11/12/2021 football Edit

The 3-2-1 Column: What to make of Pitt's OT win against UNC

Chris Peak • Panther-lair

Publisher

In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about No. 21 Pitt’s win over North Carolina at Heinz Field on Thursday night.

Note: This column was produced in the hours after the conclusion of the game. Please excuse any errors, be they typographical, logical or otherwise.

A night to remember
There’s a first time for everything.

For me, this is (I think) the first time I’ve written a 3-2-1 Column after a late game. I can’t remember what we did the last time Pitt played a Thursday night game; I think that was the season finale against Georgia Tech last year, and I don’t recall if we did a column or not.

But after what we saw at Heinz Field on Thursday night, how could I not write something? I nearly fired up the live stream machine at 1:30 in the morning to talk about that game, the likely volume of which would have almost certainly disturbed the other residents of the Panther-Lair.com offices.

So I didn’t do that, but I had to write about it. Because at Heinz Field on Thursday night, we saw Pitt do something it doesn’t usually do.

I think a lot of fans probably felt like they were watching a familiar story play out as Pitt’s 17-0 lead slowly bled into a 23-23 tie at the end of regulation. It was headed down the path to a choke job that would live in infamy, and Pitt fans, the prescient bunch that they are, could see it coming.

Except…it didn’t happen.

Sure, you could say that turning a 17-0 first-quarter lead into a 23-23 game going to overtime is a choke job in and of itself, and there might be something to that theory. But you know what? The Panthers played themselves into that situation, and then they played themselves right out.

Their defense gave up play after play to let UNC claw back into the game in the second half, and then they shut the door to force a field goal at the end of the fourth quarter.

And their offense went into a complete shutdown mode pretty much from the second quarter on, only to respond with a huge possession in overtime.

Naturally, it was Kenny Pickett who led the way, bouncing back from a fairly bad second half - 83 yards, no touchdowns and a brutal interception - to make several giant plays in overtime. Pickett scrambled for six yards to convert third-and-2 in the extra period and then placed a perfect throw to Lucas Krull for the game-winning touchdown.

Pickett finished with 346 yards, three touchdowns and one pick on 25-of-43 passing while breaking the Pitt record for career passing yards, but his performance was overshadowed by a defense that, for the most part, held UNC’s high-flying offense in check. The Tar Heels came to Heinz Field with the No. 11 scoring offense in the nation, averaging nearly 40 points per game.

Pitt gave up 23. And that included a shutout in overtime.

From the records to the rain to the results, I don’t think anyone will forget this game anytime soon. But let me add one more thing to remember about this one:

Pitt didn’t play its best game on Thursday night. In some respects, and for some elements of the team (on the field and on the sideline) the Panthers played one of their worst games of the season.

And they still won.

Sometimes you need a game like that
There are teams in college football that are so talented that they will, on just about any given Saturday, show up and play at a really high level.

And their talent level is such that even if they don’t play at a high level, they’re likely to have a comfortable win due to the superiority of their roster.

There are teams like that. Not many, but some.

Pitt isn’t among those teams. Most teams in FBS are not among those teams.

Like most teams in FBS, Pitt’s roster has strengths and weaknesses, players it can count on to lead to victory and vulnerabilities that could lead to a loss if they are exposed and exploited.

For those teams, it’s not quite as easy to string a bunch of wins together. For those teams, it’s a grind, week in and week out, and sometimes, they fall short and the base talent level isn’t high enough to overcome an off week.

But when the teams in that tier have a high-achieving season, when they reach a certain level of success that’s above and beyond the norm, there’s a confluence of events that come together.

One of the key things that a team like that needs to really get over the top is a game or two where they aren’t at their best, when they don’t play close to their A-game, when they’re off, for whatever reason and have something of a bad day - but still win.

I think for Pitt or other teams in that level, winning nine or 10 or more games in a season means, in most cases, that somewhere along the line, they snuck out with a win when they played poorly enough to lose.

Call it luck or stealing a win or whatever, but I think for most teams in that level, it has to happen at some point. There has to be a win or two that you get when you probably came pretty close to giving it away.

That’s what Pitt got on Thursday night.

