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Pitt topples VA Tech with :47 left, 31-28 

Pittsburgh, PA - Pitt FB Lousaka Polite met a VT defender in his own  backfield  but fought for the two yards he needed with yet another tackler on his back for six points to put his Panthers (7-2, 4-0) ahead 30-28 with :47 remaining to stay undefeated in Big East play and keep hopes alive for the final Big East championship before Miami and Tech leave for the plundering ACC. The Pitt victory knocked the Hokies (7-2, 3-2) out of the BCS bowl picture and out of Big East championship contention for all intents and purposes.  The stars shone on this clear, cold Pittsburgh evening as Pitt WR Larry Fitzgerald set the NCAA record in his 15th consecutive game with a TD reception and 17th such snare during his sophomore season.   QB Rod Rutherford passed for 303 of the Panthers total yards and ran for 30 more.  Tech RB Kevin Jones set a school record of 241 rushing yards with four TDs including an 80-yard TD jaunt, which prompted 8-year old Guest Game Analyst Eric Koreivo to comment, "Dad, that's not your average play!" Marcus Vick, younger brother of Michael, played well and during the entire second half until his first pass after Polite's TD ended up in the hands of Pitt DB Corey Humphries to seal the Panther victory.  It was another great game attended by CFF, which has now attended five straight games decided by three points or less within the last 1:36 of play.

     Pitt took advantage of DB DeAngelo Hall’s first half suspension on the first play from scrimmage as QB Rod Rutherford (24 of 31 for 303 yards) found Larry Fitzgerald down the left sideline for a 41–yard completion to the Tech 20.  After the initial excitement, however, the Panthers settled for a 34-yard FG by PK David Abdul to take the initial 3-0 lead.  Then, Hokie Mike Imoh returned the ensuing kick back to the Hokies’ 49.  QB Bryan Randall guided his team to paydirt as RB Kevin Jones capped the drive with his first TD on an eleven-yard run up the middle on the fake option to take over, 7-3.  Pitt’s Joe Roth coughed up the ball on the Panthers’ next series as CB Vince Fuller recovered for the Hokies at their own 49.  VT knocked on the door, but Pitt returned the favor as LB Brian Bennet laid some padding on Jones to knock the ball loose.  Vince Crochunis recovered for Pitt on their own 7.  Q1 ended with Pitt starting at its own 32 as a result of an 18-yard punt shanked out of bounds by Tech.  VT’s special teams did rise to the occasion in this game as they usually do.

     The Hokies’ first drive of the second quarter ended the same as the prior one, only this time the shank gave Pitt great field position as the punt traveled 21 yards to set the Panthers up at the Tech 30.  Rutherford completed two passes to the eight, and on his third consecutive pass he connected with Fitzgerald in the end zone for the sophomore’s  NCAA record and the 10-7 lead.  Marcus Vick replaced Randall on the next series at QB for the Gobblers.  Consecutive completions to WR Ernest Wilford and to TE Jeff King moved VT from their own 25 to the Pitt 12.  Jones swept right, bellied out and beat the defenders around the left end and into the end zone for his second TD of the game and a 14-10 Tech lead.  Two series later, Pitt recovered a VT fumble at the Tech 33.  On 4^th and 7 at the 30, Rutherford pitched to TE Steve Buches on an end around to the left side to put the ball at the Tech 2-yard line with a first down.  Rutherford went in off right tackle and the Panthers took the lead back with 4:37 left in Q2, 17-10.  As Vick threw the ball away to avoid a loss on his next series, LB Lewis Moore picked off his errant pass near the sideline to give Pitt the ball again in Tech territory.  With :48 left on the clock, Rutherford connected with TE Kris Wilson in the end zone, but the ball glanced off his hands into those of VT LB Mikal Baaqee.  The touchback ended final scoring threat of the half for either team.

      For the first time in several seasons, halftime entertainment featured both bands, and thankfully, not another alumni band!  The visiting Hokies played Beetle music in some kind of strange formation that GGA Eric interpreted as a turkey.  He explained it made sense because Hokies are turkeys and it’s close to Thanksgiving.  He also explained that Mom likes half times at football games because she can go to the Ladies’ room.  Previously, we had talked about several dislikes his Mom has for football – more on that later in Extra Points.

     Neither team would score in Q3 until 1:24 remained in the stanza.  After receiving a VT punt, it took Pitt two plays to get six points.  Rutherford connected with TE Wilson for 38 yards to the 11, and on the next play, he found Wilson again on a crossing pattern in the end zone for a TD to extend Pitt’s lead, 24-14.  Fifteen seconds later in a game of “Can You Top This?”, Kevin Jones veered left from his own 20 through the line to go untouched on just one play for the 80-yard jaunt that impressed our young GGA.  The period ended with Pitt still in the lead, 24-21.

