MORE HEADLINES - Video: Narduzzi's final talk before VT | Narduzzi on going for fourth down, the seniors and more | Behind enemy lines: Virginia Tech | The Drive Breakdown: Hall's TDs and the fourth-quarter defense | Inside the numbers: What Ollison and Hall have done better this season | Film review: How the defense stopped Virginia
As Pitt heads toward a huge game, we’re thinking about the path ahead, the seniors, the run game, attendance and more this week.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
The path is clear
Okay, Pitt’s path has been clear for a couple weeks. We’ve known since the Duke game - before it, really - that the Panthers could control their own destiny, but I don’t think anyone really believed it would happen. The team just seemed to be too inconsistent, too unreliable in too many areas, to think it could actually come to pass that they would win out.
But after pulling out a last-second win over Duke and then going to Virginia for a huge Friday night win, it’s all very real and all very much in reach.
And that’s kind of wild, because for all the times we’ve heard that “This is the kind of game Pitt usually loses” or how the Panthers tend to blow these opportunities, the reality is, they haven’t had enough of these opportunities to blow.
They haven’t been in this position before. They haven’t had such a clear path and direct shot at winning a division title since joining the ACC in 2013. Such is Pitt’s positioning in the Coastal right now that a win over Virginia Tech on Saturday will not only move the Panthers one game away from clinching the division, but it will also formally eliminate the Coastal hopes of Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and Duke (and possibly Miami if the Hurricanes lose to Georgia Tech Saturday night).
At this point, Pitt doesn’t even have to watch the other scoreboards. This team doesn’t need any help from anybody to get the prize. This isn’t 2004 with tiebreakers or anything else.
It’s simple: beat Virginia Tech and win one more.
The path couldn’t be more direct than that. And now we get to see how this team handles such situations. Pat Narduzzi said on Thursday that he told his players they now have targets on their back, and that’s pretty unique. It creates its own kind of pressure, and Narduzzi himself said he was interested to see how they respond.
Plus, Virginia Tech isn’t a patsy. Like I said, the Hokies are in an elimination game, and that makes them dangerous. Ask any experienced hunter and they will tell you that there are few animals more prone to attack than a turkey who is backed into a corner.
Okay, I made that up, but you get the point: Justin Fuente is bringing his team to Pittsburgh with an eye on staying alive in the Coastal race. They have to win this game to stay in it, and desperation can spark something in a team. It can inspire a team to play above its ability.
So Pitt needs to take the same approach and be just as desperate as Virginia Tech. Or be even more desperate. Narduzzi seemed to hint at that mindset on Thursday when talking about the decision to go for it on fourth-and-1 from Pitt’s 10-yard line at Virginia:
“And again, we didn’t go down there to play not-to-lose. We went down there to play to win and we’re going to do the same thing this weekend. We’re going to be as aggressive as we have to. We’re playing to win.”
That’s the right mindset to take, and it’s the mindset Pitt may very well need in order to win this one. The Coastal championship can be won next week - if the Panthers take care of business this week, so it’s not a stretch to say that everything is riding on this game. Pitt needs to play like it.
Senior class
This isn’t a “thing we know” as much as a few observations on Pitt’s senior class, since those guys will be recognized before Saturday’s game - their final contest at Heinz Field in a Pitt uniform.
- There are 17 scholarship seniors on this roster. Of those 17, 15 been regular starters at some point in their careers; the only exceptions are defensive end James Folston, who has been a reserve but did start four games last season, and receiver Kellen McAlone, who went on scholarship this summer.
- The list of starters in the senior class includes a bunch of multi-year starters, too: George Aston, Qadree Ollison, Alex Bookser, Dewayne Hendrix, Shane Roy, Seun Idowu and Elijah Zeise. And that doesn’t include Folston, Dennis Briggs (4 career starts prior to this season), Darrin Hall (8 career starts), Phillipie Motley (4 career starts prior to this season) and Quintin Wirginis, who was the starting middle linebacker this season until he got hurt.
