Panthers plagued by crowd noise on the road

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. –The scoreboard read that Connecticut defeated Pitt, but the Panthers… EAST HARTFORD, Conn. –The scoreboard read that Connecticut defeated Pitt, but the Panthers flat out defeated themselves last night at Rentschler Field. Two things hurt the Panthers: poor field position and the crowd noise that accompanied it.

“All night it was hard to hear,” quarterback Tyler Palko said.

Head coach Walt Harris agreed. “They made it much more difficult for us to be effective offensively,” Harris said.

The deafening noise that flew out of the crowd was most evident when Palko was standing in his own end zone on third down waiting to receive the shotgun snap.

He shouted.

He waved his hands.

He stomped his feet, but the ball never made it into his hands.

The noise coming from UConn’s student section, which stood right behind him, made it impossible for center Justin Belarski to know that Palko wanted the ball. As a result, Pitt was flagged for a delay of game, and was forced to punt from deep in their end zone.

Palko was also troubled by the crowd earlier in the game when he was, again, taking a snap with his foot touching the goal line behind him.

He dropped back, looked to his left and threw the ball. On the other end was not a Pitt Panther, however. It was Huskies’ cornerback Justin Perkins.

Perkins corralled the ball and ran the nine yards it took to give the Huskies a 7-0 lead.

“You’ve got to be decisive or go to someone else,” Harris said.

While struggling with the crowd noise, the offensive line also had to fight to keep the UConn pass rush out of the backfield. Palko was constantly scrambling around, trying to avoid sacks. His job was made harder when he lost senior left tackle Rob Petitti to an injury.

“We had horrible field position,” Harris said disappointedly, later adding, “The quarterback was under duress all night. It’s hard to throw the ball when you got people coming from all over.” Adding to the troubles created by crowd noise was Pitt’s inability to make the most of opportunities that UConn handed them.

“We didn’t capitalize,” Palko said.

Down 23-17, Pitt had the ball. Palko scrambled to his right. He had a clear shot to run out of bounds and keep the drive going. However, he cut back inside and ran into trouble in the form of UConn’s middle linebacker, Alfred Fincher. He reached in and stripped the ball out of Palko’s hands, ending Pitt’s drive.

The ball was given back to Pitt’s offense seconds later, after UConn fumbled the ball, but the Panthers again squandered the opportunity to close the gap. With the ball spotted on the Huskies’ 34-yard line, Harris sent out his kicker, Josh Cummings, to attempt the 51-yard field goal.

The snap was poor, but Palko managed to set the ball up for Cummings to kick. It was all for naught though, because the kick soared low and wide left of the field goal. It was Cummings’ second missed field goal of the game. Prior to the game, he had not missed a field goal all season.

Pitt will now look to rebound against Temple next week, but the Panthers have some work to do.

“I don’t know where the problem lies,” Harris said, confused.

Palko didn’t know what was wrong either, but he did give one reply: “It’s time to strap your freaking head gear on and get ready for Temple.”