Heading into Saturday night’s ACC matchup between No. 24 Pitt and Georgia Tech at Acrisure Stadium, the contrast between the programs was visible to the naked eye.
The Panthers, three-touchdown favorites, looked to be in good position to chalk up a conference-opening victory and in the process, increase their stock among AP Top 25 voters.
Georgia Tech, in week one under interim head coach Brent Key, was in full-blown damage control mode, following the firing of Geoff Collins and athletic director Todd Stansbury on Monday.
The Yellow Jackets came to Pittsburgh with a 1-3 record, having most recently lost to Central Florida, which preceded the double firing of Collins and Stansbury.
Key had been in his fourth season as the Yellow Jackets’ assistant head coach, offensive line coach and run game coordinator before being tapped as interim head coach earlier this week.
Battling through a rainy first half and a stalemate with Pitt through the first 45 minutes of play, Georgia Tech scored 13 points off of Panthers turnovers and won, 26-21.
“I’m really proud of these kids and this coaching staff that, with a week like this that we had, were able to really block out all the noise and eliminate all the external distractions that were around them,” Key said after the game.
Preceding a wild fourth quarter in which Pitt scored 14 points and Georgia Tech managed 17, the score read 9-7 Yellow Jackets after three quarters.
Unfortunately for Pitt, over the last 15 minutes of play, its run defense completely imploded.
One play in particular, early in the fourth quarter, exemplified that frustrating reality better than any other.
With the Yellow Jackets at Pitt’s 33-yard line, on third-and-11, tailback Hassan Hall took a handoff and absorbed a hit after about five yards.
Managing to stay on his feet, he was pushed forward by multiple Yellow Jackets offensive linemen, who imposed their will on Pitt’s defense and turned the play into a 13-yard gain.
“As an offensive line coach, that’s one of the most proud things you can have, when, No. 1, you have a third-and-(11) and they push the entire pile to get the first down,” Key said.
Georgia Tech went on to cap the drive with a 30-yard field goal, one of four Yellow Jackets placekicker Gavin Stewart made.
More importantly, Hall’s 13-yard gain, assisted by the Yellow Jackets O-line, was the start of what became a 121-yard fourth quarter for the senior from Atlanta.
Having finished with 157 net yards on 20 carries, Hall racked up 77% of his nightly total in the fourth quarter alone.
Georgia Tech quarterback Jeff Sims also stretched his legs Saturday, running for 117 yards on 19 carries, including a late-fourth quarter touchdown from 18 yards out a few plays after Hall’s 63-yard gain.
Through it all, despite penalties (12 for 75 yards), offensive inefficiency and a plethora of turnovers, Pitt remained very much in the game late into the fourth quarter.
With a bit under two minutes to play, and with Pitt in desperate need of a stop, Hall delivered what was for all intents and purposes the knockout blow, bursting up the middle for a 63-yard gain, the longest play by either team on the night.
Following the loss, Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi resisted initial assertions that his defense was physically dominated by Georgia Tech late in the game.
“I don’t know. We’ll watch the tape. Maybe,” Narduzzi said. “They’re a good-looking football team. They got players too. They got guys on scholarship. … We bounced off some tackles, there’s no question.”
As Narduzzi said, Sunday’s film review sessions will likely reveal more on that front.
But either way, with a 3-2 record and an exit from next week’s Top 25 on the horizon, the defending ACC champions find themselves in unenviable territory.
For Georgia Tech, Saturday was an encouraging opener to Key’s tenure at the helm in Atlanta and indicative of the Yellow Jackets having more potential looking down the barrel of the rest of the season than was previously thought.
“I think coach Key came in and he knew that coach Collins being fired was a devastating time for us,” Sims said. “With everything going on, he came in and kept our confidence up.”
Justin Guerriero is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Justin by email at jguerriero@triblive.com or via Twitter .
