Pitt’s opponents in the final five games of the 2024 season might want to downplay any talk of a quarterback showdown.

Apparently, the Panthers’ defensive players feel a bit overlooked when that becomes the top storyline, and if what they did to Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord at Acrisure Stadium on Thursday night was any indication, they take it very personally.

“The main narrative of the story was, it was gonna be a QB clash between Eli (Holstein) and Kyle McCord,” Pitt linebacker Kyle Louis said after the Panthers’ 41-13 win over the Orange. “They were definitely hyping up Kyle McCord way more than Eli. So it was hyping up Kyle McCord, it was playing our passing defense. So the whole week, our defense definitely took that personal. It was definitely disrespecting us all around.

“So we definitely locked in, we had changed up some passing concepts that we did because we know what Kyle McCord wanted to throw it to. And he tried to throw it there. He definitely tried.”

McCord tried, to be sure. 64 times he threw the ball, and while 40 of those were caught, five of the catches were made by players wearing blue jerseys.

But it wasn’t enough to intercept McCord five times; Pitt’s defense took it one step further - or about 127 yards further - and returned three of the interceptions for touchdowns, outscoring each of the offenses that took the field Thursday night.

On Syracuse’s first drive of the game, Rasheem Biles recorded his first career interception and took it 35 yards to the house. On the Orange’s third drive of the game, Louis grabbed his third interception of the season and went 59 yards. And on the first play of a Syracuse drive late in the half, Braylan Lovelace got his first career pick and went 33 yards to the end zone.

Brandon George had an interception, too, but he caught his laying on the ground, so there was no pick-six opportunity. And safety P.J. O’Brien became the first non-linebacker to get a pick in the ground when he intercepted McCord late in the third quarter.

As a result, McCord nearly doubled his interception total on the season: he had six in Syracuse’s first six games and five on Thursday night.

“This has to be the best performance of all time on this team,” Louis said, and he’s not wrong in terms of the interceptions and the pick-sixes. "Somebody has to show me something better. That's crazy. You got five picks, three pick sixes, four sacks. What, they had like 18 rushing yards? Like, come on, yeah, come on. Somebody search it up in history books. You have to get put on the wall or something after that performance.”

It was a memorable one, to be sure, and it was the latest in a season-long progression for Pitt’s defense. The Panthers replaced nine starters on that side of the ball this offseason, including all three linebacker positions. But if inexperience held those linebackers back, it didn’t do so for long.

After seven games, Pitt’s top six linebackers - Louis, Biles, George, Lovelace, Keye Thompson and Jordan Bass - have combined for 217 tackles, 29 tackles for loss, 10.5 sacks, six interceptions and four touchdowns (in addition to the three pick-sixes on Thursday night, George scored on a blocked punt against West Virginia).

Louis, Biles and George are second, third and fourth on the team in tackles, while Biles and Louis are first and second, respectively in tackles for loss. The only player with more sacks that Louis and Biles is defensive end Jimmy Scott, who has four after he recorded three in the Cal game (Biles has 3.5 and Louis has three).

“It's called development,” Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said Thursday night. “It's called coaching. Coach (Ryan) Manalac does a great job with those Sharks, as we well know. Sharks were on attack today. Jaws would be proud of what happened out there today.”

MORE COVERAGE FROM PITT'S WIN OVER SYRACUSE - Pitt improves to 7-0 with 41-13 win at Acrisure | Slideshow: Photos from Pitt's win over Syracuse | Post-game video: Narduzzi breaks down the win | Post-game video: Louis, Biles, Sauls and Lovelace on the win | Narduzzi: 'Heck of a defensive performance' | PODCAST: Reacting to Pitt's 41-13 blowout | Five takeaways from the win

The “Sharks” is the moniker Pitt’s linebackers gave themselves after learning that both Louis and Biles were called “the shark” in high school. Now the Sharks are establishing a presence as not just a strong unit at Pitt but one of the best in the ACC and maybe beyond.

“We all have stuff to prove, we’re all hungry and we all just know what we want,” Biles said Thursday night. “We all want to get to that next level and we want to be the best in the nation. We've been saying that since we started calling ourselves the Sharks. We want to be the best in the nation. Our whole group just wanted to be the best in the nation, literally. We just keep training for that, we keep preparing for that. We do all the extra stuff we need to do. We key in on our keys. We watch a lot of film together, so we really just want it bad. That's what it is, for real, for real.”

And the Sharks are catching on. Their celebration sign - an open hand extending from the forehead to represent a shark fin - has become adopted by the fans. The Jaws theme song regularly plays during defensive stands at Acrisure Stadium. And on Thursday night, the student section featured an inflatable shark and a fan in a shark costume.

“This Shark stuff is really a movement,” Biles said. "People don't understand, it's really deep with us, for real, for real. And there's more people, there are fans, they’re dressing up as sharks. We just love it, because it's really a movement. It just shows how much work we put in, how good we are, for real, for real. So every time we see some sharks, the signs, the shark animals people are having, dressing up, it brings joy to us.

“I’m not going to lie, bro, I might drop some Shark merch tonight, for real, for real.”