In the final quarter of its 24-14 upset of No. 2-ranked Miami Friday at Heinz Field, the Pitt sideline was a sea of euphoria, a place where players danced with a bravado that far surpassed an opponent best known this season for having its players sporting a 10-karat-gold Cuban link chain.
In such an environment, it would be understandable for any player — let alone a freshman — to get lost in the moment and swallowed by the ecstasy. Kenny Pickett, though, was having none of it.
As the Panthers quarterback paced down the sideline, he encountered two teammates talking as though Pitt’s win was a foregone conclusion. Aware that time was remaining, Pickett grabbed them and told them to, in more unpleasant words, be quiet.
“I mean, you want that out of your quarterback,” Pitt offensive lineman Brian O’Neill said. “That was probably the biggest thing for me that I saw out of him today was that one moment. I was like, ‘All right, yes sir!’ [Mock salute] ‘You call the shots, bro. You’re running the show.’ And Kenny really was.”
A result few expected — a 4-7 team not only beating an undefeated, top-five foe, but thoroughly overpowering it in the process — was engineered by a freshman quarterback who, despite his lack of experience, seemed almost tailor-made for the moment and the accomplishment it birthed.
In his first career start, Pickett was a revelation, accounting for 256 total yards and three touchdowns while carrying himself with a poise and intensity that transcended both the box score and his age. The kind of player Pitt seemed to be missing all season — a dynamic threat at the game’s most important position — was maybe there all along.
“You think you can do something and you see it in your head over and over again and the next thing you know, it’s happening before your eyes,” Pickett said.
“That wasn’t the first time for me, but this was the biggest stage for me.”
Pickett’s performance was an emphatic and convincing conclusion to a saga that engulfed the Panthers for much of the season as they struggled to find a quarterback.
Before a season-ending shoulder injury sidelined Max Browne — a graduate transfer from Southern California who was the team’s starter entering the season — the freshman from Oakhurst, N.J., appeared destined for a redshirt and a season working with Pitt’s scout team. He was a part of the program’s future, but not necessarily its present.
Once Pickett was shuttled in for the final play of an Oct. 7 loss at Syracuse after then-starter Ben DiNucci’s helmet flew off, that plan changed and so did the thinking around Pickett.
“I had no hesitation putting him in in that Syracuse game for one play because I knew with some work, he was going to get where we need to,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said.
After replacing an ineffective DiNucci in a loss the previous week against Virginia Tech, Pickett got the imposing task of piloting an underdog against a fast, fierce and opportunistic defense that entered the day with the third-most turnovers among Football Bowl Subdivision teams.
Faced with those odds, he thrived. For all his confidence, Pickett was deliberate with his throws, not forcing a pass if he saw a receiver too late in his reads and turning to his check-down target if he got in trouble. When even that option wasn’t available, he used his gifts as a runner to gain chunks of yardage and keep drives alive.
His excellence was highlighted in memorable moments. There were the darts he threw across the middle to his receivers, the kind of passes that would have given him even more yards were it not for some untimely drops. There was his first touchdown of the day, when he scampered in space and dived across the goal line while absorbing a punishing hit from a defender.
“The crazy part about it is he’s been making those plays since he’s been here,” defensive end Dewayne Hendrix.
“We always knew he had the capability of doing it. The coaches just gave him a shot, and he made the best of it.”
He saved his best for last, with a flawlessly executed naked bootleg in which he faked a handoff and curled around the line for a 22-yard touchdown run on a fourth-and-5 with 2:54 remaining to put his team up 17 and seal the win.
As that play unfolded, he looked uncommonly natural for a player his age. Those same traits even travel beyond the playing lines, as his measured and cliché-filled quarterback speak of saying something while revealing next to nothing — taking it one play at a time, etc. — already is at the level of a senior. In most every respect, it’s a role for which he appears extraordinarily ready.
Now, the same expectations for next season that his team created with the win will also apply to him. After all the questions that plagued it this season, Pitt has a top running back, a young and aggressive defense, and, now, what appears to be something the program hasn’t had for several years — a quarterback around which it can build for several seasons.
“He would get smacked or take a couple hits on the way down on those QB runs and he’d come back and be like, ‘This is nothing, we’re good, let’s go,’” O’Neill said.
“Just kind of his composure and his toughness. He’s a gamer. I think that really showed today.”
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG.
First Published: November 24, 2017, 11:47 p.m.