- There are three former walk-ons in the scholarship senior class: Aston, McAlone and Idowu. Aston came to Pitt as a linebacker but moved to fullback and went on scholarship before scoring 10 touchdowns in 2016. Idowu was a safety from North Allegheny who moved to linebacker and went on scholarship; last season he led Pitt in tackles (94), tackles for loss (11.5) and sacks (5). And McAlone was a special teams stalwart who earned a varsity letter in each of his first three seasons at Pitt before getting a scholarship this summer.
- 16 of the 17 scholarship seniors are redshirt seniors, and 13 of those 16 have been at Pitt for five years (offensive tackle Stefano Millin and defensive end Dewayne Hendrix transferred in, and receiver Rafael Araujo-Lopes came as a JUCO transfer in 2015). Darrin Hall is the only remaining member of the recruiting class of 2015 who didn’t redshirt and is still on the team.
- For the 14 scholarship players who came to Pitt in the summer of 2014, they have seen the Panthers go from a 6-7 team in their first year to back-to-back 8-5 seasons before missing a bowl last year and finally appearing to be on the cusp of some real success in Year Five. With three regular-season games left, those 14 players have been on the roster for 32 wins and 28 losses. Inside that record is a 22-15 record in ACC games.
- Those 14 scholarship players were the last group signed by Paul Chryst, and they will be the last class to say it played for multiple head coaches at Pitt. The 2015 recruiting class - Hall plus six redshirt juniors - will be the first Pitt recruiting class to play all five seasons under one head coach since the class of 2006.
- Pitt fans may not look back on the class of 2014 as one that defined an era or count many of those players among their favorites - other than Aston - but there were some solid players in that group, and they do form the foundation of the current team, which has put itself in position to accomplish something here in the final weeks.
No in-between for the defense
I don’t think anybody has this defense figured out just yet. It’s pretty bipolar, it seems, and while the variation in performances probably has a good deal to do with the level of competition, it’s still striking to see the numbers.
The stat that sticks out to me is the most important one: Points.
I talked about this earlier in the week. Through nine games, Pitt’s defense has either allowed less than 20 or more than 35. There’s literally no in-between. Penn State, North Carolina, Central Florida, Syracuse, Duke - they all scored at least 37. Albany, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame and Virginia - all 19 or less.
Nobody scored 24. Or 27. Or even 31. Either sub-20 or 35-plus with no in-between.
How to explain it? I have no idea. Maybe I should have put this in the “Two questions” section, because I really don’t have an answer for it (other than the level of competition).
Last year, the scores were a little more spread out. Pitt held five opponents to 20 or less; two teams scored in the 20’s; four teams scored in the 30’s; and Oklahoma State went off for 59. So it’s not similar to the way the defense performed in 2017. In a lot of respects, the defense has been better this season; these Panthers have four sub-20 performances in the first nine games, while last year’s defense needed all 12 regular-season games to get its five sub-20’s.
The real question is which defense shows up in the final three games. None of these opponents has an offense that has been particularly prolific this season, but they’re not dead fish either: Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and Miami are all averaging better than 30 points per game, so there will be challenges in this final three-game stretch.
I do think that, despite the Duke and Syracuse scores - 82 points combined in those games - Pitt’s defense has been playing better since the Central Florida game. The Notre Dame and Virginia games were obviously very good defensive performances, but even against the Orange and the Blue Devils, the defense was able to rebound from some rough stretches to make big plays, especially in the fourth quarter.
I’ve made this point a few times, too: Pitt’s defense has been really good in the fourth quarter of the last four games. Syracuse, Notre Dame, Duke and Virginia combined to score one touchdown and convert 4-of-15 third downs in the fourth quarter. That’s really impressive and, you would think, a sign of a defense that is coming together.
TWO QUESTIONS
Is this the biggest game since Cincinnati 2009?
This is the question a lot of people have been discussing this week, and it’s an interesting one, partially because I think it’s always fun to look back.
