Football: Panthers offense a hoot in rout of Temple

The grayness engulfed Heinz Field.

The weather — cold and overcast — reflected the sedate mood of Pitt’s first Big East win of the season, which came easily, 47-17, against Temple on Saturday and was secured by halftime.

The Panthers (4-4, 1-3 Big East) went into the break leading the Owls (3-4, 2-2 Big East), 31-7.

Temple head coach Steve Addazio was frustrated by how his team began the contest.

“We gave up some obviously tremendously big plays, fast-hitting plays,” Addazio said. “We started out that game as poor as you would want to.”

The Owls at times looked reminiscent of their former Big East selves, who got booted from the conference after the 2004 season because they couldn’t compete. On this day, they were overmatched by the Panthers in all facets of play.

The Panthers’ offense especially dominated the day’s proceedings.

Senior running back Ray Graham moved to fifth on the the school’s all-time rushing list with 2,849 yards, passing current Philadelphia Eagle LeSean McCoy. Graham recorded 140 yards on the day and three total touchdowns.

“I thought today he cut it loose,” Pitt head coach Paul Chryst said of Graham. “He was calling for the ball. He’s feeling better, and he knows we needed him to be good.”

Junior wide receiver Devin Street set a new career high with 140 receiving yards, but he said that he didn’t even realize it until someone told him after the game.

Chryst challenged any notion that he or his team thought of the game as a forgone conclusion beforehand.

“You never want to take anything for granted. I’ve always been like that,” he said. “You never go into a game thinking ‘boy, this is what we’re going to do.’ I think you do that, you disrespect the game. It doesn’t just happen, and that’s why I’ve never been one to expect anything.”

Coming into the game, the visiting Owls had the worst or second-worst ranking of all Big East teams in total offense and defense and in the scoring offense and scoring defense statistical categories.

The shortcomings of the defense were exposed the most.

In the game, Pitt scored its most points ever against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent at Heinz Field, tallying 47 points and amassing 528 total yards on offense.

“We did not play very well today and that was highlighting by not playing well at all during the first half,” Addazio said.

In a moment representative of Pitt’s dominance and Temple’s meekness, Temple quarterback Chris Coyer completed a pass to a receiver, but Pitt cornerback Lafayette Pitts wrested the ball out of the receiver’s hands to force a turnover.

Temple quarterback Chris Coyer described Pitts’ athletic maneuver as having a demoralizing effect.

“[That] let the air out of the balloon,” Coyer said of the play by Pitt’s redshirt freshman cornerback.

With their first Big East victory of the season behind them, the Panthers’ next matchup at No. 5 Notre Dame will act as a real measure of the team’s progress.

“It’s going to be a huge week of preparation before going into South Bend,” quarterback Tino Sunseri said.

While Sunseri didn’t think the nature of the dominant victory had importance heading into the matchup with Notre Dame, he admitted that the end result, itself, did.

“We just wanted to make sure we got our first win in the Big East before November hit,” he said.

Mission accomplished.