Pitt rally falls short in OT, 27-24, while Rutgers blanks Norfolk State, 31-0

Big East Postgame – September 3, 2010

The Pitt Panthers used a late game rally to force overtime, then made a fatal mistake which allowed the Utah Utes to eke out a 27-24 opening day win. Meanwhile, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights took the cake-walk as promised with an easy shutout win over the Norfolk State Spartans, 31-0.

The Pitt-Utah game was a potpourri of the blunders and penalties which mark many college football openers. Both defenses took command early in this contest until Pitt RB Dion Lewis’ 3-yard scoring romp which topped a 28-yard drive and gave the Panthers an early 7-0 lead with 12:00 remaining in the second quarter. The Utes broke back with scoring drives of 80 and 35 yards, both capped by touchdown passes (19 yards and 3 yards) from QB Jordan Wynn to WR Jereme Brooks. The second came with 5:39 remaining in the first half and gave the Utes a 14-7 lead which they took into intermission.

The defenses stiffened at the start of the second half, limiting each team to a single field goal in the third quarter. The offenses came alive in the fourth quarter when Pitt went 53-yards and kicker Dan Hutchins drilled his second field goal from 28 yards out with 9:48 left to cut Utah’s lead to 17-13. The Utes bounced back on the next possession when Wynn hit WR DeVonte Christopher with a 61-yard TD. Kicker Joe Phillips’ point-after conversion opened the largest margin of the game for Utah, 24-13, with 7:59 remaining. The Panthers’ offense continued to roll, however, when QB Tino Sunseri hit WR Jon Baldwin on a 44-yard touchdown strike and the two combined again on a pass play for the two point conversion as the Panthers closed the gap to trail by 24-21 at 7:11 left in the game. The Panther defense then shut down the Utes, and after a short punt Pitt found themselves with the ball in Ute territory for a potential game-winning drive. However, a determined Ute defense kept Pitt from scoring the TD, and the Panthers let the clock run down so they could attempt a 30-yard field goal with 3 seconds remaining to tie the score. In a subsequent series of confusing bloopers, Utah resorted to a folly of time out calls which resulted in the Panthers getting 3 attempts for the tie. Hutchins cashed-in on the third try and the teams went into overtime at 24-24.

Pitt fortunes crumbled in a disastrous overtime. On the first play, Sunseri’s errant pass was picked off by Utes’ freshman safety Brian Blechen. The Utes safely kept the ball on the ground on their possession, setting up Phillips who kicked a 21-yard field goal for the game winner. Utah’s offense clearly outplayed the Panthers, racking up 405 total yards against Pitt’s 266. Pitt could only muster 82 yards rushing, and their passing game struggled until the late-game rally. Both teams combined for 23 penalties and 5 turnovers. Although the Panthers battled well, the loss will severely damage any BCS title hopes they may have for this season. This was the second meeting between the two schools with Pitt losing both times. The Utes continued their unbeaten mastery over Big East foes and extended their home winning streak to 18 games.

Meanwhile, Rutgers’ defense shut down Norfolk State, limiting the Spartans to 25 yards rushing, 131 yards passing and only 7 first downs. Against the 13 Spartan drives in the game, Rutger’s defense posted eight 3-and-outs and forced 10 punts. The Scarlet Knights’ offense didn’t get online until the second half when junior tailback Joe Martinek (20 carries, 109 yards) capped a 75-yard drive with a 6-yard scoring run. After Rutger’s defense converted a blocked punt for a TD in the ensuing Spartan possession, the Scarlet Knights later capped a 74-yard drive with a 10-yard pass from QB Tom Savage to WR Mohamed Sanu with 8:27 remaining. Kicker San San Te finished the scoring for the Scarlet Knights with a 27-yard field goal at 4:40, his third of the game. Rutgers (1-0) has now beaten Norfolk State (0-1) twice by a combined score of 90-0 and has hammered their last five MEAC opponents by 173-7.

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Prognoses of the Prognosticators

In the betting world, Rutgers was eventually favored by a 38 over Norfolk State. So the Spartans won the game in the point spreads. Pitt was a 3-1/2 point underdog to Utah, so the Panthers also won out in the point spread for their game.

