ATLANTA — In a funny twist of fate, Pittsburgh native Ben DiNucci made his first college start for the Pitt football team where he happened to be born.
Atlanta, of course.
DiNucci, the redshirt sophomore quarterback out of Pine-Richland, didn’t have a storybook type of game Saturday in Pitt’s 35-17 loss to Georgia Tech — even got benched late by Pat Narduzzi — but he may have done enough to live to fight another day. Er, start another day, likely as soon as next week against Rice.
“Coach Narduzzi said things just weren’t clicking there at the end,” DiNucci said after the game. “They just wanted a change of pace, but he said I’m still the guy, I’m still going to be starting. That’s good to hear.”
Yes, Pitt’s original starting quarterback, Max Browne, tagged in for DiNucci with 7:18 left after the latter botched a handoff for a lost fumble, but Browne hardly provided a spark to an offense stuck in mud. He threw an incompletion on third-and-6 at Pitt’s 8-yard line, leading to a punt, then got sacked on third-and-10 the next possession to force a fourth-and-14 he couldn’t convert.
Browne turned in his usual safe-but-unspectacular stat line, finishing 10 of 15 for 88 yards, while DiNucci was 12 of 19 for 110 with a touchdown in his first time this year entering a game that wasn’t already out of reach.
“I’m going to approach it the same, take this week the same way I’ve taken the first four weeks,” DiNucci said. “First start is always tough to kind of get the feel for everything — kind of feeling myself out a little bit — but it will be good to get another week of practice, kind of sit down, see what Rice does and know that coach still has that confidence me.”
On the flipside, Narduzzi didn’t commit to DiNucci going forward, but hardly placed much blame at the feet of a player making his debut, of sorts.
Instead, Narduzzi pointed to the lack of a ground game to support him, as well as the two times Georgia Tech sacked him, a number that probably should’ve been considerably higher had DiNucci not escaped the pocket and made some pass-rushers miss.
“Good gameplan; credit to them,” DiNucci conceded. “That being said, when they go one [safety] high, we have to take advantage of that, and we can run some play-action stuff, some down-the-field shots. Protection just broke down a little bit today, holes weren’t there. Again, it comes down to execution. We’ll watch the tape and move on.”
He was also hurt by a second-quarter drop from Jester Weah on third-and-6 near midfield, where DiNucci extended the play only to have a low throw bounce off the hands of the redshirt senior receiver, who caught an 8-yard pass on his only other target.
From the perspective of the struggling offensive line, left tackle Brian O’Neill doesn’t see much of a difference between blocking for Browne or DiNucci. His unit just needs to block better.
“I don’t think it matters. Nothing changes for me,” O’Neill said. “That’s not my assignment to worry about. That’s nothing for the guys on the offensive line to worry about. Whoever is in there, I’m going to give them my all. I know the four guys to right of me are going to give it their all. I don’t think it matters in terms of what changes.”
The offense as a whole wasn’t helped much by the return of fullback George Aston from injury, or a new starting five up front of O’Neill, Alex Officer, Jimmy Morrissey, Brandon Hodges and Alex Bookser. Jaryd Jones-Smith, who started the first three games at right tackle, rotated in there.
“I think it starts in practice, doing the little details a lot better,” O’Neill said. “Being a lot sharper in practice Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I’ll take that blame for the last couple weeks on us. As the leader of the O-line, I have to get the guys rolling a little bit better than I have been.”
No doubt, the entire Pitt offense has to get rolling. Don’t expect it to happen with anyone other than DiNucci or Browne guiding it, as ostensible third-string quarterback Thomas MacVittie not only hasn’t taken a snap yet in his redshirt freshman season, but twice saw the field as a blocker on the punt-return team Saturday.
Narduzzi has also called freshman Kenny Pickett too young to factor into the mix, but the hope is that inexperience won’t be an issue much longer for DiNucci.
“Starting in general is cool. It’s been a few years since I got to start a game — since high school,” said DiNucci, who added that he had a good idea he’d get the nod early this week. “The biggest thing for me is getting guys to trust me, and I don’t think that’s been the issue.”
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.
First Published: September 23, 2017, 11:41 p.m.
