As the final seconds ticked down at Acrisure Stadium on the night of Oct. 24, 2024, the home fans cheered and the bright lights strobed. Pitt had just demolished the visiting 5-1 Syracuse Orange, 41-13, to move to 7-0 on the season.
Even if it wasn’t the best of nights for first-year quarterback Eli Holstein and the offense, the score wound up so lopsided that most of the starters had come out by the fourth quarter.
The “Sharks” had an absolute feast patrolling the field. Pitt’s defense terrorized Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord, picking him off five times, including three separate pick-sixes in the first half alone.
You would never have believed me if I told you later that night that the Panthers wouldn’t win again for the rest of the season.
But, unfortunately for the Panthers, that’s exactly what happened. After the team jumped out to its best start since 1982 and ranked as high as No. 18 in the College Football Playoff rankings, the Panthers completely collapsed. They lost five straight games, including two blowout losses, ending their season in a freefall.
The collapse started the following week with a 48-25 loss to SMU. It was the first time all season that the Panthers either couldn’t dictate the terms of the game or find their way to wiggle out of a jam late in the contest. They never found their way back after that loss.
Battered and bruised — both in ego and body — the team was invited to the GameAbove Sports Bowl. In a fast-paced, record-setting, six-overtime thriller, it was a Tucker Gleason pass that ensured a 48-46 Toledo victory.
Last season was a significant improvement over the 2023 team. Two years ago, the Panthers staggered to a 3-9 record, lost the Backyard Brawl and had absolutely no answer at quarterback.
But it was how the Panthers got to that 7-5 record that left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. The horrific collapse left a dark cloud over a lot of the good things that happened for the program last season.
Holstein was a breath of fresh air for a team that struggled to find anyone who could throw the ball two years ago. He completed 61.9% of his passes for 20 total touchdowns and only had seven total turnovers. He racked up 2,228 yards over 10 games.
Senior running back Desmond Reid electrified the running game and brought a new dynamic to the offense under newly hired offensive coordinator Kade Bell. The Western Carolina transfer, who followed Bell to Pitt, ran for 966 total yards — 87.8 yards per game — over 11 games for the Panthers, including 169 in their bowl game loss. He also hauled in 52 receptions for 579 yards.
Pitt’s defense, led by All-American redshirt junior linebacker Kyle Louis, made strides for most of the season, daring opponents to swim in its dangerous waters.
It’s just unfortunate that it all faded away as the season did.
I don’t think many Pitt fans can bring themselves to call last season a success. Maybe they could if Pitt’s seven wins and five losses didn’t each come in a row. But there’s just no way to look at what happened at the end of last season and market it as successful all around.
So, what is a “successful” season for Pitt football in 2025?
For me, what will define whether this season is “successful” will come down to whether the team can handle all the adversity that comes with a full year.
Perhaps what was most frustrating for fans was how the Panthers’ ability to handle the pressure seemed to evaporate midway through the year. Early in the season, the Cardiac Cats pulled off multiple comeback wins, including from down 27-6 midway through the third quarter at Cincinnati, and from down 10 points with less than five minutes to go in last year’s Backyard Brawl.
But that SMU loss changed everything. They didn’t look prepared to play, and that game seemed to break their confidence for the rest of the season.
“The message is ‘it’s one game.’ It’s hard to win every week,” Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said after the SMU loss. But that message didn’t soak in for his team.
The Panthers kept their next two games close, losing to Virginia and a ranked Clemson squad by a combined total of nine points. But the team would further falter with a blowout loss to Louisville and a disinterested club finishing the season with a loss to Boston College.
For as physical a game as football is, the mental aspect is just as important. A football season is a long and gruelling war. No one expects Pitt to win every single battle and go 12-0, but this team cannot allow one bad game to unravel its season the way that they did last year.
If the Panthers are going to have success this season, a collapse like that simply can’t happen, especially considering the team has a tough schedule to close out the year. No. 6 Notre Dame and No. 10 Miami mark two of Pitt’s final three games this season.
A lot of the team’s up-and-coming stars are a year older, more mature and hopefully can learn from how last year ended. Whether they can find some momentum early on and build off of it all season long will determine whether this season is a “success.”
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