Pitt-Cincinnati reaction: How did the Panthers complete their wild, 21-point comeback on the road?

hey everyone Chris Carter and Stephen Thompson here your Post Gazette pit beat Riders here at nitert Stadium after the pit Panthers pull off an improbable 21-point comeback winning 28- 27 in a last minute field goal from Ben Sauls Stephen there is a lot to break down from this game it was a crazy comeback bad good ugly we're going to get into all of that let's start with Goods what's your good from this game my good from today is Randy Bates the defensive coordin I thought he called an excellent second half uh the way that he timed his blitzes the way that he manipulated pits linebackers to get around a defensive line that was much better in the second half as well getting pressure on Brendan S Brendan sorby excuse me uh I thought Randy Bates called an excellent game especially in the second half and you can credit a lot of pits defensive success to the way that he was able to manipulate those blitzes and those stunts agreed entirely and also because they were able to limit what was an offense that was killing them I mean they G they put up 27 points in the first two and a half quarters of this game it was looking like okay this pit defense maybe there's a lot of problems they went from allowing I think it was eight of 13 money down conversions on third and fourth down in in the first three quarters Z4 in the in the final quarter huge turnaround by them my good got to be Cade Bell's offense and i' I would say Eli Holstein but guess what Desmond Reed's just as responsible for this and I think Desmond Reed is the player of the game what 250 yards from scrimmage or something like that over 100 yards receiving over a 100 yards rushing was phenomenal in this and made big plays but we cannot Overlook Eli holstein's stepping up in the fourth quarter he was terrible early we'll get to that CU I'm going to talk about that in the bat but in the fourth quarter I think he was 10 of 11 for 180 yards and two touchdowns he threw a third touchdown in in the third quarter he th his first touchdown in the third quarter threw two touchdowns and let a game-winning field goal drive with less than 30 seconds left Stephen I was just really impressed by how much he was able to settle down in what was a Ruckus environment this place was packed we here at ni Stadium there's people there's students playing flag football behind us right now but you could tell he was maybe a little un unsettled early part in the game but he was definitely settled in the fourth quarter when he Led Led the Panthers on three straight touchdown drives and then a game-winning field goal Drive yeah I I think unsettled could be putting it mildly and I think you know he definitely kind of just settled in in the second half once he started to to make a couple plays make a couple completions he really settled in and my other point here is Cincinnati's defense drops at into coverage regularly they did a it was a really good plan by Scott safield they were often having an extra the defensive back covering often times Eli's primary target and I think that was the adjustment he had to make was not just look off your your primary target and go to the Deep ball it was understanding hey this is what they're trying to do let's take it let's let's attack it let's let's take what they're giving us and I thought he did a good job of that but when you're down 21 points something had to go wrong Stephen what's your bad from this game yeah my bad from this game is the pass defense I still think think there are a lot of holes back there they're breaking in a couple new quarterbacks I don't think these safeties have really played up to the standard that we were expecting from them quite yet um it took them a while to get going and uh even when they did start to clamp down a little bit uh it was mostly because the pass rush was able to finally get some pressure on uh quarterback Brennan sorsby like I said uh with what Randy Bates was doing so I mean this this pit defense it's really uh you know they leave their Corners out on islands and these Corners got got torched a little bit today especially in the first half uh they've really got to clean it up uh especially you know there were times where uh Cincinnati was simply converting on a third and long just because they ran a simple out route you know it was a comeback route and every time it was working Sor was able to get the ball out quick the pass rush was neutralized uh pits got to clean up a lot before they go face West Virginia next week I agree and we're going to continue talking about that I I think one big point was Cincinnati's offense early on was able to just isolate pits cornerbacks because that's the defense they play they live on islands and when you got guys living on Islands sometimes they got to back off in coverage and when you see that sorby just turned bam quick quick hit it would be five eight nine yards big plays for Cincinnati's offense that's something they did last year and killed pit with difference though they were able to limit the run a little bit more this year and their offense came to play especially late bringing on that comeback so that was that that was both that was both that was your bad my bad is the offense in how it started and you know I think that when you look at Eli Holstein for all the good things I just said about the early part you got to also talk about the bad early on he threw a bad interception into double coverage into the end zone and that's what Cincinnati was trying to to get him to do and I think that that's something that Kade Bell has to coach coach him through right now um obviously they coached him through it in this game but you don't want to have starts like this if if pit comes out and does this every every single week goes down 21 points you're not going to pull off come comebacks like this Cincinnati also very much helped pit with a lot of really silly M mistakes throughout this game including one where at the end of the first