KNOXVILLE — Pitt got off to a rocky start in Tennessee. The Panthers first drive resulted in a three-and-out. Kirk Christodoulou’s punt was blocked, and the Volunteers scored a play later.

The offense continued to struggle after that. The first three drives netted just 12 yards. Pitt did not panic. In fact, the Panthers worked through those early mishaps and turned around a 10-0 defect to a 27-20 halftime lead.

Pitt brought 24 seniors to Knoxville and the veteran group knew what they were facing. The crowd of over 82,000 made noise, and the home team caught the momentum early.

“I told the guys last night in the team meeting that this thing isn’t going to go smooth,” Pickett said to reporters after a three touchdown performance. "We may go down, that’s just how it goes on the road. They have a lot of energy with the fan base and the crowd they had. So no one really batted an eye, no one blinked, it was just, 'Alright let’s get a positive play and then stack on that.'”

Pitt finally got that positive momentum it needed on offense. On the Panthers fourth drive of the game, the offense started to click. Pitt went 92 yards on 11 plays and finished it off with a Pickett scoring toss to Melquise Stovall in the back of the end zone.

“We always keep the same mindset,” Pitt senior offensive linemen Marcus Minor said. “Football is never going to be perfect, so the fact that we were able to come back and keep our heads down and just continue to work and happy with the outcome.”

Pitt scored on its next four possessions as well to close out the first hald. Pat Narduzzi said he preached to his team on Friday about taking that early punch from the Volunteers and overcoming it.

“One of our keys to victory was to come out and weather the storm in the first quarter,” the Pitt coach explained. “We knew the noise and the chaos going on in the stadium was going to be something. We knew we were going to go through adversity in the first quarter and our guys stuck with it.”

Pitt sophomore wide receiver Jordan Addison finished with six catches for 64 yards and a touchdown. He caught a 16-yard pass on Pitt’s first scoring drive that helped spark the offense, and drew a penalty later in that possession to help set up that initial score.

“We just knew we had to get going,” the sophomore said of Pitt’s early offensive woes. “We were really losing in the field position battle, so that was messing the offense up a little. So once we got back on track we just kept it rolling.”

Pitt grabbed the lead for good on a Vincent Davis two-yard touchdown run just before halftime. The Panthers added two scores in the second half, and kept the Volunteers at arm’s length. Pitt also ran out the final 4:52 off the clock on offense to seal the win with five running plays, and two in victory formation.

“It was really just making one positive play to spring us and get us going,” said Pickett. "We knew that they were going to come out with energy and emotion and we’re going to have to match that and do better next time on the road, but we felt like once we got a rhythm going that we would be alright and it happened.”