Rutherford shines in comeback

With just over four minutes remaining in Saturday’s contest against Virginia Tech, Pitt’s… With just over four minutes remaining in Saturday’s contest against Virginia Tech, Pitt’s offense marched onto the field, trailing 28-24.

Hokie quarterback Marcus Vick had just overthrown receiver Justin Hamilton on a fourth-and-four play and the Panthers took over at their own 30-yard line, 70 yards away from the winning touchdown.

Pitt had been in this situation before.

In all of Pitt’s four losses last season, the Panthers had the opportunity to put together a game-winning drive in the final minutes but could not. The one time the Panthers were able to put together a winning drive came in an overtime win against Boston College.

This season, the Panthers were in the same situation against Toledo and could not pull out the win. Against Notre Dame, Pitt did not even have a chance, thanks to the defense’s inability to stop the running game.

But this time, the defense held and quarterback Rod Rutherford and the offense were given a chance to pull out a win.

It looked to be an uphill battle after the Hokies had forced Pitt to punt on its previous three possessions, but Rutherford was confident.

“[Head coach Walt Harris] told us to get completions and move the ball as best as we can,” Rutherford said about what Pitt was trying to do on the final drive. “We knew we needed a touchdown.”

Rutherford made the completions, finding wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald for gains of 28 and 12 yards to move Pitt to Virginia Tech’s 30-yard line.

After an incompletion on first down, Rutherford tucked the ball under his arm and scrambled to his left to pick up 12 more yards and another first down. On the next play, the senior quarterback went back to Fitzgerald, this time for a gain of nine to the Hokies’ 9-yard line.

From there, Rutherford handed off to fullback Lousaka Polite on three of the next four plays and Polite found the end zone to culminate the fourth quarter comeback.

“I thought that was the best way for us to score and it was all Lousaka,” Harris said. “He got hit quick and he is so strong…I thought he had the best chance to get in there.”

The win was the Panthers’ third consecutive over Virginia Tech and, for the second year in a row, Pitt erased any chance the Hokies had for a national title

But Rutherford knows that this win will help the next time Pitt is in this situation.

“It’s definitely going to boost our confidence,” he said about the drive. “Just about every two-minute drive that we’ve had in the last two years, we had a chance to win. We knew that going into that situation, we had a little experience at it and we just had to go out there and execute.”

While many expected Fitzgerald to play an enormous role in the win, it was Rutherford who executed the Panthers’ offense to near perfection.

Rutherford completed 24 of his 31 pass attempts for 303 yards – his fifth 300-yard passing game of the season – and two touchdowns. Seven different players caught a pass and, on one drive in the third quarter, Rutherford found three different receivers on three consecutive pass plays.

“I think the first part of this game, he was really fired up and I think he was too fired up. He was trying to run everybody over,” Harris said. “Two different times during the game I saw him, instead of trying to avoid somebody, he tried to run them over. He’s such a tough, hard-nosed football player.

“He grew up during this game and went back to executing our system,” Harris added, “which I think he did tremendously.”