Pittsburgh defensive lineman Rashad Weaver kicks up some turf as he chases Georgia Tech quarterback TaQuon Marshall during Saturday’s game in Pittsburgh.PITTSBURGH – Qadree Ollison and the rest of the Pittsburgh Panthers found a unique way to combat the lingering effects of a loss to Penn State that could have defined their season: willful amnesia.
“Forgot about it. Forgot about last week,” Ollison said after rushing for 91 yards and two touchdowns in a 24-19 victory over Georgia Tech on Saturday. “It wasn’t hard. Don’t remember none of it. Don’t remember who we played.”
Then the senior running back laughed. Just a little. There’s nothing the Panthers can do about their nationally televised second-half meltdown against the Nittany Lions. Best to just move on.
“You’ve got to flush it out,” Ollison said. “You’ve got to forget about it and realize that all our goals are still intact. Nobody said you had to be undefeated to go to the ACC championship or national championship. If we win the rest of our games, nobody will remember what happened last week.”
Not exactly, but Pitt (2-1, 1-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) took a significant step forward by racing to a three-touchdown lead and holding off the Yellow Jackets late.
Ollison scored on runs of 31 and 8 yards, backfield mate Darrin Hall added a 5-yard scoring burst of his own, and the Panthers opened their conference schedule by playing the kind of game they’ll need to repeat many times this fall if they want to be a factor in the wide-open Coastal Division.
“We know last week, that really wasn’t us,” Pitt safety Damar Hamlin said. “We didn’t get to show who we are as a team. So we just tried to get to this game as quick as we can to get off that bad page.”
Panthers quarterback Kenny Pickett left briefly due to a left leg injury at the end of the first half but played the entire second half, completing 16 of 23 passes for a season-high 191 yards and an interception. Pickett wore a brace on the leg over the final two quarters, something he does regularly in practice but never in games. That will change going forward.
“We dodged a bullet really,” Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said. “He’s healthy, but he likes to go run, and he wants to feel clean but that ain’t going to happen. I’ll tape that thing to his leg.”
A week after rolling up 602 yards in a loss to South Florida, the visiting Yellow Jackets managed just 386 against the Panthers, 99 of it coming on a last-gasp drive in the final minutes. The Jackets (1-2, 0-1) did little in the first half, when six of their seven drives lasted five or fewer plays.
“We came out to start the game offensively, and it looked like we had never played the game before,” Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson said. “We had a chance to get back in the game, but we never had a chance to get the lead.”
Jackets quarterback TaQuon Marshall scored on a pair of short touchdown runs in the second half and finished with a team-high 103 rushing yards. He struggled through the air, completing just one pass until Tech’s final possession. Marshall ended up 6-of-15 for 66 yards with an interception on a heave to the end zone with just less than 10 minutes remaining.
That was easily picked off by Pitt’s Phillipie Motley, and it ended any real threat Tech had of mounting a comeback.
Some unorthodox decisions by Johnson didn’t exactly help things. He called for a fake punt from his team’s 28 in the first quarter, and Antwan Owens was stuffed for a 2-yard loss. Three plays later, Hall scored to put Pitt up by two touchdowns before the game was 10 minutes old.
Tech faced fourth down at the Pitt 23 in the second quarter. Rather than attempt a makeable field goal to get on the board, the Yellow Jackets went for it. Needing 5 yards, Marshall dropped back to pass, and his throw sailed high and out of the reach of Jalen Camp.
“If we can’t throw a pass that is 8 yards and catch it, then that’s a bad call,” Johnson said. “That was a bad call. It was on me.”
Pitt responded with a 60-yard completion from Pickett to Taysir Mack off a flea-flicker to set up Ollison’s second score and take firm control.