We've seen this all before.
In a setting that saw No. 24 Pitt finally building some momentum, some faith from the fan base, and in a game that saw the Panthers find life from a part of their team that had been struggling, and in a game that saw the stage set for their team's greatest strength to take over ... they lost to an opponent they had every reason to beat.
Collapsed defensively in conceding a 79-yard drive in the final two minutes.
Committed 13 total penalties for 125 yards.
Crumbled against North Carolina State, 30-29, Saturday at Heinz Field to fall to 3-1 overall, 2-1 in the ACC.
Pat Narduzzi acknowledged the penalties were a problem, this for a second consecutive week, though he didn't entirely accept their legitimacy.
"There's a lot we can do about it," Narduzzi said after this one. "We'll look at the tape and evaluate it, but obviously it starts with the offsides on defense. They drove us off, they did a nice job, and we didn't have enough discipline. But some of those pass interference penalties, I don't know about. I'll watch the tape. But looked like it was both ways. There was a lot of pushing off, put it that way, and we'll look at the tape and we'll become a better football team from it."
"You know," Narduzzi continued. "Maybe their cadence slowed us down early and we just didn't get off. When we did bring pressure we didn't get home quick enough, but Leary got the ball out. It's kind of a double-edged sword there as far as what we're doing. We've got to be more disciplined on the snap and the claps and all the rest of it."
Defensive end Patrick Jones II pointed to those penalties as the biggest contributor to the loss.
"We gave them the game with offsides penalties and penalties we shouldn't have had," Jones said. "We should've done better in practice with it and it's something we have to work on next week. We can't have that anymore. It's unacceptable. It's something we have to get fixed. It will not happen next week, the week after that, or the week after that. It's done. We're going to fix it."
It won't be enough. Only one of those penalties came on N.C. State's decisive 79-yard drive, capped by Devin Leary's 13-yard pass to the left edge of the end zone for wide receiver Emeka Emezie against Pitt cornerback Jason Pinnock:
"We left too many open receivers in the two-minute drill," Narduzzi said. "I trust our defense to get that thing done, and we've just got to secure the win, and we didn't get it done today. We'll look at what we did coverage wise and where the mistakes were and we'll get better from it."
Quarterback Kenny Pickett finally put together a very good performance at 22 of 39 for 411 yards, a career high, a passing touchdown and two rushing touchdowns, but Leary wound up with the upper hand at 28 of 44 for 336 yards and four touchdowns. Those four passing touchdowns were twice as many as Pitt had given up through the first three games combined.
On top of that, and maybe the biggest contributing factor, the Panthers' defensive front recorded a season-low two sacks. Part of that had to do with N.C. State's use of hard counts to draw Pitt offsides five times in the first half.
Even beyond the simple calling of the penalties, Jones felt N.C. State's use of hard counts and claps to trick Pitt into offsides penalties eventually slowed down the Panthers' pass rush.
"They were doing everything they could," Jones said. "We beat ourselves. They weren't going to beat us if they didn't do that. They had to do other stuffs like hard counts, claps and get us off our games so we couldn't get our get off. I give them credit for that."
Pitt beating itself in games isn't a new theme over the years, but it is for the 2020 Panthers. N.C. State was a team that had two touchdown passes split between two quarterbacks coming into Saturday, and Leary went off for four as he hit Pitt with quick underneath passes to start the game, and eventually opened up against them for several big plays.
"I think Devin Leary, number one," Narduzzi said when asked how N.C. State put up 30 points on Pitt's defense. "The guy pulling the trigger obviously had a good game today, and he made the right decisions. He got the ball out pretty quick. We couldn't get as much pressure as we'd like. We'll look at the tape and find out exactly what happened, but we just didn't play good enough."
