DETROIT — Pitt entered the GameAbove Sports Bowl undermanned and riding a long losing streak and, for a moment, was poised to pull some bowl game magic out of a Christmastime trip to Detroit. Instead, the Panthers went home having suffered their sixth loss in as many games, and did so in brutal fashion at the end of a post-holiday marathon.
Down to just one scholarship quarterback, Pitt (7-6, 3-5 ACC) turned to true freshman Julian Dugger to lead a second-half comeback. He did just that and, with the help of a resurgent Pitt defense, rallied to take a 10-point lead midway through the fourth quarter. But Toledo (8-5, 4-4 MAC), behind a late pick-six and 51-yard field goal from Dylan Cunanan, engineered its own remarkable comeback and a 48-46 win over the Panthers in six overtimes.
Pitt and Toledo combined to make college football history on the turf of Ford Field on Thursday night. Six overtimes makes this both the longest bowl game in the sport’s history and the longest game in Panther football history.
“You didn’t see any quit out of that football team today,” Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said. “As a whole, they’re not going to go the way you want. We won some close ones and we lost some close ones. That’s just where we are.”
Both sides traded touchdowns in the first overtime period, then field goals in the second. They matched two-point conversions in the third period, and the Rockets believed they had a win in hand when Dugger was sacked on Pitt’s first play of the fourth overtime and players rushed the field.
A dramatic defensive holding penalty gave the Panthers new life, and Dugger made good on the second chance, reaching across the goal line for a matching score in the fourth overtime. Both sides threw for conversions in the fifth overtime, and Toledo added one more — a pass to Junior Vandeross III — in the sixth. With Pitt’s final play, Dugger desperately tried to get a throw off among a swarm of Toledo pass rushers, but it fell incomplete.
After the loss, Narduzzi was left to grapple with how the extended overtime periods and all the chaos that ensued was avoidable. They had abundant chances in the third quarter, at the end of regulation and in overtime — on both sides of the ball — to end the madness and secure a win. They failed to do so every time.
“Game of inches and we’re an inch away from scoring a touchdown and the game’s over,” Narduzzi said. “We just have to make a play, somehow, someway.”
The Panthers trailed 20-12 at halftime. Redshirt freshman walk-on David Lynch, earning a spot start in place of the injured Eli Holstein and recently transferred Nate Yarnell, threw for 65 yards and two interceptions — including a pick-six — before the Panthers began to slowly integrate Dugger more, inserting him on select running plays and even splitting him out wide at times before making him the full-time signal caller.
He leaned on the hard running of Pitt’s All-American tailback, Desmond Reid, who tallied 180 all-purpose yards and scored a rushing touchdown, but Dugger did plenty himself to make plays with his legs and his arm.
“I thought Julian brought a lot of fire that we needed,” tight end Gavin Bartholomew said. “When we couldn’t get the ball moving, I thought he did a good job getting us all on the same page. ... We were just telling him that we had his back and that he’s the man.”
The Panthers gave up a touchdown on the game’s opening drive but scored the next 12 points in a row to take a 12-6 lead with 11:12 left in the second quarter. The first two came when Kyle Louis blocked an extra point try and returned the ball the length of the field. Seven more came on Desmond Reid’s 3-yard touchdown run at the start of the second quarter, and three came on a booming 57-yard field goal from Ben Sauls.
The Rockets answered quickly with 14 points on just two plays. Vandeross took a short pass 67 yards for a touchdown up the sideline and earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for front-flipping into the end zone.
Then, on the first play of ensuing Pitt possession, Lynch tossed an easy pick-six to Toledo’s Braden Awls, who extended his team’s lead to 20-12 at the 7:24 mark of the second quarter. Lynch tossed another interception to end the Panthers’ first drive of the second half and set the stage for Dugger and the offense to mount the comeback.
But Dugger showed his youth late. He threw a pick-six of his own, right into the hands of Toledo’s Darius Alexander, who returned the ball 58 yards for a touchdown. The Panthers had the ball with 1:45 left in regulation and the game tied at 30. Dugger drove the offense up near midfield but was unable to get within Sauls’ extensive range to attempt a game-winning field goal.
Quotable
This marathon game had a chance to end far earlier than it did. Toledo converted a short field goal to cap its possession in the second overtime, meaning Pitt could win the game with a touchdown. The Panthers had driven 22 yards up to Toledo’s three-yard line and had three chances to get three yards and win the game then and there.
After taking a timeout, offensive coordinator Kade Bell dialed up some trickery — a direct snap to Bartholomew, who had the option to run or pass to defensive tackle Isaiah Neal, who leaked out past an unsuspecting Rockets defense. He chose the latter, but Neal couldn’t bring in the ball and Pitt opted for a 19-yard field goal on the next down that extended the game.
One could argue that Narduzzi and his staff were foolish for letting such a critical down fall to the probability of a tight end completing a pass to a defensive lineman, but he said following the game that he had no regrets about the play call or deciding to kick the field goal instead of trying again for a touchdown on 4th down and one.
“I have no regrets on the call. We just have to make a play, somehow, someway,” Narduzzi said. “So we had sour opportunities. I don’t question that call. I thought it was a great call. They had the box packed. I’ll go back and look at it but that was the game-winner right there.”
Key stat
While Dugger and Reid stole the spotlight, Pitt’s defense was the only reason he had a chance to spark the comeback. The adjustments Pat Narduzzi, defensive coordinator Randy Bates and Co. made at halftime held Vandeross, who accounted for 107 receiving yards and a touchdown, to just 50 yards in the second half.
As a team, Toledo gained just 132 yards, turned the ball over twice and scored just three offensive points in the third and fourth quarters. Pitt more than doubled its opponent’s time of possession and ran 23 more plays in the final two periods.
The defense entered this game much closer to full strength than the defense did, and Pitt needed every bit of its continuity on that side of the ball to pull out the win.
Up next
After suffering a sixth loss in as many games, Pitt’s 2024 season mercifully comes to an end and the offseason awaits. Panthers coaches will turn their attention to the transfer portal and try to round out their roster before starting spring practices in March.
First Published: December 26, 2024, 11:56 p.m.
Updated: December 27, 2024, 12:03 p.m.