The Panthers blew their fast start and let UNC get back in it, and in the second half, they played poorly enough to lose.

Except they didn’t lose. They did jussssst enough to sneak out of Heinz Field with a win.

And I’m not taking anything away from the way the defense played or what Kenny Pickett did in overtime or Lucas Krull’s touchdown catch. Those players - and more - all deserve a ton of credit. They’re the reason Pitt won.

Let’s be honest, though: the Panthers very nearly gave that one away. And that would have been brutal.

But instead of giving it away, they held on and beat the Tar Heels. The “8” in their 8-2 record doesn’t include caveats for how close they came to losing. It goes down as a win, and most teams that reach into the higher levels of win totals each year probably have one or two games like that.

Pitt just got one.

Pitt needed that
Looking away from Heinz Field for just a moment, can I just reflect on how much Pitt needed that win.

Not Pitt the football program, although that group certainly needed the victory to maintain control of its own destiny.

I’m talking about Pitt as a whole. The Athletic Department.

They really needed that.

This hasn’t been a great week for Pitt sports, as you might have heard. Specifically, of course, I’m talking about the most prominent programs in the department - football and men’s basketball. Football’s week had been quiet leading up to Thursday’s game, whereas men’s basketball was anything but.

I don’t think I really need to recount what has happened, do I?

Briefly, then: Ithiel Horton got arrested, Pitt lost to The Citadel and Judah Mintz, the Panthers’ only commitment in the class and a bright spot for the future, decommitted on the first day of the signing period.

That’s rough, and with a trip to Morgantown to face West Virginia looming on Friday night, it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better.

If Thursday night’s affair at Heinz Field had gone in a different direction…hoo boy.

I jokingly said I would shut down the site in the event of a Pitt loss on Thursday night, and while I was only joking, I have to admit the idea sounded appealing.

Pitt fans, to put it lightly, would have been in a dark place if the Panthers had lost to UNC.

Throw in the way that game was going, with Pitt blowing a 17-0 lead en route to what looked like it could be a loss, and you had a recipe for an all-time board meltdown.

I might not have shut down the site, but it would have been tempting.

Now, Pitt’s win over UNC doesn’t fix the basketball program. There are issues with Jeff Capel’s organization that are going to be difficult to solve.

But at least for this weekend, Pitt fans can feel good about the football team. The Panthers are 8-2 overall and 5-1 in the ACC, they control their own destiny in the Coastal Division and, perhaps best of all, they don’t play again until next Saturday, so Pitt fans can relax and enjoy college football this weekend without the stress of their favorite team playing.

None of this will make a loss to West Virginia easier to stomach, but at least you can say that not everything is bad for Pitt right now.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
Is the defense turning a corner?
I don’t know if “turning a corner” is the right phrase to use here, for a few reasons.

For one, I don’t think Pitt’s defense has been out-and-out bad this season. It has been occasionally bad, sporadically bad, but not consistently bad. It has been bad in moments, like the beginning of the Miami game or a few spots against Duke, but it has also offset those with some really strong play for the majority of those games, in addition to some pretty good full-game efforts like Clemson or Virginia Tech.

The other reason I don’t really like talking about Pitt’s defense “turning a corner” is that I don’t necessarily think everything is a step forward like that. I think that sometimes there are steps forward and other times there are steps back; it’s not all linear.

All that said, Pitt’s defense put in a pretty impressive performance on Thursday night. They held a UNC offense that averages 38.9 points per game to just 23 points. They gave up 88 rushing yards on 38 attempts. They sacked Sam Howell five times. They allowed UNC to convert 5-of-16 third downs and just 1-of-4 fourth downs.

And when they got into trouble, like the two times UNC knocked at the goal line, the Panthers stepped up. The first time, they forced the Tar Heels to run a full four plays before Howell finally got into the end zone. The next time, after UNC got the ball at the Pitt 35 thanks to an interception and drove to the 2, they shut the door and forced a field goal.

And, of course, when the game went to overtime, Pitt’s defense stepped up, allowing minus-1 yard on three plays before M.J. Devonshire grabbed the game-clinching interception.

