Cardinals fly over Panthers, 48-24

Like last week’s game against the West Virginia Mountaineers, the Pitt Panthers were again… Like last week’s game against the West Virginia Mountaineers, the Pitt Panthers were again underdogs at home against a top-10 team from the Big East.

Again, the Panthers found themselves hanging tough in a shootout in the early minutes.

And again, Pitt (6-6, 2-5 Big East) was eventually worn down and beaten, this time by No. 8 Louisville, 48-24, marking its fifth straight and final loss of the season.

“It was a combination of both the physical and mental,” Wannstedt said of Pitt’s inability keep pace late. “One of the things you have to do is be physically dominant to win. We are not a dominant team physically by any stretch.

“Until we become dominant physically, then you’ll see some better [second] half performances. The other thing too is mental maturity, and we talked about that all week.”

The game began similar to last week’s Backyard Brawl with both teams trading scores throughout the first half.

The Cardinals (10-1, 5-1) got on the board first, despite going three and out on their first possession. When Pitt took over, receiver Marcel Pestano fumbled his first carry of the year on an end around which returned the ball to Louisville. Two plays, 48 yards and 49 seconds later, Louisville was up by a touchdown.

But Pitt countered. Tyler Palko and the Panthers drove 80 yards on 13 plays to even the score at seven.

Then on the first play of the ensuing Louisville drive, Kolby Smith fumbled a Brian Brohm handoff, and Pitt’s Sam Bryant recovered. On the next play, Palko pitched to Derek Kinder who threw to a wide-open Oderick Turner in the corner of the end zone.

Pitt was ahead, but not for long.

With the first play of the second quarter, Brohm hit Mario Urrutia for 42 yards and a score. From that point, Louisville began to take over. But penalties and a blocked field goal late in the half let the Panthers go into the locker room down only seven.

Pitt wouldn’t be as lucky in the second half, though. After it had to punt away its first possession, Louisville drove 98 yards in 4:40 to go up 31-17. The drive marked the third game in a row that the Panthers had given up a 98-yard drive.

“I think this is the fourth week in a row we had somebody backed up inside the 5 [yard line], and we weren’t able to stop them,” Wannstedt said. “Until we can, we’re going to struggle.

“The last five games of the season you could chalk it up to anything you want, but in each of those games, we could have made a play that could have made a difference, and we didn’t.”

From then on, Louisville rolled. Brohm picked apart the Pitt pass defense all night, throwing for 337 yards and four touchdowns on 21-for-29 passing. The Cardinals’ offense amassed a total of 499 yards on a Panther defense that gave up a total of 139 points in their last three games.

“He’s as good as there is in the country,” Wannstedt said of Brohm. “He hit us every time we blitzed him. We didn’t sack him one time. We were moving guys from the very first snap, but we didn’t get there, and if there’s a very good passer, which he is, they’re going to hit you with some big plays.”

While the Cardinals kept coming with the big plays in the second half, the Panther offense was left behind. Drives stalled and Pitt looked tired, turning the ball over four times, which left Palko confused.

“If I knew the answer to that then we wouldn’t be 0-5 in the last five games,” Palko said of Pitt’s second-half woes. “[Louisville] didn’t make any changes — they ran the same defense we saw all week. We just came up short.”

“We came out blazing in the first half, and in the second half we dropped for some reason. I don’t know why,” Pitt cornerback Darrelle Revis said. “It results to a 0-5 second half of the season, and it’s hurtful.”

Wannstedt is now 11-12 in two seasons as head coach of the Panthers. So far during his tenure, Pitt has failed to beat a nationally ranked team. Even though he commemorated the graduating seniors, Wannstedt was quick to acknowledge that the program has another tough road ahead.

This was the 10th game between Pitt and Louisville, the Cardinals now leading the series 6-4 with a six-game winning streak.

“This senior group, you really have to take your hat off to these guys. I think that they did enough things to reaffirm and to really emphasize to these young kids what it takes to win,” Wannstedt said.

“Right now we’re not good enough. We’ve got to recruit like we’ve never recruited, we’ve got to have a tougher off-season than we’ve ever had and we have to bring these young guys along at a fast pace.”

Even though Pitt ends the season at .500 after starting the season 6-1, the Panthers could still be in the running for a postseason bowl berth.

“If we would get a bowl bid, we could use the practice and it would be a reward for the seniors and work for everybody else, because we need a lot of work.”

NOTES — Palko ends his career as Pitt’s third all-time leading passer with 8,224 career yards — just 373 shy of Dan Marino … The Panthers wore new, all-gold uniforms for Senior Day which honored 18 Panthers, including Palko and linebackers H.B. Blades and Clint Session … According to Wannstedt, the team is holding a meeting today which might determine the future of cornerback Darrelle Revis, who, as a junior, could enter into the NFL Draft.