PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Heading into the game on Thursday night, every chance he got Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi praised Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord. He said he would be playing in the NFL. The Pitt defense hasn’t faced a challenge like that for a while.
There was an addendum to the quote after a 41-13 game that featured five interceptions, three returned for touchdowns.
“Kyle McCord, I got a ton of respect for him as a football player,” Narduzzi said after the game. “You guys heard me say that on Tuesday. I mean, that's a good quarterback that has had a ton of success.”
“He just played the wrong team tonight.”
Last year in Yankee Stadium Syracuse rushed for 392 yards against Pitt, 154 of them from a tight end who played in the quarterback formation. It was a 28-13 final where Pitt allowed 15 minutes more time of possession, and they weren’t playing with a hurry-up offense like this year.
“Last year what they did to us was bizonkers,” said linebacker Rasheem Biles. “We’ve been talking about that for forever. Every meeting we just talked about what they did to us last year. They had almost 400 rushing yards on us last year. That was not the way we were going out. We keyed in on that and used that as motivation. Eventually the outcome is what it was.”
“They came out, had to go to prove it,” Narduzzi said. “Our motto all year is to prove it. I think we proved a lot on a primetime game time, national audience.”
They did it with the most interceptions they’ve had in a game in 16 years and three of those were returned for touchdowns, all by linebackers-Biles, Kyle Louis, Braylan Lovelace all with scores. Brandon George had an interception while lying on his stomach and even the Phillip O’Brien pick was tipped by linebacker Jordan Bass.
“I've never been around three interceptions for touchdowns,” Narduzzi said. “Five total interceptions first time since 2008 you had five interceptions in a game. That's dominating. We've had some pick-sixes wherever I've been. But to have three of them in one game. Hope we didn't use 'em all up.”
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It wasn’t just the interceptions, Pitt held the Orange to six rushing yards. They had four sacks, nine tackles for loss and while McCord ended up throwing for 321 yards, he needed 64 attempts to do that.
“With the bye week we had we were able to add a lot of different things with the defense,” Biles said. “This was the first time our full defense has really played together. It’s going to get better and better.”
“I’m definitely proud of my sharks,” Louis said mentioning the nickname the linebackers have for their group. “That has to be some type of historic performance.”
“This has got to be the best performance of all time with this team. Someone has got to show me something better. We got to get put up on a wall or something out of that performance, that was definitely great.”
“We knew we didn’t want what happened last year to happen again,” Lovelace said. “This was a statement game to the ACC that we are going to keep shining every week.”
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