Pitt's defense makes just enough plays to win

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The first nine games of the season were not easy to stomach for Pitt’s defense.

A lackluster season-opening win over Villanova was quickly forgotten when the offense opened up and rained down 42 points on the rebooted rivalry with Penn State. But the end of that sunny afternoon - the part before Ryan Lewis’ legend-making interception, the part where Penn State’s green quarterback nearly threw the Nittany Lions into the winner’s circle before ultimately throwing the game away - turned out to be a harbinger of struggles to come.

Over the next two weeks, Mason Rudolph and Mitch Trubisky combined to throw for more than a half-mile against Pitt, thus beginning a vicious cycle of gaudy numbers by opposing passing games.

Sure, Marshall’s quarterback was held in check - it was the running game that kept the Herd thundering at Pitt’s doorstep in the second half - and Georgia Tech’s triple option didn’t call for Justin Thomas to throw much. And the week after beating the Yellow Jackets, Pitt more or less contained Virginia’s Kurt Benkert (aside from his 146 yards in the first quarter), so it seemed like things might be settling down.

Then came Virginia Tech’s combination of quarterback Jerod Evans and receivers Bucky Hodges, Cam Phillips and Isaiah Ford, followed by Miami’s tandem of Brad Kaaya, Stacy Coley, Ahmmon Richards and David Njoku, and the floodgates opened again.

762 passing yards, 90 points and teams moving the ball down the field at will with little resistance from Pitt’s defense in losses to the Hokies and Hurricanes.

Next for the Panthers? Oh, just a Clemson offense featuring four players who, earlier this week, declared for the NFL Draft, as well as a bunch of other players who will make similar announcements in the next few years.

And, truth be told, Pitt didn’t stop Deshaun Watson, Mike Williams and Artavis Scott; there’s no acceptable definition of “containment” that would apply to Pitt’s performance against the talented Tigers.

Watson threw for 580 yards - the most in ACC history - on 52-of-70 passing. Williams had 15 catches for 202 yards. Scott pulled in 13 receptions for 125 yards. Tight end Jordan Leggett caught six passes for 95 yards and backup receiver Hunter Renfrow caught seven for 77 yards.

Clemson put up 630 yards of total offense, converted 12 third downs, had a whopping 33 first downs and held a time-of-possession advantage of more than eight minutes.

About the only player who didn’t have an eye-popping stat line was running back Wayne Gallman, although he did score three touchdowns, so his day wasn’t completely fruitless.

No, Pitt’s defense didn’t do much in the way of slowing down one of the nation’s best offenses. But what the Panthers did, the secret to their success - and, by extension, the team’s success - was this:

They found a way to be opportunistic at some key points in the game. And with Pitt’s offense scoring nearly as effectively as Clemson’s, the Panthers really only needed just a couple key plays to give the team a chance.

And that was exactly what the defense delivered.

It started at the beginning. After Pitt’s offense announced its presence with a five-play touchdown drive, it looked like Clemson was headed for a similar fate. But Watson’s pass to the end zone on second-and-6 from the Pitt 13 was snagged by Ryan Lewis - his second career interception and one that almost rivals his pick against Penn State.

Then, after three consecutive Clemson touchdowns, Avonte Maddox made his first interception since the Marshall game when Watson heaved a long pass on third-and-7; Maddox grabbed the pick deep in Pitt territory, turning the Tigers away a second time with a key turnover.

After Clemson took a 42-34 lead in the second half, the defense found a way to force a pair of punts - the second coming after Jeremiah Taleni and Matt Galambos collaborated on a rare sack of Watson. On the next drive, Clemson drove all the way to the Pitt 3, where Watson tried a second-and-goal pass to the end zone. But redshirt freshman linebacker Saleem Brightwell slid in front of the intended receiver for Pitt’s third interception of the game, a pick that he returned 70 yards to the Clemson 30.

It wasn’t over yet for the defense, because after Pitt’s offense scored but failed to convert the two-point attempt, the Tigers had the ball again with a 42-40 lead. As the clock ticked under three minutes and then under two, crunch time had come for the defense; that unit either needed to make a stop or watch Clemson celebrate in the victory formation.

At the 2:25 mark, Watson handed off to Gallman, but Shakir Soto and Galambos took him down in the backfield for a one-yard loss. At the 1:50 mark, Watson threw to Williams, but Maddox and Reggie Mitchell stopped him just short of the lead stick. Clemson called a timeout with 1:11 on the clock before handing it off to Gallman on third-and-1.

But Allen Edwards met him at the line of scrimmage, setting up fourth-and-1 with the game on the line. And with 58 seconds left, Clemson ran a toss to the left; Galambos and Gallman met again, and once again, the Pitt linebacker, who had a team-high 12 tackles, won the battle, giving the ball back to Pitt’s offense for the eventual game-winning field goal.

"That will go down in history as one of the greatest fourth-down stops ever, really, when you think about it," Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said after the game. "You knock off the number-two team in the country and do it in that fashion, that way.

I couldn’t be happier for our kids. They are the ones that made the plays. As coaches, we didn’t make a darn play out there today; they made the plays, they hung in there and I love those guys. It’s an unbelievable football team."

After giving up four touchdowns in the first half and two more in the third quarter, Pitt’s defense locked down in the fourth frame, as Clemson’s drives resulted in two punts, an interception and a turnover on downs. And in a game where there were more than a few heroes, Pitt’s defense gets a game ball or two for being opportunistic enough to keep the Panthers in it until the end.