Saturday’s game between Pitt and Virginia featured two types of offensive futility:
The self-inflicted and the opponent-created.
Fortunately for the Panthers, their firm place in the former category was outweighed by their defense’s dominance in the latter, and the team left Charlottesville with a 6-4 record and bowl eligibility after beating the Cavaliers 37-7.
Pitt’s defense convinced everyone there must be a glitch when it started the scoring on a pair of interceptions returned for touchdowns on Virginia’s first two plays. But when the Panthers finally took possession for their first drive, the offense looked almost as good as the defense. Pitt went 63 yards on eight plays, including a 37-yard pass from Kedon Slovis to Bub Means and an eight-yard run by Israel Abanikanda to convert third-and-3; the junior back finished the drive two plays after that with a two-yard run.
The touchdown was Abanikanda’s 18th score of the season, but on the next drive, he watched sophomore Rodney Hammond take over as the lead back. Hammond ran for a handful of yards, but it was Slovis who led the offense this time, completing three-of-five passes for 53 yards, including a 31-yard scoring throw to Means.
Dominant defense, unstoppable offense - wherever this Pitt team was in the first nine games didn’t matter; it showed up in Charlottesville and seemed poised to score roughly 200 points or so while maybe forcing Virginia into a negative point total.
The defense certainly kept up its end of the deal for the rest of the game, allowing one touchdown on 144 yards of total offense with minus-8 net rushing yards, giving up just two third-down conversions on 13 attempts and sacking Virginia quarterback Brennan Armstrong eight times.
But Pitt’s offense didn’t quite maintain its early success. And it wasn’t because the Cavaliers suddenly found a way to stop the Panthers.
Rather, they stopped themselves.
Pitt’s third drive found the Panthers facing second-and-25 after a holding penalty; that one ended in a punt. So did the next one, which saw first-and-10 turn into first-and-20 after another holding call. And the theme repeated one more time when a holding call after Pitt drove inside the 40 pushed the Panthers back to a first-and-20 from which they eventually had to attempt a long field goal (Ben Sauls had the leg for the 54-yard kick, but it clanged off the left upright).
Pitt committed two more holding penalties on offense in the fourth quarter, and while Sauls converted those possessions with field goals, the flags helped keep the Panthers from reaching the end zone and kept their win as a 30-point victory instead of something more.
Ultimately, the final book on Pitt’s win Saturday looked more impressive on the defensive side. There were several standout individual performances on offense, like Abanikanda gaining 121 yards and a touchdown for his seventh 100-yard game of the season, Slovis throwing a touchdown pass to a receiver for the first time in more than a month, Means catching his first touchdown pass as a Panther, Konata Mumpfield putting up a solid 7-for-60 and the offensive line not allowing a single sack.
Overall, the offense fell short of reaching 400 yards (although they did lose a few yards in the victory formation) and didn’t score a touchdown after the first quarter. Pitt didn’t turn the ball over, which was a considerable improvement, since the Panthers had committed at least one turnover in each of their five games against ACC opponents - 11 in total over that span.
That’s a step forward, and certainly something Pitt will look to replicate in its home finale against Duke next Saturday and regular-season finale at Miami the following week. But the Panthers have more than one way of stopping themselves, and if they could have one game when they eliminate turnovers and minimize penalties, they just might be able to put together something approaching a consistently effective offense.
In the meantime, holding opponents under 10 points each week is a good place to start.
