PITTSBURGH (TNS) — It was a wild night where Pitt saw cracks in its defense allow a 31-point performance for West Virginia at Acrisure Stadium on Thursday night, but what defined the Panthers’ win was their resilience even when the schematics in their plays broke against them.
One of Pat Narduzzi’s biggest strengths as a coach is the belief he instills in his players to stick to his program. Even if things aren’t going right, they have to hang in there and find a way to win while not deviating from their assignments. That’s essentially what happened for Pitt, and it was those beliefs the defense clung to after West Virginia took a 31-24 lead with 10:37 to go in the fourth quarter.
Despite giving up 31 points and being on the sidelines, there was a sense from the defense they could still be the unit that put the game back in the Panthers’ hands. Dennis talked about how he took a leadership role in the defense on the sideline, telling them they would find a way to pull out a victory.
”We have this winner’s manual that we always go through,” Dennis said. “There’s this quote that says, ‘Leaders always know and think you’re going to win.’ I had to make sure my guys knew we were going to pull out this game. We were going to make a stop, then go down there and score. I let our defense know that and our offense, and we got it done.”
Big plays on defense made up for a rough night in stopping the run for Pitt. Despite the 199 rushing yards allowed on 33 carries for 5.8 yards per rush, the Panthers’ secondary forced two turnovers. Erick Hallett II recovered a fumble forced by Marquise Williams that set up the Panthers’ first touchdown drive of the game in the second quarter to get their first turnover.
But it was late in the fourth quarter when Dennis’ words came through in the biggest way and the secondary got its second turnover. As the game was tied 31-31 with 2:58 left in the game, JT Daniels threw a pass directly into the hands of Bryce Ford-Wheaton. The pass bounced off Ford-Wheaton’s hands, right into the arms of M.J. Devonshire, who returned it 56 yards for a touchdown that put Pitt up 38-31.
”I got past the receiver thanks to [ Bangally Kamara],” Devonshire said of his return. “Then, I saw Brandon [Hill] and [Dennis]. They’re my guys, and when I saw them tell me to cut back, I saw the crease and knew I had to run as fast as I could. I saw the student section, and then, it was crazy.”
After that play, it was Pitt’s defensive front that helped seal the deal.
A sustained pass rush came through for Pitt late in the game, as John Morgan III had a career night with one sack and three tackles for loss. On a key third down in West Virginia’s final drive, Morgan pressured Daniels in a way that led to David Green and Habakkuk Baldonado splitting a sack for a loss of five that set up 4th-and-16. That was just long enough for Daniels’ pass to Reese Smith to skip off the ground just short of the end zone, and the game was over.
”Pressure’s good for us,” Morgan said about the end of the game. “Pressure is beautiful. When we caused pressure, he was turning, looking around. I say he was looking at ghosts. You get him looking around, and it’s those plays that cause big plays like we just had with picks and sacks [at the end of the game].”
Morgan has been a regular for Pitt’s defense the past couple years as a fifth-year senior, but he was part of the Panthers’ second rotation of defensive linemen behind captain defensive end Deslin Alexandre. Alexandre went down with an apparent arm injury on the final drive of the second quarter. Both Narduzzi and Morgan said Alexandre was “alright,” and Morgan said he expects Alexandre to be ready to play next Saturday against Tennessee.
”I just looked to him for encouragement,” Morgan said of Alexandre after his injury. “He told me as soon as he came off the field, ‘Listen, man, it’s time for you to do your job. Do what you did all through camp and all through spring ball.’ I felt like there was never a drop-off. We pride ourselves in being the top group in the country with me, [Baldonado] and [Alexandre]. It’s like a three-man punch. Any of us can get it every single day.”
Last year, Morgan could’ve gone to the NFL as a senior with 5.5 sacks, 6.5 tackles for loss and an ACC championship, but the chance at an even bigger year with his teammates was too much to pass up.
”Like [Baldonado] said a couple days ago, we won the ACC championship, but now, we want to win the national championship,” Morgan said about what he envisioned with his return. “We all came as a collective and said it’s time to come back for a big year.”
