Pittsburgh vs Rutgers Week 7 Recap

The Pittsburgh Panthers are giving their fans high blood pressure levels and anxiety attacks, but for yet another week, they managed to post the right result.

The Sons of the Steel City slopped around in Piscataway, N.J., keeping Rutgers in the game and preventing nationwide ESPN viewers from changing the channel. In the end, though, the Panthers had just enough to hold off the Scarlet Knights and remain unbeaten in Big East play. Sometimes brilliant and sometimes awful, Coach Dave Wannstedt's club displayed its familiar Jekyll-and-Hyde persona, a portrait of consistent inconsistency. Fortunately for a relieved set of coaches, the excellence outweighed the ugly by a small margin for the visitors from Western Pennsylvania.

On one hand, this game should have been a runaway. Dion Lewis wowed the Rutgers Stadium crowd with several ankle-breaking, fast-faking moves that left Scarlet Knight defenders swiping at air. LeSean McCoy's uncannily capable successor racked up 180 yards against coach Greg Schiano's defense, a hugely impressive performance in any season. When Rutgers crept within 24-17 on a touchdown with 9:37 left in the fourth quarter, it was Lewis who took over, running through waves of red jerseys on a seven-minute, six-second drive that should have put the game out of reach. When Pittsburgh was threatened on Friday night, Lewis put his feet down--literally--to set up a chip-shot 30-yard field goal from his teammate, kicker Dan Hutchins. The easy boot would have given Pitt a two-possession lead with 2:31 remaining, effectively sealing this conference clash.

There was just one problem: Hutchins badly shanked the kick, giving Rutgers one more chance.

That calamitous kick was just the latest in a series of painful Panther gaffes that revived the Rutgers cause precisely when the Scarlet Knights appeared to be out of it. Pitt allowed a blocked punt after grabbing a 24-10 hammer-lock grip on the game in the third quarter. Pitt quarterback Bill Stull fumbled in the fourth quarter, precisely when the Panthers were on the verge of going up by three scores on a steady, run-based drive. Pitt also dropped an easy pick-six and suffered through another missed field goal by Hutchins in a game that was dominated by the Panthers at the line of scrimmage. Fortunately for Wannstedt and Co., those accumulated accidents weren't enough to stand in the way of ultimate victory.

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Why was Pitt able to survive its stack of slip-ups in New Jersey? Quite simply, the Panthers packed a powerful punch in the trenches. On both lines, but especially on defense, the boys from the land of Three Rivers simply manhandled Rutgers up front. Pitt's defensive line of Greg Romeus, Gus Mustakas, Myles Caragein, and Jaball Sheard were able to crash into the backfield at will, making life very difficult for talented but inexperienced Rutgers quarterback Tom Savage. Against a veteran quarterback--think of Rutgers's 2008 signal caller, Mike Teel--Friday night's pass rush might not have been as lethal, but against a green freshman who needed time to make reads and checkdowns, Pitt's frontline dominance carried extra weight and significance. With Rutgers's running game similarly smothered by the Panthers' prominent front four, the Scarlet Knights had nowhere to turn. Had Pitt not botched a punt return in the first quarter, Schiano's offense would have scored only 10 points in this contest. Superior trench warfare was the biggest story of this Friday night brawl, and Pitt threw all the high-impact punches on the banks of the Old Raritan.

Yes, it wasn't pretty (again). Yes, it was far more difficult than it should have been (again). Yes, this kind of performance won't cut the mustard against Cincinnati or West Virginia (again). But make no mistake: Pittsburgh is 6-1, unbeaten in the Big East, and still in control of its fate on the road to a potential BCS bowl bid.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer