Pat Narduzzi has a message for college football top-25 voters: wake up.
The Pittsburgh head coach called out voters after the Panthers improved to 5-0 with a dramatic 35-33 road victory over previously unbeaten Virginia Tech (4-1) on Friday night in Blacksburg, Va.
“We got a hell of a football team,” Narduzzi said during his postgame interview with ESPN. “Any of those voters, if they wake their ass up, they might figure it out.”
Narduzzi brings forth an interesting point, at least when it comes to Pitt’s resume remaining perfect to this point.
The Panthers entered Friday as one of the country’s remaining undefeated teams but were still sitting outside the Associated Press Top 25, receiving just 52 points in the most recent poll.
Virginia Tech wasn’t ranked either, though the Hokies were notably closer with 86 points.
Pitt then went into one of college football’s more difficult road environments and pulled off the victory.
And the Panthers had to survive a wild one to do it.
Virginia Tech jumped out to a 14-0 lead before Pitt got on the board with 10 seconds to go in the first quarter. Pitt nearly trailed by 10 heading into halftime but scored with 30 seconds to go, cutting the Hokies lead to 24-21 before the end of the half.
Pitt took its first lead less than five minutes into the third quarter and extended the advantage to 35-24 with 13:55 left in the fourth before the Hokies responded with a safety less than two minutes later.
Virginia Tech went back on the board with 10 minutes to go, and the game remained 35-33 the rest of the way — though not without action.
Pitt’s defense also forced four Virginia Tech turnovers, helping the Panthers survive despite being outgained 499 to 295.
In the waning seconds, Hokies kicker John Love went up for a game-winning field goal that was ruled to have gone wide left, though some — including Love — initially believed the kick was good.
“To be honest with you, from my angle, I don’t know,” Virginia Tech coach James Franklin told reporters about the kick. “I think John Love is the best kicker in the country. I had so much confidence that that thing was going to go through. From my angle, I couldn’t tell you one way or another. … [At] the end of the day, they said it didn’t go through so everything else, doesn’t really matter a whole lot.”
Ja’Kyrian Turner led the Panthers on the ground with 65 rushing yards and a touchdown on 14 carries. Cataurus Hicks, who paced the team with 65 receiving yards in the passing game, added two touchdowns on three catches.
The victory gave Narduzzi’s team its first 5-0 start since 1991, and it is already three wins within its 8-5 record from a year ago.
Pitt has already beaten UCF and Syracuse this season, while its offense exploded for 59 points against both Miami (Ohio) and Bucknell.
