Sepich: Pitt stunned in Chryst’s debut

On what many Pitt fans had deemed Chrystmas Day, they received a giant lump of coal.

Pitt…

Bobby Mizia / Senior Staff Photographer

Quarterback Tino Sunseri and the rest of the offense weren’t the problem in the first game against Youngstown.

On what many Pitt fans had deemed Chrystmas Day, they received a giant lump of coal.

Pitt played so putridly that it resembled a team with no head coach, not one debuting its fourth head coach in the past three seasons.

The offense moved the ball, but couldn’t produce points, while the defense struggled all night to stop an impressive Youngstown State offense.

An evening that began with so much promise ended in frustration, disappointment and despair as, after a 32-minute lightning delay, 40,837 fans watched the Penguins and the weather rain all over new Pitt head coach Paul Chryst’s debut, 31-17.

“I thought, quite honestly, that they were the better football team,” Chryst said following the game. “That’s certainly not the way anyone would want to start the season, but it’s in our hands now to see how we’re going to go forward.”

“I believe this group can go forward, and we will go forward,” he added.

Perhaps the brightest moment of the night occurred when star senior running back Ray Graham, returning from a severe knee injury that ended his 2011 season, trotted out onto the field for Pitt’s opening drive.

The Panthers confidently moved the ball into Youngstown State territory, only for the promising drive to end when Graham fumbled and a Penguin defender scooped up the ball.

Pitt never recovered.

Graham finished with 72 yards on 14 carries, but he failed to have the game-changing impact that highlighted so much of the early part of last season.

After making his return, the senior rusher remained pretty positive when asked how his knee was feeling.

“I’m quickly getting back to that old Ray Graham that you saw last season. I’m improving,” he said.

However, Graham, quarterback Tino Sunseri and the rest of the offense weren’t the problem on this night.

The reason for this loss falls almost entirely on Pitt’s defensive inability to get off the field.

The Penguins, who finished just 6-5 last season in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, converted 11 of their 16 third-down attempts and dominated the time-of-possession battle by retaining the ball for more than 35 minutes.

The suspension of Pitt defensive lineman Tyrone Ezell — who was one of six Panthers to sit out due to disciplinary reasons — certainly didn’t help Pitt, as the team never consistently pressured confident Youngstown State quarterback Kurt Hess — but the linebackers and secondary were just as nonexistent.

The long night chasing Penguins around the Heinz Field turf certainly took a toll on Pitt junior defensive tackle Aaron Donald, who seemed almost speechless following the game.

“It’s frustrating,” he said before pausing for several seconds. “There’s not too much I can say.”

The only other positive to be found from this night comes from history and not Pitt’s performance on the field.

The last time a Pitt football team struggled so mightily against FCS opposition, the Panthers finished the season by winning six of their last seven games to clinch a Big East title and qualify for a prestigious BCS game.

But back in 2004, those Panthers rallied from a 17-point deficit to defeat Furman University in overtime, while these Panthers wilted when faced with such adversity from unfavorable opponents.

Much of the season remains for Chryst’s squad, and — probably fortunately — the Panthers won’t have to wait long to have an opportunity for redemption with their Big East conference opener coming up this Thursday night in Cincinnati.

But if Pitt can’t even defeat an FCS team from the state of Ohio at home, the odds don’t look good for this team to travel on the road and win at one of Ohio’s better college football teams.

If Saturday night was anything to go by, it could be a while before the Pitt football program gets back on the nice list.