All the momentum Pitt established over the last six weeks, going 5-0 in the process, paved the way to Saturday’s showdown at Acrisure Stadium against No. 9 Notre Dame.

But how would the No. 23 Panthers, after dispatching five straight conference foes, handle a national championship contender and last year’s title game runner-up in the Fighting Irish?

ESPN’s “College GameDay,” a sellout crowd of 68,400 and the college football world probably wondered the same.

But the Panthers were unable to keep pace with Notre Dame, falling 37-15 while failing to score an offensive touchdown until the closing seconds of regulation.

“I apologize to the fans,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said. “It was a great showing (by them). (I) walked out to ‘GameDay,’ and it was a heck of a day, at least to start, for our Pitt fans, for the University of Pittsburgh, for this City of Pittsburgh. I appreciate everything they did. I wish I could have given them more.”

Pitt (7-3, 5-1 ACC) was held to a season-low 219 yards of offense, went 0 for 13 on third down and had three turnovers on downs, including at Notre Dame’s 1-yard line in the third quarter.

“I don’t think we played our best game today against a really good Notre Dame football team,” Narduzzi said. “It starts with me. We’ve got to do a better job as coaches. We didn’t convert enough third downs. We didn’t get enough stops on defense. They ran the ball on us, which they’ve done all year. … We’ve got to make more plays, but I’m proud of our football team. We (didn’t) quit at the end.”

Tailback Jeremiyah Love imposed his will on the ground for Notre Dame (8-2), rushing for 147 yards, including a 56-yard touchdown run in the opening quarter.

Pitt’s Mason Heintschel completed 16 of 33 passes for 126 yards and a pick, and Irish quarterback C.J. Carr overcame two interceptions, including a pick-6 by Rasheem Biles, to throw for 212 yards and two scores.

The Panthers’ failure at Notre Dame’s goal line was doubly devastating as tailback Desmond Reid, whose health has fluctuated since suffering an ankle injury Sept. 13 at West Virginia, departed the game with an apparently similar ailment.

Whether it was because of getting bottled up in their own end or allowing chunky punt/kickoff returns, the Panthers were burned repeatedly by gifting Notre Dame good field position.

The Fighting Irish embarked on touchdown drives from their own 44, 48 and 46-yard line.

“We definitely got dominated in field position,” Narduzzi said. “We can’t do that to ourselves.”

A catastrophic 17 seconds in the first quarter set an early tone, as Notre Dame took a 14-0 lead about seven minutes into the game.

Love exploded for a 56-yard touchdown, and on Pitt’s first play after getting the ball back, Heintschel was intercepted by Tae Johnson for a 49-yard pick-6.

“We’ve got to come out and be ready to go,” Heintschel said. “They jump out quickly on us, and that can’t happen. That starts with me throwing the interception — that can’t happen. We’ve got to start faster and get some momentum going. We can’t get any momentum going against these guys and a team like that. They’re a really great team. We’ve got to find ways to score.”

In a 14-0 hole at the 7:59 mark of the first quarter, Pitt made it 14-3 about a minute into the second, when Sam Carpenter hit a 24-yard field goal.

That came on the heels of Pitt’s first interception of Carr, with Kavir Bains-Marquez returning it 49 yards to the Notre Dame 12-yard line.

For Carpenter, the kick was his first in college, as he substituted in for Trey Butkowski, who missed Saturday’s contest because of an illness.

Carpenter later tried a 53-yarder with 13 seconds left in the first half. But that season-long try by a Pitt kicker was no good.

By that time, Notre Dame was ahead 21-3, courtesy of a 25-yard touchdown pass from Carr to Malachi Fields at the 1:57 mark of the first half.

To Pitt’s credit, its defense stood firm earlier in the second quarter, keeping the score 14-3 and forcing a turnover-on-downs at the goal line to spoil 14-play, 74-yard drive by the Irish.

Still, defensive stops came with insufficient regularity required to have a shot against a team like Notre Dame.

“(Notre Dame) was the national runner-ups last year, so obviously this was the biggest game we played yet this season,” Biles said. “It was a big them for them, so obviously we wanted to let everybody know — E.G.K. (Everyone’s Gonna Know) is what we say — but we didn’t do that today. Just got to get better.”

Notre Dame pulled away about four minutes into the third quarter, when Carr hit Fields for a 6-yard score, capping a nine-play, 54-yard drive.

With 10:43 left in the third, Pitt found itself down 28-3.

The Panthers’ ensuing drive was solid and featured a 27-yard fourth-down reception by Reid to move the sticks.

But Reid was escorted off the field after the play, not to return. He finished with 12 yards rushing on five carries but caught six passes for 63 yards, leading Pitt.

A pass interference call gave Pitt a fresh set of downs at the 2-yard line, but the Panthers came up empty as Poppi Williams’ was ruled to have been tackled just short of scoring on fourth-and-5.

Biles then gave the Panthers some much-needed juice with 1:41 left before the fourth quarter as he intercepted Carr at the 10-yard line before scoring his second pick-6 of the season.

Not since 2022 (M.J. Devonshire) has a Pitt defender recorded multiple pick-6s in a season.

The celebratory moment was short-lived, though, as Narduzzi sent out the offense for a 2-point conversion, resulting in Heintschel getting picked by Adon Shuler, who took it all the way back to give the Irish two points. That made it 30-9 with under two minutes left in the third.

Five minutes into the fourth, Notre Dame piled it on, going up 37-9 as Carr rushed 5 yards for a score.

With 2:49 to go, following a Panthers turnover on downs near midfield, Narduzzi inserted Eli Holstein at quarterback.

As time expired in the game, Holstein hit tight end Malachi Thomas for Pitt’s only offensive touchdown.

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