On Saturday, Pitt football demolished Duquesne 61-9 in its season opener at Acrisure Stadium. Despite this decisive victory, it’s still too soon for Panthers fans to start the “we’re so back” chants.
Shaking off the rust
Despite Pitt’s decisive victory, Saturday’s performance made it clear the team still has “a lot of things that need cleaned up,” as head coach Pat Narduzzi said.
It’s an understatement to say that Pitt’s offense was off to a rocky start. Despite the special teams coming out swinging and gaining 153 yards, the Panthers’ offense initially appeared out of sync. Luckily, redshirt sophomore quarterback Eli Holstein managed to “shake the rust off” and ended the game with a new career-high of four touchdown passes.
“It’s been a while since I was out there, playing a live game and everything like that,” Holstein said. “So I was just settling down, [calming] down, going out there and playing some football and having fun.”
Head coach Pat Narduzzi said the errors Holstein committed early in the game shouldn’t define expectations of Pitt’s quarterback for this season.
“I mean, we see rust every day — nothing’s perfect,” Narduzzi said. “It’s a totally different game when it’s live. You’ll see rust out of everyone, period … Today, he ran what he needed to run, he got some tough yards … so, I like what I saw out of him.”
Doing the little things right
Pitt’s biggest goals were to address the small details early and to start strong and finish strong. The Panthers understood that even though the Dukes might not have presented a serious challenge for them, that doesn’t mean they should ease up on the gas.
Redshirt sophomore defensive back Cruce Brookins said Narduzzi’s messages for the team leading up to Saturday were “just to finish” and to “finish strong.” The Panthers took this to heart when they continued their winning ways through the third and fourth quarters.
“[The game] taught us a lot of good things,” Narduzzi said.
The Panthers will be back at home to face Central Michigan at noon on Sept. 6.
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