Once Pitt's pass rush was backed off by the hard counts, claps and quick throws, Leary started throwing bombs. The first deep strike was a 35-yard touchdown pass to Emezie. Leary threw the perfect jump ball for Emezie to go up and beat cornerback Marquis Williams:
Pitt's defense was getting shredded early in the game, especially on third downs. After the first half Pitt had allowed six third-down conversions on nine chances. That was almost as much as the seven Pitt had given up all season. But for the rest of the game Pitt did improve, allowing only one third down conversion on N.C. State's last seven attempts.
But while Pitt's defense was struggling early, Pickett gave them a lead to protect on the second play of the game with a 75-yard touchdown pass to true freshman wide receiver Jordan Addison. It was after that when the offense stalled until 1:11 was left in the third quarter when it would score its next touchdown.
During that time offensive coordinator Mark Whipple tried to establish the run with Vincent Davis, Israel Abanikanda and Daniel Carter. But none of it was working through the first three quarters. Pitt finished the day with 92 rushing yards on 37 carries, a 2.5 average, and Pickett with Davis for the most yards as each had 40.
It was an abysmal day running against a N.C.State defense that just gave up 314 rushing yards to Virginia Tech last week. The most disappointing moment came in the third quarter when the Panthers had the ball with first and goal at N.C. State's one-yard line and they couldn't punch it in on four tries. Twice Pitt tried to pound the ball in on the ground, then on third down Pickett's play action pass was sniffed out.
Pitt tried once more on fourth down to run a wide zone run with Davis, but N.C. State blew it up before Davis could even get going and the Panthers wasted an opportunity to score in what ended up as a loss by a single point:
To put it simply, Pitt's offensive line got whipped all Saturday. Center Jimmy Morrissey agreed with that assessment after the game. Even to the point where he understood Whipple turning away from the running game almost completely in the fourth quarter.
"It's heartbreaking and embarrassing," Morrissey said. "I can tell you today we had a good game plan, but we got beat. That third-and-1, I got straight up beat by a nose guard. When your center gets beat on a wide zone by a nose guard, the play's over. It's nobody else's fault but mine. I'm responsible for the O-line, we take responsibility for the run game. When you can't run the ball effectively in the first couple series your coordinator loses confidence in the offensive line and I don't blame him one bit. We didn't deserve a run call and we'll be better next week. But it's the O-line's fault."
Even the couple of runs that Davis did break for nine and 15 yards in the fourth quarter, which made up over half his total yards in the game, were results that Morrissey attributed more to Pitt's passing game backing off N.C. State's defense.
"The O-line got more comfortable there and we got into a groove," Morrissey said. "We were also pretty pass heavy so we caught them off guard with some of our runs. They were also in some favorable fronts that we ran into. They were good play calls and we executed it."
For N.C. State to back off, it took not only an exceptional performance from Pickett, but maybe his best ever.
"Kenny took one sack in a football game," Narduzzi said of Pickett's performance. "Usually when you've got one sack you're playing pretty good. Kenny played well, threw it a bunch. He threw for 411 yards. Wasn't enough pressure on him, I guess. Kenny made some great decisions with his arm and his head, and we'll look at it. Not disappointed at all in Kenny or the offensive line."
Not being disappointed with the offensive line's inability to assert itself sounds disingenuous when Pitt had to all but abandon the run game in the second half. Pickett took to the air and Whipple let him run a no-huddle offense that did move the ball.
Pickett's most impressive play came when he flipped the field for Pitt after dodging pressure and throwing on the run to hit transfer senior receiver D.J. Turner for 50 yards:
Even Pickett acknowledged after the game that Whipple had to let Pickett sling the ball to give Pitt's offense any hope of getting the team back into the game.
"We were trying to get the running game going and waiting to pop our run by letting our linemen set their pads," Pickett said. "But it just wasn't going our way. Second half we came out and were slinging it so we had to adjust to what they were doing. They were doing a good job stoping the run so coach Whipple dialed up some passes down the field. D.J. had a great game and our guys were getting open so I just had to put it on them."
Turner led all Pitt receivers with 8 catches for 186 yards after Addison was knocked out of the game with a big hit from N.C. State's cornerback Malik Dunlap. Both Pickett and Narduzzi acknowledged Turner's contributions after the game.
