Austin Peay’s punter into another bad kick that was returned to the 2.
It was domination, start to finish, in a way that Pitt hasn’t done under Narduzzi.
“That’s what I said: ‘Where are we? Who are we?’” Narduzzi said after the game. “That was two weeks ago we talked about it and we talked about it on Tuesday in our first practice about coming out and playing our game, not playing somebody else’s game. I think Austin Peay’s a good football team, but when we play up to our level, that’s what an opener should look like. Probably one of our biggest margins of victory since I’ve been here.
“And going back to Youngstown State when we won in overtime, Delaware was a tight one - I know Kenny didn’t play in that game - I look at Eastern Michigan where we play hard enough just to win the football game; I wanted to prove that this 2020 team was a different team. And they really are.”
The final result was the biggest margin of victory for a Pitt team since the Panthers beat Delaware 62-0 in the 2014 opener and eclipsed Narduzzi’s high-water mark that was set in 2016, when Pitt beat Duke 56-14.
Now the Panthers will look to carry that success over to the second game of the season when they welcome Syracuse to Heinz Field next week in the first of 10 ACC games this season.
“It’s a new year and a new team,” redshirt senior offensive lineman Jimmy Morrissey said. “We expect to have a great season and that was a great game for us.”