THE BEST OF JOHNNY
A look at five of Johnny Majors’ biggest wins at Pitt (compiled by Adam Bittner):
5 Notre Dame • 1975
For most of Majors’ first two years at Pitt (197374), the Panthers won the games they were supposed to win and lost the games they were supposed to lose. The first sign that the program might be heading in a different direction came in November 1975, the season before their national title run. Notre Dame was 7-2 and ranked in the top 10. Pitt was 6-3 and coming off a deflating loss to West Virginia. And then, boom. Out of nowhere, junior running back Tony Dorsett, pictured above right, went off for an almost unbelievable 303 rushing yards and three touchdowns on just 23 carries as the Panthers trounced the Fighting Irish, 34-20, for an upset victory. That ended an 11-game winning streak in the series for Notre Dame, dashed the Irish’s hope for a bowl bid and vaulted Pitt into the
Sun Bowl. There probably weren’t many more satisfying wins in Pitt history until that championship season.
4 Sun Bowl • 1975
It’s easy to forget that reaching a bowl game, let alone winning one, used to be quite the achievement. Case in point, Pitt’s bid to the long-running postseason game in El Paso, Texas, was just its second bowl appearance since 1956 after backing into the Fiesta Bowl in 1973. It was a big deal, and after a disappointing loss to rival Penn State in the 1975 regular season finale, Pitt once again rose to the occasion. Dorsett, Eliot Walker and Robert Haygood all ran for at least 100 yards as the Panthers used a 14-point fourth quarter to pull away from a ranked Kansas squad for a 33-19 victory, their first in a bowl game since the 1937 Rose Bowl. Their 7-4 final record wasn’t anything special, but it was clear the pieces for something better were beginning to fall into place.
3 Notre Dame • 1976
Pitt did not receive the benefit of any tuneups before the first big game of what became their perfect season. A rematch with Notre Dame awaited in the season opener in South Bend, Ind., and the Panthers were ready. Dorsett followed his record performance from the year before with a pedestrian-by-comparison 181 yards and a 61-yard score on his first carry of the game. It was more than enough to deliver a 31-10 win. Pitt jumped from No. 9 to No. 3 in The Associated Press poll the following
week and never looked back.
2 Penn State • 1976
Majors defeated his program’s biggest rival just one time in his initial four-year tenure in Oakland. Fortunately for Panthers fans, he got the one that really mattered. Joe Paterno, pictured at left, and the Nittany Lions were having a down year when they rolled into Three Rivers Stadium for both teams’ regularseason finale. Though they sat a respectable 16th in the AP poll, they had not beaten a ranked team all year, and they played like it. After managing to keep Dorsett somewhat bottled up for most of the first half, he wore them down in the second en route to 224 rushing yards and a 24-7 victory. Penn State’s 10-game winning streak in the rivalry was snapped, and more important, Pitt cleared its last hurdle before bowl season with its undefeated record intact.
1 Sugar Bowl • 1977
Tony Dorsett was already the Heisman Trophy winner by the time Pitt arrived in New Orleans to face No. 4 Georgia in the state-of-the-art Superdome. No. 5 Georgia knew it needed to stop him if it was going to have a chance to win. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, they forgot about Matt Cavanaugh. The Panthers quarterback accounted for the first two touchdowns of the game, rushing for one from 6 yards before finding Gordon Jones for a game-breaking 59-yard touchdown. The rout was already on before Dorsett really got rolling, though he did pile up 202 yards by the end of a resounding 273 Pitt victory that capped a perfect season and delivered the program’s only national title of the modern era. Though Majors would leave the Panthers the following year, it was his ticket to Pitt immortality.