And when you look back at the last eight seasons, you realize the sad reality that Pitt hasn’t really been in that many big games. The year after that loss to Cincinnati, Pitt faced Connecticut at midseason with a 3-0 Big East record and a chance to keep fighting for the conference title. But the Panthers lost to the Huskies, and that one was on the road (a blowout loss to WVU two weeks later sealed that particular deal).
In 2011, Todd Graham was never more than one game over .500 in Big East games, so there wasn’t much riding on those games. Paul Chryst started 0-3 in the Big East in 2012 and then posted 2-4 starts to ACC play in 2013 and 2014. So…yeah, not much there either.
(Even when Chryst drew a crowd of 50,000 for the North Carolina game in 2013 on the heels of an upset win over Notre Dame, the Panthers were 2-3 going into that one, which ended up being the first of many disappointments against the Tar Heels).
2015 has an interesting option, though. Pat Narduzzi started his first season at Pitt with a bang. The Panthers got out to a 6-1 record in their first seven games, with the only loss being a close road defeat at Iowa on a herculean field goal. Included in that 6-1 record was a 4-0 mark in ACC games driven by consecutive wins at Virginia Tech, against Virginia, at Georgia Tech and at Syracuse.
With a four-game winning streak, a 6-1 record, a perfect 4-0 mark in the ACC and a top-25 ranking (the Panthers were No. 23 after the Syracuse game) all under a new head coach, people were excited about where Pitt was headed. Following a last-second win at the Carrier Dome, the Panthers came home to host North Carolina.
You know how this story ends, but it doesn’t change how big the game was. Pitt was 4-0 in the ACC and UNC had a 3-0 record. Duke was also 3-0, but the Panthers would face the Blue Devils two weeks later, so they could top them with a head-to-head win. Otherwise in the Coastal, everyone had a losing record. In fact, if Pitt had won that night against UNC, it would have eliminated Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech altogether and created an elimination game for Miami and Virginia when those two teams met a week later.
The game was huge and had serious implications. Pitt didn’t win and finished the season 6-2 in the ACC, which was good for second place behind UNC (who went 8-0), but that was a big game.
Is it bigger than this one, though? I don’t think so. Beating UNC would have made Pitt 5-0; the Panthers would have had to win two out of three against Duke, Louisville and Miami to clinch the Coastal and stay ahead of UNC, who would have only had one loss at that point.
So the UNC game would have been more like last week’s Virginia game.
This one on Saturday is something different altogether. It’s the win before the win; get this one, and Pitt only needs one more to clinch the Coastal. This is literally the closest Pitt has been to a conference championship since 2009.
When you throw in where this team was a month ago and a season ago, it’s a lot bigger than that 2015 UNC game. And it’s the biggest game in nearly a decade.
Can Pitt run the ball on Virginia Tech this year?
Last year, Pitt had plenty of question marks heading into the penultimate game of the regular season, among them the quarterback situation and the seeming improvement of the defense that hit a speedbump in the fourth quarter of the previous week’s loss to North Carolina.
But one thing that couldn’t be questioned was the running game. After struggling for the first half of the season, the Panthers were running wild. Darrin Hall led the charge, going for 486 yards and eight touchdowns over a three-week span.
Pitt couldn’t be counted on to beat North Carolina, but the running game had found its groove, so the Panthers had that going for them.
Until they got to Blacksburg.
The quarterback situation kind of got resolved that day and the defense did well for itself, but the rushing attack was nowhere to be found. Pitt ran for a net total of 55 yards on 30 attempts against the Hokies, led by Quadree Henderson, who ran twice for 26 yards, and Kenny Pickett, who gained 15 yards on nine attempts.
Maurice Ffrench had seven yards on a jet sweep. Qadree Ollison ran twice for six yards. And if you’re still reading the box score at this point, you finally get to Hall:
15 rushing attempts, 4 yards.
