Moving forward, a winning recipe for Pitt probably won\u2019t include quarterback Mason Heintschel having an off day and the defense beginning to buckle over the course of a game.<\/p>\n
The Panthers indeed were one-dimensional offensively Thursday against Syracuse, while the Orange grinded their way to plenty of splash plays through the air and on the ground.<\/p>\n
But Pitt\u2019s run game came alive and its defense made up for some chunky gains with two fourth-quarter interceptions, a turnover on downs, two sacks and eight tackles for loss in a 27-13 victory at Acrisure Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guys did enough to win the football game \u2014 some great plays out there,\u201d coach Pat Narduzzi said. \u201cSome great fourth-down stops. Our defense made plays when they needed to. Those two picks in the second half were critical and I thought our offense did a great job running the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
In front of 42,087 fans, Pitt (3-0, 1-0 ACC) won its ACC opener, while Syracuse (1-2, 0-2 ACC) fell for the second straight week to a league foe after suffering a close loss to Cal last weekend.<\/p>\n
The Panthers, playing without star tailback Ja\u2019Kyrian Turner for the second straight week, put up a season-high 245 yards on the ground, along with three rushing touchdowns.<\/p>\n
True freshman Damon Ferguson Jr. led the way with 102 yards on 10 carries, while La\u2019Vell Wright added 81 yards on 14 rushes.<\/p>\n
Heintschel, despite an evening full of missed throws, ran for 41 yards. He, Ferguson and Wright all found the end zone for Pitt, which took a 17-0 lead and never trailed.<\/p>\n
Heintschel had a borderline monsoon to blame for a quiet day of passing last weekend against Central Florida, but Thursday the sophomore signal caller was just unable to make routine throws.<\/p>\n
He completed 10 of 23 passes (43%) for only 123 yards, no touchdowns and an interception.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody around me picked me up a ton,\u201d Heintschel said. \u201cOur running game was great today. Super proud of those guys. \u2026 I just couldn\u2019t complete a pass, but we were able to run it effectively and thankfully the defense played well too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orange quarterback Steve Angeli had a worse time, throwing back-to-back picks in the fourth quarter when his team was trailing by 14 before being benched with about eight minutes to play.<\/p>\n
Raion Strader (Penn Hills) and Braylan Lovelace (Leechburg) recorded the interceptions for Pitt.<\/p>\n
The Orange also lived up to their reputation as the most penalized team in the FBS, finishing with nine infractions for 90 yards.<\/p>\n
In terms of total offense, Pitt edged Syracuse, 368-347.<\/p>\n
Pitt opened up the scoring on its second drive on a 2-yard rush by Wright.<\/p>\n
The score put the Panthers up 7-0 with 3 minutes, 16 seconds remaining in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Syracuse had itself to blame for extending Pitt\u2019s drive after a failed third-down try as a 15-yard illegal hands to the face penalty advanced the Panthers to the Orange\u2019s 16.<\/p>\n
Pitt soon capped a nine-play, 63-yard drive with a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Syracuse\u2019s ensuing offensive possession was derailed by penalties. Once Pitt got the ball back, additional infractions by the Orange propelled the Panthers to another touchdown.<\/p>\n
On third-and-10 from Pitt\u2019s 36, Heintschel threw incomplete over the middle to Blue Hicks, but the Panthers moved the sticks on a pass interference call.<\/p>\n
Orange coach Fran Brown let the officials hear it from the sideline and was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct.<\/p>\n
Within moments, Pitt had moved 30 yards upfield.<\/p>\n
At the 12:44 mark of the second quarter, Ferguson took a handoff up the middle and bounced outside after being hit, taking it to the house from 32 yards.<\/p>\n
The touchdown, Ferguson\u2019s third in as many career college games played, put Pitt up 14-0.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce again, my O-line moved guys off the ball,\u201d Ferguson said of the play. \u201cI saw a wide-open hole, said, \u2018Let\u2019s hit it,\u2019 and my receivers out there did a great job blocking, Mason even helping out there with a block. After that, it was just God\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Orange threatened to cut into Pitt\u2019s lead shortly thereafter, but the Panthers defense held firm and a 29-yard chip shot by Tripp Woody went wide left by a significant margin.<\/p>\n
After that, Pitt added three points courtesy of a 42-yarder from Antonio Chadha, which made it 17-0 with 8:06 to go before halftime.<\/p>\n
With 3:28 to go in the first half, Syracuse finally got on the board, cutting Pitt\u2019s lead to 17-7 with a 10-play, 65-yard touchdown drive.<\/p>\n
Umari Hatcher took a jet sweep for 28 yards and caught a pass over the middle for another 24, putting the Orange at the goal line.<\/p>\n
To get that final yard and six points, Syracuse had to run six plays as Pitt blew up several rushing attempts in the backfield.<\/p>\n
On fourth-and-goal from the 4, an Angeli pass to Justus Ross-Simmons sailed high, but Strader was whistled for pass interference.<\/p>\n
Two plays later, Angeli flipped the ball to Ahmad Miller for a short touchdown.<\/p>\n
Late in the second quarter, Pitt suffered its first turnover of 2026 as Heintschel was picked off by Davien Kerr trying to hit Ferguson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll take the blame for that. That\u2019s on me,\u201d Heintschel said.<\/p>\n
Getting the ball back with 58 seconds on the clock, Syracuse was efficient, using a few big plays to set up a 42-yard field goal try, this time by Shay Barker, which was good, shrinking Pitt\u2019s lead at halftime to 17-10.<\/p>\n
Coming out of the half, Pitt fully turned to the run game, embarking on a four-play, 76-yard touchdown drive to take a 24-10 lead about four minutes into the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Ferguson had rushes of 18 and 33, Wright ran for a 16-yard gain and Heintschel punched it in from the 9-yard line.<\/p>\n
Pitt\u2019s Sean FitzSimmons came up with a big third-down sack to end the Orange\u2019s possession following Heintschel\u2019s rushing touchdown.<\/p>\n
Pitt\u2019s run defense began to falter on Syracuse\u2019s next drive as the Orange drove into Panthers territory, but Strader came up with a clutch interception of Angeli at the 33-yard-line.<\/p>\n
On the night, Syracuse had two rushes of 20-plus yards and two for more than 10. The Orange completed three passes for at least 22 yards, with a long of 34.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something that we take a lot of pride in, and that\u2019s something that just can\u2019t happen,\u201d Lovelace said of the big plays.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Pitt was able to parry those blows.<\/p>\n
With 11:35 remaining, Angeli threw an interception to Lovelace before being replaced favor of Amari Odom.<\/p>\n
This time, Pitt capitalized on the turnover as Chadha sent a 34-yard field goal through the uprights to put the Panthers up 27-10 with 8:16 to play.<\/p>\n
With 3:08 left, the Odom-led Orange offense produced a field goal from 30 yards to make it a 27-13 score.<\/p>\n
The final offensive possession of the night belonged to Pitt, which drove to the Orange 16-yard line before running out the clock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moving forward, a winning recipe for Pitt probably won\u2019t include quarterback Mason Heintschel having an off day and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-852141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}