PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – One of the big questions of the night in Pitt’s 24-19 loss to Virginia. How are you able to run a play when the officials aren’t ready?
“It’s a great question,” said Pitt head coach Pat Narduzi. “I’m sure (ACC leader of officials) Al Riveron will answer that for us on Monday or Tuesday. It’s our job to get lined up and get in position. It’s their job to get lined up and get in position as well. We had a stop on fourth and one. No explanation.”
Let’s set the scene for that play.
There was 6:06 left in the game with Virginia facing a fourth and one from the Pitt 24-yard line. It wasn’t a quick-to-the-line play, Virginia subbed in a bunch formation. They hiked the ball and Pitt made the stop, Panthers get the ball back with six minutes to play down two. Whistle blows and the lead referee, Nate Black, announced the officials were not prepared for the start of the play.
Virginia gets a free do over, converted the fourth down on the second try and ran four more minutes off the clock and added a field goal to make it a five-point game.
“At the end they got five downs,” Narduzzi said. “And haven’t seen that many times in my career. And, again, we held them to a field goal there at the end, but it ate up more time on the clock, which would have given us more time at the end, either the last possession or the second to last possession.”
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Narduzzi mentioned a few times that were a couple of calls where the coaches looked at their iPads on the sidelines and questioned the rulings. One of those was tackle Ryan Baer called for holding when a Virginia player appeared to slip down on what would have been a successful two-point conversion that tied the game with 10:34 to play.
“Not good,” Narduzzi said. “He did a technique we called trap his arm, and he knocked his arm down. That's all it was. The guy wasn't even close to the quarterback. You talk about non-factors. But players play, coaches coach and officials officiate.”
In all the Panthers were called for 11 penalties, not all of them questioned. Some were lack of focus and while it hurt, as Narduzzi said they played their tails off, the Pitt head coach added this.
“We lost as a team,” Narduzzi said. “Again, it starts with me. I've got to do a better job getting our guys prepared. I thought we had a great week of practice, but Virginia came in with a week off and did a nice job.”
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