The ESPN experts’ assessments that favored Utah over Pitt turned out to be good. CBSSports.com failed in their prediction of a Pitt victory in a wild game. (Although it was a wild game.) CollegeFootballNews.com predictions of victories by Utah and Rutgers were right on, however, their scoring margins were a little excessive.

Post-Game Summaries for September 2, 2010

Utah 27, Pittsburgh 24 at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah

2010 Record: Pitt (0-1, 0-0); Utah (1-0, 0-0)

Offense Total Yards: Pitt 266; Utah 405

Offense Time of Possession: Pitt 34:06; Utah 25:54

Rushing Offense (attempts-yards): Pitt 36-82; Utah 27-122

Rushing TDs-fumbles lost: Pitt 1-1; Utah 0-2

Passing Offense (compl-att-yards): Pitt 16-28-184; Utah 21-36-283

Passing TDs-Interceptions: Pitt 1-1; Utah 3-1

Field Goals (made-attempted, yards): Pitt 3-4 @ 37, 28, 30; Utah 2-2 @ 26, 21

Penalties (number-yards): Pitt 12-75; Utah 11-99

Rutgers 31, Norfolk State 0 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, NJ

2010 Record: Rutgers (1-0, 0-0); Norfolk State (1-0, 0-0)

Offense Total Yards: Rutgers 422; Norfolk State 156

Offense Time of Possession: Rutgers 37:41; Norfolk State 22:19

Rushing Offense (attempts-yards): Rutgers 50-268; Norfolk State 24-25

Rushing TDs-fumbles lost: Rutgers 1-0; Norfolk State 0-1

Passing Offense (compl-att-yards): Rutgers 11-21-154; Norfolk State 11-24-131

Passing TDs-Interceptions: Rutgers 1-0; Norfolk State 0-0

Field Goals (made-attempted, yards): Rutgers 3-5 @ 31, 20, 27; Norfolk State 0-1

Penalties (number-yards): Rutgers 8-62; Norfolk State 7-85

Fan-Tactics

The Pitt-Utah game was sold out with 45,730 fans in the 45,017-capacity Rice-Eccles Stadium. Early estimates have approximately 15,000 Pitt fans attending the Student Watch Party at the Petersen Events Center. VERSUS TV gave the Pitt fans a smattering of air time during the game. Ute fans celebrated with big post game festivities at the Green Street, Harry-O’s and Lumpy’s party hops in Salt Lake City. A group of Utah fans wearing “I PITTy the Panthers” T-shirts got our nod for the best game slogan for the day. Several highly-charged Ute fans, body-painted with U-T-A-H lettering, won our “Drinky-Crow Rowdies” gameday award. Unfortunately we don’t have pics of them to post yet, but stay tuned.

Rutgers managed to get 46,311 fans into their 52,454-seat stadium. With the trappings of an easy victory blooming, there was not much festivity about the contest with Norfolk State. The game followed suit and most postgame fan festivities in Piscataway, NJ turned out to be more of a normal week night than anything else.

ALL FANS SEND US YOUR PRE-GAME AND POST-GAME PARTY PICS! (CLEAN ONES ONLY) We’ll post the best ones on our post-game report. We’re looking for the best and wackiest group photos and the best sign/shirt/button slogans. You can email your pics to BigEastFans@SportsAndAthletics.com .

THE FANS TALK BACK – Pitt fan blogs were not happy about the OT loss, but see a very promising season ahead for their team. Ute fan blogs are focused now on improved chances for the Utes to capture the MWC title. Scarlet Knight fan blogs consider the game with Norfolk State more of a glorified scrimmage and cite their September 25 home contest against North Carolina as the real start of their football season. Spartan blogs have been quiet so far.

By Don Perry
BigEast-Fans.com Staff Writer

For future Big East games, you can email your score predictions and game comments to BigEastFans@SportsAndAthletics.com . We’ll post some of your predictions and comments in this section of our post-game reports.