"It's really the next man up mentality," Pickett said. "D.J. had to move in, Shocky [Jacques-Louis] had to line up outside, and Tre Tipton did a good job coming inside as well. Really just a next man up mentality, just hope Jordan's OK and comes back."
"D.J. played great," Narduzzi added. "We didn't have Jordan Addison in the second half and D.J. stepped in, and D.J. is a good football player, and he played a great game."
Pickett would lead Pitt to two fourth quarter touchdown drives, both which he ended with sneaking the ball into the end zone. But it wouldn't be enough for the win. On his final touchdown drive Pitt would go for a two point conversion to give them a seven point cushion and throw to Taysir Mack, the receiver with the most experience catching from Pickett on the roster.
Mack ran a good slant and Pickett delivered the ball at the perfect spot and at the perfect time, but Mack dropped the ball clean from his hands, leaving Pitt with only a five point lead and N.C. State a chance to win with a touchdown with 1:38 left in the fourth quarter:
The drop represented a theme during the game that showed Pitt's usually most reliable sources for big plays missing on opportunities. Mack's last two games had featured him scoring the game winning touchdown against Louisville last week and the game winning touchdown against Eastern Michigan in the Quicken Lane Bowl to end last season.
"It comes down to a two-point conversion," Narduzzi said when summarizing the biggest faults in the loss. "Comes down to defense stopping them in a two-minute. And again, we can point to all kinds of different things, but it starts and ends with me. Got to have them better prepared."
Narduzzi made sure to point to the several different ways Pitt could have closed out this game. Mack's drop was significant, but so was giving up a wide open touchdown reception by tight end Cary Angeline in the fourth quarter and not scoring any points after driving the ball down to N.C. State's one-yard line.
"Our offense made plays with the ball," Narduzzi said. "I'll have to go back and watch the tape. I can't -- you can watch an NFL game, you can watch a college game, there's going to be drops. Nobody is going to be perfect. I don't know how many we had today but I didn't sit there and go, that was the reason we lost the football game, I can tell you that."
"Things are going to happen out there," Narduzzi continued. "There's a lot of things happening. We'll go back and look at it, but our receivers made a lot of catches. Let's talk about the catches they made as opposed to -- because there was some critical ones. Taysir Mack was on fire, making some big catches on 3rd down, moving the sticks and getting us in an opportunity to score touchdowns. We'll look at the tape."
But even with the dropped two-point conversion, Pitt's defense that had been elite through three games had a chance to close out an opponent just like it did against No. 24 ranked Louisville last week. Pitt just came up short as Leary picked them apart to move the ball down the field and find Emezie for his second touchdown catch of the day to win it.
Pitt's defense looked like a completely different unit from its past three performances, but Narduzzi emphasized that his coaching staff has pressed the message to the team that Pitt could not rest on the prior accomplishments and think those would have any bearing on how Saturday's game would finish.
"Nobody cares what you did last week," Narduzzi said when asked if his players thought maybe they were better than they currently are. "It's all what you do this week. That's why I tell you, we don't evaluate a defense until the end of the year, what they do and how they make plays, and obviously we left some plays out on the field today. We'll tighten it up, we'll rebound, and sometimes it's the best medicine is really to get humbled, as far as who you are and what you do and just remember how you got where you are."
"Whether we came in too confident thinking we can stop anybody and no one can get a first down," Narduzzi continued. "Maybe one three-and-out in the first half, I told you last week we had eight. This week we couldn't get off the field at times, and again, a lot of it was due to what we were doing. I don't know how many 1st downs they had by penalty, but quite a few. That's not good when the referees are saying first down based off of penalties."
On top of Pitt's defensive letdown to lose the game, the question remained as to why Pitt's offense went into a hurry-up no huddle attack on its last touchdown drive. The Panthers started the drive with 8:16 remaining in the fourth quarter and was able to take six minutes and 32 seconds off to get it down to 1:44 left in the game. But it most likely would've left even less time in the game had they slowed their tempo on the final drive.
