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Pitt football has gotten off to a rocky start to the season with a one win and two loss start. They crushed their first opponent Wofford with a 45 to 7 win at home to open their season. Pitt football fans were expecting great things for the team this year because of their hot start. But in week two the Pitt Panthers had a hard fought loss to the University of Cincinnati. The score was 27 to 21 at home. The Pitt Panthers were the heavy favorites in this game but the Cincinnati Bearcats shocked them at home with quarterback Phil Jurkovec struggling with getting the ball out quickly. Another reason for Pitt’s loss is the defense’s overall disappointing performance letting the Bearcats get to a 13 point lead by the end of the first half. With the panthers being one and one going into week three they were trying to fight back but they had to play West Virginia in the backyard brawl.
The image above shows one of the graphics ESPN used to advertise the game.
This game was expected to be a hard fought game with the two teams being rivals. The game started out with both teams heavily running the ball. In the first quarter, Pitt scored a field goal to put them ahead three to zero. In the second quarter, West Virginia started rolling and scored a touchdown by CJ Donaldson who ran it in for the score. which gave them the seven to three lead with a little under five minutes left in the half. Pitt then drove down the field and scored a field goal which put them down by one going into halftime.
In the image above is star quarterback Phil Jurcovic of the Pitt Panthers.
West Virginia’s stifling defense held Pitt scoreless in the 3rd quarter. Pitts Phil Jurkovec was still struggling to get Pitts’ offense moving. West Virginia started to take over the game when they scored 10 points in the 3rd quarter which gave them the eleven point lead going into the fourth quarter. Nobody scored in the fourth quarter because both side’s defenses controlled each other’s offense. The final score of the game was 17 to 6 in West Virginia’s favor. After the game Pitt fans were very unhappy with Jurkovec’s performance with a mediocre 81 passing yards and 3 interceptions which helped West Virginia win the game. West Virginia was very successful with the run with an astonishing 151 yards as a team on the ground. Both teams struggled in the passing game with a total of 141 which is extremely low. These factors helped West Virginia pull off the away win.
