Pitt's season-ending win at Miami was, in a word, perfect

Pitt’s 2022 regular-season finale was, in a word, perfect.

Perfect for the night. Perfect for the season. Perfect for the last 17 years. And perfect for the last 60 years.

60 years ago - 59, to be precise - Pitt beat Miami in the Orange Bowl in the penultimate game of the 1963 regular season. The Panthers wouldn’t win against the Hurricanes on the road for another 51 years, breaking the long streak with a win in the 2014 regular-season finale. That was the last time they won at Miami before Saturday night.

When you only do something three times in 60 years, that’s pretty notable.

17 years ago, the ACC went to a divisional model, breaking its then 12-team league into the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions. Pitt’s game at Miami was the Coastal Division’s final game, as the conference will go to a single-division format starting in 2023.

If there was a proper way for the Coastal to take its final repose, it was with a Pitt blowout win at Miami, the ACC’s newcomers handing one of the league’s hoped-for leaders a crushing defeat.

Then there’s the season. Pitt entered 2022 with the highest of expectations, both internally and externally. Internally, Pitt’s players were talking about some high aspirations, with words like “undefeated” and “number one” and “playoffs” seeing the light of day far more than every imaginable. And those internal aspirations were met with external expectations, as a fairly large number of college football observers looked at the Panthers’ returning experience and transfer additions and thought, “This team just might do something.”

Well, the team did a few things, and not all of them were good. The month of October was particularly brutal, with a dream-smashing loss against Georgia Tech, a slop fest at Louisville and an out-classing by North Carolina leaving the Panthers reeling at 4-4 with a month of games left to play.

The outlook was bleak, and Pitt’s offense had gone so long without any semblance of effectiveness that it seemed like success would never come. Even when the Panthers started stacking wins in November, there still wasn't a ton of offense to speak of.

So when the team came out and played at a very high level in all phases of the game - including the offense - against Miami, it felt like a fitting conclusion to the season:

Here, after 11 games of frequent futility and unreliability, they were putting it together. They saved their best for last, and truly did play their best game of the season in the finale.

And that brings us to the game itself. It wasn’t actually perfect; no game really is. But it sure did come close. Just look at the offense: 504 total yards split almost exactly down the middle with 256 passing yards and 248 rushing yards. The scoring was a perfect split: three passing touchdowns and three rushing touchdowns (two by Israel Abanikanda and one from C’Bo Flemister).

The offense did commit two turnovers, but they weren’t killers like the giveaways at Louisville. And they offset their own mistakes by cashing in on Miami’s miscues, scoring 14 points off of turnovers.

Meanwhile, Kedon Slovis threw for 256 yards, his most since he tallied 305 in the loss to Georgia Tech, and three touchdowns, which also tied a season high set in the GT game. Jared Wayne set a career high with 199 receiving yards and three touchdowns, and he finishes the regular season with 1,006 yards and five touchdowns. And Abanikanda put in his usual kind of work: 111 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries (7.4 yards per carry). Flemister added another 89 yards and a score on seven attempts, while Rodney Hammond had 56 yards on 10 carries.

And all of this says nothing of the defense, which was outstanding for the fourth consecutive game this month. Miami finished with 385 yards of offense, but 152 of those came in the fourth quarter as the Hurricanes played catch-up with the game out of reach. Through the first three quarters, Pitt’s defense allowed Miami to gain 233 yards and three points. The Panthers finished the game with 11 tackles for loss, six sacks, two interceptions and two forced fumbles (one recovered).

It was as dominating a performance as Pitt has produced this season, and the fact that it came against Miami (who the Panthers rarely beat) on the road (where the Panthers rarely win) in the final game of a season that has gone from promising to disappointing to somewhat redeemed and stands as the final game in the 18-year history of the Coastal Division…

That just seems perfect.