DALLAS — The nightmare that was Pitt’s 48-25 loss to SMU on Saturday night at Gerald J Ford Stadium started off with a missed tackle on defense. The results that followed were compounded by a suddenly anemic offense.
The 18th-ranked Panthers entered the SMU game as the nation’s sixth highest scoring team, posting over 40 points per game, but the failures of this unit started well before this most recent contest, however.
Over the past three games, Pitt is just 7-of-35 on third down conversions, including a 5-for-17 clip against the Mustangs. The Panthers are simply not sustaining drives right now and haven’t been for weeks, and it finally caught up with them against SMU, resulting in the team's first defeat of the 2024 campaign.
“We’re just starting slow,” said senior tight end Gavin Bartholomew. “We’ve got to get the offense going. The defense was helping us out as much as they can. But as a unit, as an offense, we’ve got to keep the ball moving and score points.”
The Panthers only scored two offensive touchdowns in the team’s win over Cal, then followed that with two against Syracuse. On Saturday, Pitt’s first-team offense only generated one touchdown, and it came on the team’s ninth offensive possession. The eight drives that preceded that score included three punts, two turnovers on downs, a pair of field goal attempts, and one fumble.
The Panthers’ second team offense generated two late touchdowns to make the score look a little more respectable, but when the starting quarterback was on the field, Pitt only generated 11 points in a primetime showdown against a ranked team.
Through the first five games of this season, that seemed impossible.
Pitt’s offense, led by first-year coordinator Kade Bell, looked like a well-oiled machine in September, but now the Panthers look predictable. The ‘play fast and score faster’ mantra has been stuck in the mud for weeks now.
“I don't know,” Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi replied when asked what is causing his team’s third down struggles.
“We’ve got to go back and look at what we're doing as coaches and what we're asking our kids to do and figure it out. It starts with good defense.”
SMU’s defense certainly deserves plenty of credit, but it’s not like Pitt’s offense made it tough on them either. Eli Holstein, who looked unstoppable through five games by winning ACC Rookie of the Week each time, has been playing more and more like a struggling freshman hitting a wall in recent weeks.
Holstein finished 29-for-48 with 248 yards and no touchdowns. He committed two turnovers: one interception and also a costly fumble in the runaway second quarter for SMU, where the Mustangs outscored Pitt 24-0.
The Pitt signal caller only hit for 8.5 yards per completion on Saturday, as opposed to the 17-yard average SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings was hitting on in his 300-yard passing performance.
“You know, again, it's a team game,” Narduzzi said when asked about his freshman quarterback. “It takes 11 guys out there running the right routes, and it takes protection. And you’ve got to trust your protection, and you’ve got to get the ball out. And we'll look at it, but it's one of those games.”
Unfortunately for this offense, it’s been more than one of those games, but rather three of them at this point. Aside from Holstein’s inefficiency in the passing game, he did not have much of a running game to lean on either. Pitt netted 103 yards on the ground, with the speedy Desmond Reid being held to only 49 yards on 13 carries.
At the end of the day, Pitt’s offense finished with 453 yards, which is higher than their season average of 443. But of course, that does not tell the story. This offense is suddenly looking very pedestrian, and it’s reminiscent of last year, when a lack of scoring directly caused losses for this team.
The loss to SMU certainly takes the wind out of the sails for the dream season Pitt was having, but the 7-1 start is still putting the team in unchartered waters, at least for the recent history of this program. The Panthers will have a chance to bounce back next week when a 4-4 Virginia team comes to Acrisure Stadium, as Pitt looks to get back on track.
“A loss like this is never fun, but one loss does not define us,” said Bartholomew. “I know the team. I know we’re going to bounce back and we’re excited for next week.”