Narduzzi saw the no huddle offense as a necessary move to get the offense going, as Pitt had to find any way it could to score and take the lead back from N.C. State.
"It's a mid-game adjustment," Narduzzi said of the hurry-up offense. "We had some tempo in the first half, too. Even the second play of the game where Jordan starts, some of the guys aren't lined up and that's how we get a big play. We'd like to get it going a little faster. Sometimes it's too slow, but we go tempo, we huddle at times and then we come out in tempo."
The collective message from Pitt's captains after the game was to focus on how the team could pick up the pieces from their one-point loss and pull themselves back together to face Boston College next Saturday at 4 p.m. at Alumni Stadium.
"Just make sure we take a lesson from this loss so that this loss doesn't go to waste," Morrissey said when asked how the team can grow from their first loss of the season. "It's heartbreaking that this happens. Our senior class has a high standard for this 2020 team, that's not going to change and we're going to be better for next week. It was an embarrassing game for us. We want to play like champions and we want to be champions at the end of the year, then we can't play like that. I know I didn't play my best."
"It was a very humbling loss," Jones said. "It's not a feeling we wanted to feel and it's not a feeling we plan on feeling again. Next week we're going to bring our A-game and we're not going to make the same mistakes we make today. I'm going to make sure of that."
Pickett, even while having a very productive game, said the Panthers has to approach the loss like they do a win in that they need to evaluate it and move on from it after tomorrow.
"It's the same as a win with the 24-hour rule," Pickett said. "Doesn't matter if you win or lose, you have 24 hours to look at the game, fix what you fix then flush it and move on to the next week. B.C.'s on the clock so I'm looking forward to learning tomorrow and figuring out what we did wrong then moving forward. It's how it goes. I'm four years in now so I kinda have a good idea of how this works. You're successful if you can put things behind you, but take away things that you can learn and move on."
Moving on is one thing, but Morrissey and Jones have a point about needing to learn from this moment. Pitt looked strong and their defense looked like it could be the best in the country after three games. To lay an egg against an offense that didn't have nearly the amount of weapons Louisville did last week has to spark some sort of resilience from the team to not have these kinds of let downs as this season continues.
If the Panthers have any hope for the championship dreams Morrissey mentions, they can't afford losses to unranked teams with lesser talent like N.C. State this week or Boston College next week. They need to display consistency in their strengths so that they can rely on those strengths to beat teams like No. 5 ranked Notre Dame and No. 8 ranked Miami, both teams Pitt's scheduled to play in the next three weeks.
"Our kids played their hearts out" Narduzzi said of the game. "Don't question their effort at all. Anytime we win, we win as a team, and we lose as a team. But just overall we just didn't make enough plays. Everybody in our football team has a part in a loss, including me, every coach and every player, and that's just kind of how it goes. Kids are hurt. Kids are hurt bad in the locker room, but we'll rebound and stick together and come back next week against Boston College."
If 2020 is truly supposed to be a special season where Pitt shows that it's turned a corner under Narduzzi, this loss doesn't fit.
• Addison wouldn't return from his injury in the second quarter. And as usual, Narduzzi gave no real insight into his status or recovery.
"I don't think it's serious," Narduzzi said. "But we'll see."
Pitt's passing offense took off in the fourth quarter, but Addison has been their best asset this season. Maybe after seeing how the offense was at its best when taking to the air most of the time, Whipple can take advantage of having Addison out there in the coming weeks.
• Redshirt senior defensive tackle Keyshon Camp was hurt and in his place was redshirt freshman Calijah Kancey and redshirt sophomore Devin Danielson most of the game.
"Keyshon was kind of banged up from last week and wasn't 100 percent," Narduzzi said after the game. "So I don't think it had any factor at all. I mean, one guy is not going to make or break the team. We've got plenty of guys in there at D-tackle that need to make plays, and obviously it would be great to have a senior out there, but we'll rebound and fix it and we'll be ready for next week."