So what happened that day? Long story short, Pitt was dominated up front, especially in the interior of the defensive line. Defensive tackles Tim Settle (a fifth-round pick by Washington) and Ricky Walker (he could have gone to the NFL with Settle but returned for his redshirt senior season) made life difficult for Pitt all game long - like on the final few plays, if you remember them.
Fast-forward a year, and Pitt has been running the ball consistently all season. That’s been especially true in the last four games, as the Panthers have rushed for 1,119 yards and 11 touchdowns on 171 carries - an average of 6.5 yards per carry. The rushing attack has been dominant and largely responsible for Pitt’s 3-1 record over that stretch, so the inevitable question remains:
Can Pitt run it on Virginia Tech?
To put it succinctly, they should be able to.
Historically, the Hokies have been very stout against the run, but history is the past, and in the present, they’re not great in that department. Virginia Tech ranks No. 84 nationally and No. 10 in the ACC in rushing yards allowed per game after getting gashed for 1,086 yards and 13 touchdowns over the last four games. Granted, that stretch included a game against Georgia Tech, but the Hokies also gave up 167 yards and three touchdowns on the ground to Notre Dame, 235 yards to North Carolina and 219 and three scores to Boston College.
Incidentally, the Hokies went 1-3 in that stretch.
So yes, Virginia Tech can be run on this season. Duke was the only team this season to attempt at least 30 rushes against the Hokies and not get at least 137 yards out of it; Pitt, for comparison, has run the ball at least 30 times in every game this season and was held under 137 just twice (109 at Central Florida, 116 at Notre Dame).
Right now, the Panthers are a dominant running team, and they should be able to keep that up on Saturday.
ONE PREDICTION
The crowd will show up
Of all the predictions I’ve made since I started writing this column as a weekly feature more than a year ago, this one might be the most bold. Bolder than predicting a road upset over a ranked Virginia team. Bolder than predicting wins over Syracuse or Duke. Even bolder than the history-ignoring assumption that this would be the year Pitt would finally beat North Carolina.
This one just might be bolder than any of those.
I say that because I have historically been really bad at predicting crowds. I remember in 2013, Pitt was coming home in Week Four to host Virginia on the heels of a wild 58-55 win at Duke that improved the Panthers’ record to 2-1.
It was Homecoming, the weather was beautiful and I was sure the crowd would show up to see a team that had scored more than 100 points in its last two games. Sure, that Pitt team opened the season with a home loss to Florida State, but the Panthers had bounced back. Tom Savage was a big-armed quarterback with two really good receivers in Tyler Boyd and Devin Street, and the freshman running back, James Conner, looked like the real deal.
People love offense, and I knew the fans would show up. I just knew it.
Announced attendance: 48,425.
Sadly, that’s not bad by current standards, but it was only fourth-best that season.
Three years later, though, I knew attendance was going to spike after the Clemson game. I mean, come on: Pitt upset No. 2 Clemson on the road in one of the most exciting games this program had produced since…I can’t remember anything comparable. Pitt won an unwinnable game against an unbeatable opponent; surely the fans would show up and show their appreciation a week later when the team came home to host Duke.
That win earned some respect, and I knew the fans would show up. I just knew it.
Announced attendance: 35,425.
That one might have been the most disappointing that I can remember.
This one, though, this one will be different. Here’s a resilient Pitt team that has battled through a difficult season and is heading into the final three games with something to play for, something real and legitimate, with no back doors required to win a championship. It’s not going to take a four-way tie for this one. It’s not going to be a rings-without-the-title situation. This is an honest-to-God chance to win the Coastal Division, and no game is more important than this weekend’s.
Pitt fans have stayed away from this team this season. The Penn State game was the only one that clocked more than 37,100 fans in attendance, and there has been a steady fall to the 31,510 announced for the Duke game. But the path has changed for this team, the course of this season has been altered from one of continued mediocrity to something that could actually constitute success.
And I think the fans will be there. I think we’ll hear 50,000+ supporting the team loudly and proudly (at least until Virginia Tech’s first third-and-long conversion or Kenny Pickett’s first incomplete pass).
