Pickett Engineers Winning Drive as Pitt Survives Blowing 23-Point Lead at Duke

Chris Rossetti

Chris Rossetti

Published October 6, 2019 4:17 am
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Kenny Pickett Pitt Burdick 2DURHAM, N.C. (EYT) — Kenny Pickett wouldn’t let Pitt suffer another embarrassing, program-killing loss.

(Photo of Kenny Pickett of Pitt. Photo by Paul Burdick. Check out more of Burdick’s work here)

Oh, the signs were all there for another in a long string of heart-wrenching Panther defeats.

In just over a quarter, Pitt had blown a 23-point lead and was poised to be victim to Duke’s biggest comeback ever.

But Pickett engineered an 82-yard game-winning drive to help the visiting Panthers (4-2 overall, 1-1 ACC) survive with a 33-30 win over the Blue Devils (3-2, 1-1).

The game-winning touchdown came on a 26-yard slant pass to V’Lique Carer with 38 seconds to play after Carter was somehow left uncovered by Duke. He caught the ball around the 20 and then made a spin move at the 14 to avoid a defender before taking it in for the touchdown.

Pickett was 4-for-4 on the game-winning drive for 67 yards, and the Panthers were also aided by a 15-yard pass interference penalty at the start of the drive while overcoming an illegal touching penalty by Maurice Ffrench that wiped out a 23-yard pass that would have put the ball at the Duke 9-yard line two plays before the Carter score.

The big pass play of the drive beside the touchdown was a 23-yard strike to Aaron Matthews that moved the ball to the Duke 32 1:02 to play.

Pitt’s defense, which had been torched in the fourth quarter by the Blue Devils, then sealed the win when Patrick Jones II beat his man off the line of scrimmage and strip-sacked Duke quarterback Quentin Harris with Phile Campbell III falling on the ball at the Duke 18.

Prior to that play, Harris had been very good in the last 17 minutes in change leading Duke back from a 26-3 deficit late in the third quarter.

His 4-yard touchdown run with 2:41 left in the third quarter made it 26-10 and was set up when Paris Ford fumbled a punt giving the Blue Devils the ball at the Panthers 4-yard line.

On Pitt’s ensuing possession, Dontavius Butler-Jenkins fumbled the ball giving Duke the rock at the Pitt 43-yard line. That led to a 2-yard run by Deon Jackson that coupled with a two-point conversion made it 26-18 Pitt with 13:09 to play.

Disaster continued for Pitt on its next possession when Edgar Cerenord intercepted a Pickett pass and returned it to the Pitt 25-yard line setting up a 3-yard touchdown run by Harris with 9:10 left.

Duke looked like it had tied the game on the subsequent two-point try when Harris was ruled in the end zone, but after a long delay, the officials declared that one of them had given an inadvertent signal of no good on the try before changing it to good forcing Duke to replay the conversion try. This time, Harris was stopped, and Pitt remained in front, 28-26.

Duke then failed on a fake punt try on the Pitt side of the 50, but the Panthers were forced to punt the ball back to the Blue Devils giving Duke the ball at its own 14-yard line with 3:18 to play.

A targeting foul on Ford, which was upheld after review (he will have to sit out the first half of next week’s game vs. Syracuse), on a third-and-10 completion that only went for nine yards helped Duke get out of the shadow of its own goal line, and four plays later Harris hit Jackson with a 44-yard touchdown pass that gave Duke the lead, 30-26 after the failed try.

That failed try coupled with the failed try after it looked like the Blue Devils had scored ended up being big if you assume that Duke would have kicked the extra point up six following the second Jackson score that would have made it seven-point lead instead of a four-point lead.

Pitt built its big lead thanks to touchdowns from Ford (26-yard interception return), Tysir Mack (19-yard pass from Pickett) and Nakia Griffin-Stewart (4-yard pass from Pickett) and field goals of 43 yards and 38 yards from Alex Kessman.

Pickett was 29 of 48 for 268 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions.

Mack caught nine balls for 85 yards and a touchdown, Ffrench had 10 catches for 54 yards and Carter two for 36 and the score.

Harris was 18 of 43 passing for Duke for 165 yards, a touchdown and two picks while adding 39 yards rushing and two scores.

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