Panthers sack Syracuse, 27-20
Fourth win in a row comes on road
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Orange coach Dino Babers ordered quarterback Tommy DeVito to kneel out the second quarter with 23 seconds left and all three timeouts at his disposal. Babers craved the halftime locker room as much as a third-down conversion, sick of witnessing his quarterback’s face hit the off-color turf. Clearly, he saw enough.
Pitt pushed Syracuse around in the first half. The Panthers led by 18 points after two quarters, recording six sacks, connecting on a trick-play touchdown and finding the end zone with seconds remaining before the break. But Pitt’s second-half indifference showed up again, sullying what could have been a dominant ACC win.
Pitt left Carrier Dome Friday night with a nervy 27-20 victory against Syracuse. The Panthers moved to 5-2 overall on the season and bumped their conference mark to 2-1, while Syracuse slipped to 3-4 overall.
“We like to get you guys your money’s worth,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said with a smile, opening his postgame news conference. “Our kids find a way to win. We don’t do it the easy way . ... There are no easy games in the ACC, and we know that.”
Pitt, which opened as a 3.5-point favorite, exceeded Vegas’ expectations. Well, at least in the opening half.
Pitt and Syracuse traded field goals early before the Panthers found the end zone for the first of three times. With a minute to go in the opening quarter, Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett (18 of 33 for 232 passing yards) tossed one out to running back A.J. Davis, who threw it laterally back to Pickett on the other side of the field. Pickett found a streaking Aaron Mathews by himself downfield. The senior scampered into the north end for his first career touchdown reception — the “Pitt Special” duo reversing roles.
Two drives later, Davis — playing in his first game since Pitt’s win Sept. 21 against Central Florida — scored from 5 yards to give Pitt a 17-6 lead. Davis finished with 103 rushing yards on 16 carries.
Then, on Pitt’s final drive of the first half, Pickett engineered one of his best drives of the season: A 10-play, 85-yard march that took 2 minutes, 24 seconds and included two subtly impressive thirddown conversions.
On third-and-4 at the 21, Pickett checked out of a pass play in favor of an outside handoff, which went for a 15-yard gain. Four plays later, Pickett converted a thirdand-6 in the face of a zero blitz, finding Maurice Ffrench (six catches, 92 yards). The tandem then connected on a one-onone, 14-yard fade to close the half and push Pitt’s lead to 24-6 before the break.
Oh, and in between those offensive series, Pitt’s defensive front smothered Syracuse’s overmatched offensive line. The Panthers lived in the backfield and DeVito’s grill, finishing the night with nine sacks — becoming the third consecutive ACC team to record eight sacks against the Orange, joining N.C. State and Clemson.
So yeah, the first half couldn’t have gone better for Pitt. All it had to do was come out in the third quarter with similar drive and production, and Narduzzi’s squad would have its first blowout win of the 2019 campaign. Instead, the Panthers flailed about.
The offense stagnated. The defense allowed a fluky, but bad 94-yard touchdown. And as a team, Pitt was penalized five times for 55 yards in the second half alone.
Pickett and the offense stabilized a bit with a seven-minute field-goal drive in the fourth quarter. That moved Pitt’s lead to 27-13 with seven minutes to go in regulation.
Syracuse didn’t go quietly, though. The Orange engineered a 15-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to cut Pitt’s advantage to 27-20 with less than three minutes to go. But Pitt killed the clock with its running game, avoiding an almost fumble and salting away the game with Davis.
Pitt won. But it wasn’t pretty — or convincing, as many thought it could have been at halftime.
“We talked about finishing them at halftime,” Narduzzi said. “We finished them, but not particularly in the way we’d like to.”
Up next
Pitt returns home Saturday to play the best team remaining on its regular-season schedule: Miami. The Hurricanes, who are 3-3 entering their Saturday matchup vs. Georgia Tech, won’t be ranked any time soon. But Bill Connelly’s S&P-plus rankings pegs Miami as the No. 30 team in college football. That’s 23 spots ahead of Pitt.