Hard lessons, tough questions surround Pitt after embarrassing loss to Georgia Tech

The doors were locked to outsiders Sunday afternoon when Pat Narduzzi met with his Pitt coaches and players, but you can bet he was asking serious questions.

Such as:

• What’s up with the passing game? Kedon Slovis finished strong, but he missed 10 of his first 16 attempts when Pitt could have gotten a tighter grip around Georgia Tech’s neck — instead of building a flimsy, 7-6 halftime lead.

The passing game looked out of sync for all but the final two series, and Slovis appeared and later admitted to being indecisive at times.

But the blame should be passed around. He was sacked twice, intercepted once and hurried 12 times. West Virginia, Rhode Island and Western Michigan totaled seven quarterback hurries against Pitt; Tennessee and Georgia Tech 28.

• Is losing Rodney Hammond Jr. — he has missed four consecutive games after a strong performance in the opener — and the injury to Izzy Abanikanda too much for the Panthers to handle?

• Can we stop trying to explain away mediocrity by leaning on injuries? While at least two wounded were added to the list (Abanikanda and left tackle Carter Warren), seven starters returned. And Slovis has played two full games since his concussion.

Narduzzi addressed the injury excuse Saturday night by acknowledging reality (at least two offensive line starters have been unavailable in each of the past three games). But he also emphatically declared, “That ain’t the reason why (Pitt lost). Turnovers are the reason why. I can’t sit here and say it’s because of that. Didn’t affect us when (quarterback) Nate Yarnell was in (in the victory at Western Michigan).

“Would you like your starting five out there? Yes. We trust those other guys to go make plays, but we just didn’t get it done.”

• Three turnovers in four possessions to start the second half might have put excessive pressure on the defense. Were defenders tired from the shortened offensive possessions? Linebacker SirVocea Dennis said that was not a factor.

“Tired or not, we expect to go get stops. In a football game, everything is flowing. You should never be really tired,” he said.

All questions are relevant, but none moreso than this one: Why has Pitt had trouble stopping the opponent’s ground game in two embarrassing instances this season?

West Virginia ran for 190 yards; Georgia Tech 232. Neither team has a winning record (2-3). That might be the chief reason Pitt sits at 3-2.

Narduzzi said Georgia Tech quarterback Jeff Sims, a fine athlete with good wheels, “outran us to the edge a few times.”

The coach said his defenders “took bad angles, didn’t make tackles when we needed to.”

Of course, there is time to get better, and you will hear the same narrative from coaches and players this week while Pitt prepares for the Virginia Tech game next Saturday.

The goal will be trying to prevent one humiliating loss from bleeding into another. “All our goals are still ahead of us,” Narduzzi said.

And he’s right. There are seven more ACC games in which Pitt can make amends.

But Narduzzi also needs to be right about this: “I think (the loss) will make them a little hungrier.”

“It starts with me. There’s no finger pointing in our locker room. Number one, obviously, I didn’t do a good enough job getting them ready.”

Dennis forced a smile Saturday night while speaking to reporters after the game, understanding that failure sometimes can be one ingredient of success. That was so last year when Pitt was 9-1 and won an ACC championship after losing to Western Michigan.

“Things happen. Everything doesn’t go your way,” Dennis said. “That’s not just football. That’s life. This game is a great teacher of life.”

Life and football teach hard lessons.