     Tech took over from Pitt at their own 41 early in Q4.  Vick connected with Wilford (5 catches for 101 yards) for a long gainer down to the Pitt 13.  The unstoppable Mr. Jones took it in from there off right tackle to give the Hokies the lead, 28-24, early in the final quarter with his fourth TD of the day.  Pitt turned the ball over on the next series after Wilson fumbled after a nice catch that put the Hokies back in business at their own 32.  The fumble was very questionable though as Wilson’s knees seemed to be down before the ball came loose.  The teams exchanged punts.  On the ensuing VT series, Wilford came down hard on the back of his head while making a diving catch out of bounds.  He lay still on the ground before a quiet crowd for several minutes before getting to his feet before the relieved crowd.  On third and seven, Vick got the ball to SE Justin Hamilton, who stretched, questionably again, for a first down to the 36.  On fourth and four at the Pitt 30, Coach Frank Beamer went for the gusto as Vick attempted a long pass to Hamilton down the right sideline that went beyond the wide-out’s reach.  Pitt took over on downs and QB Rutherford went right to work with 4:10 left. On the next play, his pass went 28 yards to Fitzgerald at the Tech 42.  Despite DeAngelo Hall’s presence, he went right back to the record breaking receiver with 17 TDs to the VT 30.  Rutherford used his legs two plays later to get to the Tech 19.  He connected with Fitzgerald again to the nine as the Heinz Field ketchup bottles poured red on to the scored board to indicate “red zone”!  Polite rambled down to the three on the next play.  Two plays later on third and goal, he powered his way in to take the lead. With the extra point, Pitt had the lead, 31-28, with :47 remaining.  VT had one last shot before Marcus Vick fired his final pass into Corey Humphries’ waiting hands.  An exciting game ended in an exciting fashion!  For CFF, it was the second time we’d seen Tech go down hard in defeat at the end of a game.  We also attended the game when Donovan McNabb threw his last second TD pass to his TE Dombrowski to finish with a 28-26 walk-off win in the Carrier Dome in 1997. 

     Pitt maintains its undefeated, first-place record in the Big East at 4-0, and Tech drops to fourth place behind Miami and West Virginia, who Pitt visits next week in their annual Backyard Brawl.  If Pitt gets by the Mountaineers next Saturday night in Morgantown, and then lowly Temple the following week, the Big East championship will be theirs alone for the taking when they meet Miami for their season finale on November 29.  Miami (3-1) hosts Syracuse and Rutgers before visiting Pitt, and CollegeFootballFan.com will be there for that one as well. If both teams win their remaining games going into the final weekend, it will be the title game for the Big East Championship and a BCS Bowl bid.  It should be another great one!  We look forward to it!

 Extra points:  CFF has seen now six straight games determined by a TD or less.  The last five have been decided within the last minute and a half, and this is our sixth game of the season decided by three points or less.  It’s been a banner season already for excitement with three regular season games left, and do you know what?  We have some similar potential during the last three games, and a play-off game to boot!

     The new stadium’s not easy to get into if you don’t know the area well.  We looped around several times in the car and even made it into the parking lot before we took a wrong turn and ended up on a bridge leaving the stadium back over the Allegheny.  It worked out well though as we found public parking and followed the crowd over the Roberto Clemente Bridge, past PNC Park (home of the Pirates) and continued along the Allegheny past the Korean War Veterans’ Memorial and Viet Nam Veterans’ Memorial until we tried to catch up with Lee, Kirk and Chris of Game Day.  The lights are too dammed bright though, and we continued on to the less popular ESPN radio booth broadcast.  We’ll tell you, it’s a long winding way up the ramps in this stadium.  Hopefully, we’ll luck out and find that parking lot again.  It was easy getting out, but we don’t know how we got in!

     It’s a great view of downtown P-burgh from our seats at about the 35 up in section 533, or was it 522?  Whichever, we visited both sections as I misread the tickets.  As GGA Eric said, we needed the exercise, and we got a good aerobic workout this evening.  It was a cold, crisp night, - a good one for walking in the Steel City.  Our seats are under cover, too. CFF is happy to see that Rolling Rock is the beer of choice at Heinz.  As mentioned earlier, the scoreboard lights up red from two Heinz ketchup bottles that pour out red all over the scoreboard when the home team gets inside the 20.  It’s one of those NFL gimmicks that Pitt shares with the Steelers.

      Though the game beforehand was determined a sell-out, there were quite a few empty seats, easily noted since every seat is a bright “Steeler” yellow.  66,207 was announced in the stadium that holds 65,000 and has luxury box seating.

 J.B Gibboney from Huntingdon, PA is listed a PK/P on the Pitt roster.  We’ve seen him listed as a SR and a soph in various publications, so we’re not sure what he is.  His dad, Tom, is a former Juniata star end from the 70’s and former head coach of the Eagles, formerly Indians.  CFF even attended his wedding to Priscilla many moons ago, as former Indians say. 

      One vendor made it all the way up into the ozone of our row CC hawking water bottles.  “Healthy water!” he advertised loudly, and looked at us and chuckled, “Yeah, right. Allegheny River water is more like it!”  We didn’t catch the brand name, but we weren’t thirsty any way.

      Before the game, Pitt honored former legends in attendance including former Head Coach Johnny Majors and some guy named Dorsett.

      There was wishful thinking on the scoreboard operator’s behalf.  The Big East standings indicated several times that Miami was 3-2.  On this day, they lost their second consecutive game, but it was to Tennessee of the SEC, 10-6.  The biggest scoreboard reaction by the crowd was when they showed that score along with the 17-7 win by Northwestern over Penn State.  The latter score garnered the majority of the cheers, we believe.

     While showing scores, GGA Eric brought up the age-old question, “What’s a Rutger?” He also asked the “why is the sky blue question” when he asked, “Dad, why do they play football any way?”  A deeper explanation was given the next day during the long drive home.  Early in the game, he decided what he wants to do in college - be a drummer at Pitt!  That boy’s got a long way to go.  He’ll keep changing his mind, hopefully!  At least, they seem to have some nice looking girls up there in the Steel City – more than we’ve seen elsewhere this season, and that includes the deep South with the high reputation.

      The P.A. system lets out what’s supposedly a Panther snarl every so often, but if you didn’t know it, it sounds more like an elephant trumpeting.

      Oh yeah, Eric’s mom doesn’t like the guy in red who stops games for TV time-outs.  This I knew.  Eric claims she doesn’t like long passes either because they stop the clock.  I didn’t know she knew that, but at least Eric does.