Pitt notebook: WVU coach Neal Brown defends 4th-quarter punt, would do it again

The game was sitting there for the West Virginia Mountaineers to secure in their travel bags, hit the country roads and return to Morgantown with a shocking upset.

But Neal Brown decided to punt.

With 6 minutes, 17 seconds left and WVU leading No. 17 Pitt, 31-24, on Thursday night at Acrisure Stadium, the Mountaineers had the momentum. They had sacked Pitt quarterback Kedon Slovis twice on the preceding series and had the ball on the Panthers’ 48.

But it was fourth-and-1 (maybe less than 1), and West Virginia’s coach wasn’t sure his team could reach the sticks. So he ordered his offensive unit to try to draw Pitt offsides (no luck) before taking a delay penalty and deciding to punt.

It was a good punt to the Pitt 8, but Slovis was up to the task and led a 92-yard drive to the tying touchdown in a game the Panthers won 38-31.

Three years ago at Beaver Stadium, Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi, infamously, also decided to live in his fears, ordering a field goal with his team at the Penn State 1 and trailing 17-10, with 4:54 to play. The field goal missed, Pitt lost and Narduzzi was criticized roundly.

In the aftermath of Thursday’s game, Narduzzi was asked if he was surprised West Virginia decided to punt.

“You know what, you never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I think maybe they had pretty much some confidence that they were going to be able to stop our offense.

“I’d have gone for it, but I’m not going to answer for them. That would be something you have to ask coach Neal about — what they were thinking or whatever. You know, it’s fourth-and-1. We were ready for a stop.”

Brown defended his decision, noting failure would have handed Pitt a short field with three timeouts.

“It would be different if there were three minutes to go, but there was six,” Brown said. “If you look at what they’ve done traditionally, they’ve been really, really good in short-yardage situations. If I had to do it again, I’d do it again.”

Tough opener

Narduzzi said he doesn’t like to play a formidable opponent (Power 5) in the opener because there’s no current video to study. He said the 2023 Backyard Brawl will be the third game of the season.

“It’s hard for West Virginia. It’s hard for Pitt. I hate watching tape of USC and West Virginia spring games,” he said. “You just don’t know what you’re going to get. It’s so much easier to defend people. It’s so much easier to execute on offense when you really can see some real game footage from 2022.”

Pitt fans showed up

Narduzzi wasn’t happy about a pregame report from ESPN that predicted 75% of the Acrisure Stadium would be WVU fans.

“I was kind of real upset when I heard the night before there were going to be 75% West Virginia fans, which I knew ESPN had some bad facts, disrespecting our fans. Our fans showed up.”

There’s no way to accurately gauge the percentage of each fan base, but cheers for Pitt did seem louder than those for the Mountaineers.

Penn State, are you listening?

Narduzzi has coached through five games against Pitt’s traditional rivals, beating West Virginia and losing three of four to Penn State.

West Virginia is on the schedule seven more times through 2032. There are no scheduled Penn State games.

“You know, they are both big-time rivalries,” Pitt’s coach said. “We’ll play Penn State any time they want to.”

Was that a message to new Penn State athletic director Patrick Kraft?

“We’ll play West Virginia. We have West Virginia for another seven games,” Narduzzi said. “We are excited about that.”

Slovis: ‘Just having fun’

Slovis threw 24 passes at the West Virginia defense, but none with any more passion than he used when he shouted, “(Expletive) West Virginia” at Tuesday’s bonfire on campus.

Pitt won the game, so the comment wasn’t thrown back in his face, but he did issue an apology.

“I didn’t mean any disrespect to the other team, just trying to have fun, get the fans kind of rowdied up,” he said. “They say their stuff about us, too. J.T. (Daniels, WVU quarterback) is a great player. I have a lot of respect for the guys on the field.”

Among the missing

Pitt was missing three players Thursday who would have played significant snaps: right tackle Gabe Houy, backup middle linebacker Brandon George and backup tight end Karter Johnson.

The loss of Johnson led Pitt to play a six-man offensive line at times, with Ryan Jacoby, a transfer last year from Ohio State, entering the game.

“We didn’t want to wear Gavin (Bartholomew, starting tight end) out,” Narduzzi said.

Meanwhile, Bartholomew was targeted only twice in the passing game, catching one pass for 9 yards.

Avoiding disaster

For the first time in five seasons, Pitt used a punter other than Kirk Christodoulou. Freshman Sam Vander Haar, a 25-year-old native of Melbourne, Australia, punted five times for an average of 42.8 yards, put two inside the 20-yard line, but had one blocked while drifting to his right. That led to a West Virginia touchdown.

“Not very often do you win a game with a blocked punt,” Narduzzi said. “I thought he had more time than he did. He’s got to get that ball off.

“Rookie punter. That’s the first football game he’s ever been in. He’s over playing Australian whatever,” he said, referring to Australian Rules Football. “It’s good to get that under his belt.”