Pittsburgh leaned on its running game, leaned on its defense and leaned on just enough from freshman Damon Ferguson Jr. to keep its unbeaten start rolling Thursday night.
The Panthers got touchdown runs from Ferguson, La'Vell Wright and Mason Heintschel in a 27-13 win over Syracuse, moving to 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the ACC. The victory also gave Pat Narduzzi his school-record 144th win as Pitt’s head coach.
“Nice to win when you don’t play your best football on offense or defense,” Narduzzi said.
Pitt controlled the game on the ground, piling up 245 rushing yards while doing it without injured starting running back Boosier Turner. That was a sharp turnaround from a run game that had been averaging only 3.6 yards per carry entering the night. In the conference opener, the Panthers nearly doubled that mark.
Ferguson supplied the spark. His 32-yard burst to the end zone early in the second quarter pushed Pitt’s lead to 14 points, and he finished with 102 rushing yards.
Wright added 81. Justin Cook also broke loose for 23 yards on an early carry before pulling up with what appeared to be an injury.
“He’s that guy,” Panther linebacker Braylon Lovelace said of Ferguson. “He’s a young guy.
But it don’t matter what age you are at this level. If you’re a dog, you’re a dog.”
“I feel like we all are explosive in our own ways,” said Ferguson.
Heintschel didn’t have his sharpest night throwing the ball, finishing 10 of 23 for 123 yards with an interception, but he made an impact with his legs. The sophomore ran for 41 yards and scored on a 9-yard keeper in the third quarter, slipping past diving Syracuse linebacker Gary Bryant III on the way to the end zone. Later, he sealed it with a spin move on third-and-9 that turned into a 10-yard gain and a first down, letting Pitt bleed out the clock.
Asked whether he’s now a running quarterback, Heintschel said the spin felt like it was in “slow motion” but made clear he knows the passing game has to be better.
“To be a dual threat, you’ve got to throw the ball too,” he said. "And we didn’t throw the ball well today.”
Syracuse came in as the most penalized team in the country and added to that problem with nine flags for 90 yards. One second-quarter sequence was especially costly: the Orange were called for pass interference on third down, Fran Brown protested and got hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, and two plays later Ferguson raced around the edge and into the end zone.
Steve Angeli passed for 167 yards for Syracuse before being benched in the fourth quarter after throwing interceptions on back-to-back drives. Amari Odom replaced him and went 7 for 7, but by then Pitt’s defense was protecting a three-score lead.
After the game, Narduzzi paused on the milestone in a more personal way. The 60-year-old coach, who came to Pitt in late 2014 and was charged with bringing stability after a rocky stretch, pulled a paper from his pocket with a passage from Elbert Hubbard’s “Loyalty Pledge,” something his father Bill Narduzzi, a longtime coach at Youngstown State, often used.
“My dad was big on loyalty,” Narduzzi said. "And I guess I inherited that from him.”
Pitt has now won three games in three different styles: a blowout of Miami (Ohio) to open the season, a gritty win over UCF in a monsoon last week, and this ground-driven conference victory over Syracuse. With the league looking wide open behind frontrunner Miami, that kind of variety could matter.
For Syracuse, the takeaway is simpler: the Orange have to clean things up if they want to matter in the ACC.
Syracuse travels to UConn on Oct. 3.
Pitt hosts Bucknell on Sept. 28.
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