Pitt’s defense played at a really high level against a really good offense. There are more good offenses waiting for the Panthers down the road, but if Thursday night’s game was a sign of where this unit is headed, that’s really, really encouraging.

Will they ever run the ball?
Look, here’s the thing:

Pitt has some good running backs.

I believe that. I really do. I think Israel Abanikanda is the real deal (aside from his missed block that led to a third-down sack on Pitt’s first drive of the second half). He is a threat with the ball in his hands; in my view, he’s one of the top three offensive weapons on this team, and I don’t think he’s No. 3.

Against UNC, he averaged 5.2 yards per carry. That’s a pretty good number.

But he only carried the ball 12 times. That’s not a good number.

The reality is, this is how Pitt chooses to operate its offense. It’s simply not a run-based offense. The offense is based on the pass, and that’s where they start. They want the ball in Kenny Pickett’s hands and they want him throwing it to Jordan Addison and the rest.

The run is an afterthought.

Which is a shame because, like I said, there is some talent in the backfield. Abanikanda can really make things happen. Rodney Hammond has skill. And Vincent Davis can do some things, too.

But again, the offense runs through Kenny Pickett and the passing game. That’s just how it is.

So when it’s the fourth quarter and Pitt is leading 23-13 and the Panthers get the ball at their 39 and the play script is pass-pass-pass-run-pass-pass and Pitt punts after holding the ball for less than two and a half minutes, I can understand the frustration, but this is how the offense is built.

The next possession was the same. UNC scored a touchdown to cut the lead to three and Pitt came out throwing on first down - a screen pass that was intercepted.

Why throw it there? Why not come out and run and eat clock and keep Sam Howell on the sideline?

In that situation, I think the coaches were looking for a score. The lead was down to 23-20 and Pitt felt like it needed an answer rather than trying to be conservative and sit on the ball while clinging to a three-point advantage.
They wanted points, and the best way for this offense to get points is to throw.

So they did. And they paid for it.

I really thought this team had shown it could close out a game with the run. They did it at Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech and they did it against Clemson. Surely, they could do it against North Carolina.

I believe they could do it against North Carolina.

But we won’t know because they didn’t try. And quite frankly, I’m probably not going to hold my breath on that one.

The offense is built on the pass, its success has come from the pass and whatever the team achieves this season will be a result of the pass.

The offense won’t have another game like this
What kind of game did the offense have?
441 yards of offense. 346 passing yards. 95 rushing yards. 30 points. Three touchdowns in six red zone trips. One red zone field goal. 9-of-17 on third downs. 25:49 time of possession. One turnover.

Not a terrible day, but not up to the standards of a team that came into Thursday night as the No. 1 scoring offense in the nation. And the closer you look, the worse it seems.

Pitt turned the ball over on downs on its first possession and then scored on each of its next three drives (touchdown, touchdown, field goal).

The Panthers added one more touchdown in the second quarter, and then their final six drives of the half looked like this:

Missed field goal
Punt
Missed field goal
Punt
Interception
End of half

Now, the next drive ended with a game-winning touchdown, so we shouldn’t entirely leave that out. But that’s a whole lot of non-production out of six drives, the final five of which took place in the second half.

Pitt gained a net total of 81 yards and seven first downs after halftime.

It wasn’t pretty - maybe the worst Pitt’s offense has looked all season.

But therein lies the rub, right in those last two words:

All season.

Because for the vast majority of this season, the Panthers’ offense has been really, really good. And given that Pitt just finished its tenth game, I am confident in saying that the Panthers really do have a legitimate offense. I don’t think there are sample size issues; I think they’re really good.

And because I believe they are really good, it is a lot easier to look at the UNC game and call it a bad day. I’m not giving them a mulligan, but after so many really, really good days, maybe it was bound to happen that this offense would have a bad day.

Of course, that bad day saw the quarterback still throw for 346 yards and three touchdowns, including the game-winner in overtime, so maybe the “bad day” is relative.

But on the heels of this game, with Virginia and Syracuse sitting as the remaining opponents, I’m going to sign off with this prediction:

Pitt’s offense won’t have another game like this. As soon as next Saturday, the Panthers will be back in the rhythm they’ve had for pretty much all season.