BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) \u2014 Virginia Tech\u2019s John Love missed a 36-yard field goal as time expired, and Pittsburgh survived for a 35-33 victory over the Hokies on Friday.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh quarterback Holden Geriner came off the bench to throw a touchdown pass, and Ja\u2019Kyrian Turner added a rushing touchdown for the Panthers (5-0, 2-0 Atlantic Coast Conference), who remain one of three unbeaten teams in the ACC.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh trailed 14-0, but scored 21 unanswered points at one point to come from behind and then held on, all despite losing starting quarterback Mason Heintschel to an injury on the fourth play of the second half.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust finding a different way to win,\u201d Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi said. \u201cWe talk about respect. I hope the country will respect the Panthers now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell our guys all the time that there\u2019s going to be ups and downs. Our guys rode the wave and never gave in. They never batted an eye. They believed until the end. Faith and belief, that\u2019s what this football team\u2019s got. They\u2019ve got a lot of guts in that locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Virginia Tech (4-1, 1-1) controlled much of the first half, but the Hokies started unraveling when Cameron Lindsey\u2019s interception of Ethan Grunkemeyer led to a 22-yard touchdown pass from Heintschel to Cataurus Hicks with 31 seconds left in the half, cutting the Virginia Tech lead to 24-21.<\/p>\n
That was the first of four turnovers for the Hokies, and the Panthers turned those into 14 points.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh took a 28-24 lead on a 15-yard touchdown run by Damon Ferguson Jr. on the Panthers\u2019 first drive of the second half and then took a 35-24 lead on Geriner\u2019s 29-yard touchdown pass to Hicks early in the fourth quarter before holding on.<\/p>\n
Virginia Tech cut the lead to 35-33 on a 28-yard touchdown pass from Grunkemeyer to Davion Brown with 10:07 remaining and then Grunkemeyer drove the Hokies 62 yards to set up Love\u2019s game-winning attempt on Hokies\u2019 final possession.\u00a0Love hooked the attempt<\/a>\u00a0wide left.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a chance to win it at the end,\u201d Virginia Tech coach James Franklin said. \u201cEveryone is going to focus on the last play. This isn\u2019t coachspeak, but we\u2019re going to watch this tape and there are going to be 20 plays that we could have made to put us in a better position and not be in that situation at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Grunkemeyer threw for a career-high 434 yards for the Hokies, who outgained Pittsburgh 499-295.<\/p>\n Takeaways<\/p>\n Pittsburgh: The Panthers are 5-0 for the second time in three years, but now await news on the severity of Heintschel\u2019s injury. Geriner \u2014 who was celebrating his 23rd birthday \u2014 played well in relief, completing 8 of 12 for 78 yards and the touchdown.<\/p>\n Virginia Tech: The Hokies will be lamenting this one for a while after jumping out to a big lead and then rallying from a 35-24 deficit to give themselves a chance to win.<\/p>\n More on Heintschel<\/p>\n Following the game, Narduzzi wouldn\u2019t get into specifics on Heintschel\u2019s injury, though the quarterback was seen on crutches. Geriner said he would be ready to assume command of the Panthers\u2019 offense if Heintschel is out for an extended period of time. The fifth-year senior, who played at both Auburn and Texas State before enrolling at Pittsburgh in January, threw his second touchdown pass as a collegian.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what I\u2019ve prayed for my whole life. My thoughts and prayers are with Mason. If that\u2019s the case, I\u2019m going to do everything I can to continue preparing, as I\u2019ve been doing, to lead this team.\u201d<\/p>\n Up next<\/p>\n Pittsburgh: Hosts North Carolina on Oct. 10<\/p>\n Virginia Tech: Plays at California on Oct. 10<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here<\/a>, visit\u00a0the Top 25 here<\/a>\u00a0and see AP\u2019s full\u00a0college football coverage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) \u2014 Virginia Tech\u2019s John Love missed a 36-yard field goal as time expired, and Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-299290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}