half pit had the ball trying to get a field goal they had they caught a ball over the middle the clock was stopped with 1 second left but was about to get snapped pit was going to have to go for it and go to the end zone but a Cincinnati player was talking trash then realized his defense was not fully on the field fell down to fake an injury stopping the clock giving pit a free timeout which they had none and that allowed pit to get a field goal late in the first half and guess what pit won by one point so that was a huge moment in this game Cincinnati playing a big role in that but we've talked about the good and bad what's your ugly well my ugly is something that you alluded to and that was the the pretty horrendous start that that pit had I mean they came out of the gates looking completely unprepared nothing was working at any level uh not the offense not the defense not the Special Teams I mean it was pretty comprehensive how bad they were especially in that first half and even leaking into the third quarter as well I mean that's just simply not going to work you were not going to come back from down 21 points every week pit cannot afford to do that uh they got really lucky here like you said Cincinnati gave them a bunch of gifts you can't do that again no you cannot especially when you got other big big 12 teams like West Virginia that you got to play next week in in in the Backyard Brawl my ugly is actually the ending scene of this game which was pretty wild to watch from the Press Box after pit won the game it ended with you know a throw around play where Cincinnati was trying to make a miracle happen it ended in a fumble recovered by Javon Mack Tire Pit's defense goes to the student section over here which was chanting the typical obscene chant that most people chant at pit over the years uh all game long and pit pits fans and Ben sa said it like yeah we wanted to let them know like like we heard y'all all game we came here we beat your team and so they were celebrating in their faces and then I saw one of uh um one of one of the equipment staff from Cincinnati was over here they try to grab the ball a game-winning turnover ball that Javon McIntyre had in his arms from him and they tackle him to the ground at one point he falls down into the kicking net uh and then he get and he gets up kind of runs away as like what's your what's your problem why are you doing this guy just trying to get the ball back young equipment manager that's probably just a student trying to trying to trying to just have a have a you know a reg regular work study job and then he's getting chased a pit coach gets in the way of him yells at him then more equipment staff comes and eventually a uh I think it was the punter uh for uh um for Cincinnati that came in and kind of punched the ball out it was it was it was not a happy scene at the end here and listen I'm all for trash talk I'm all for that but pit that could have gotten a lot worse a lot fast pit was able to get out of there without any punches being thrown but if imagine if there was punches Stephen this would be a lot lot bigger of a problem I think that I get it crazy environment huge comeback win emotions are high I think pit needs to watch itself moving forward yeah I completely agree that could have gotten a lot uh a lot worse than it actually did and thank God it didn't I I agree because that that would have soured what is a great note for pit football and I think that's the final Point here Stephen I know we've done our good bad and ugly but I want us to talk a little bit about this team they're two and 0 in non-conference play yes Kent State was a w was a pushover and this was a crazy comeback but they're two and0 and now they have two more non-conference games West Virginia at home Youngstown State at home there is a pack for this team to be undefeated in in non-conference play going into ACC play and I think the flipping of how a game like this early in the season with such a young team it could do a lot for this season yeah I mean in a span of about an hour we went from talking about you know who might be on the hot seat or who might not uh to this team is undefeated they're two and0 they have a path to entering ACC play undefeated I mean the the the way this game just flipped completely on said stopped on a dime and went in Pit's favor is pretty remarkable and there were multiple points where you thought oh no they're going to do this spirited comeback only for it to slip away late like they did last year instead we're talking about a team that if you're able to get past West Virginia I I think this the the sky becomes a limit for them uh the the entire season opens up for them this is not a particularly difficult schedule at the least the way it looks like right now uh and you you can you can start to think a lot bigger about pit if they come away with the win against West Virginia agre agreed entirely this is a pit team that show show True resilience a great turnaround for them but they've got to put it behind them starting tomorrow they have their 24-hour rule they got to get ready for this Backyard Brawl because West Virginia is coming to town and they're not trying to let pit get get back into feeling good about themselves we will have it all covered at the Pittsburgh Post cazette Stephen did a great job writing his game story I got my postgame analysis we'll have that Stephen will also have his five thoughts tomorrow moving forward then of course we talked to Pat nardy Monday getting ready for the Backyard Brawl get all all of that at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette from your pit beat reporters Chris Carter and stepen Thompson thank you for watching our pit postgame show we'll see we'll see you later this week Tuesday when we do our pit mailbag show on the on on the Pittsburgh Post gazettes podcasting Channel which you can get anywhere you get Podcast as well as on the YouTube page we'll see you there thank you for checking out this 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