Three Winners, Two Losers from Pitt's Loss to Cincinnati
PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers suffered an ugly defeat in brutal fashion at the hands of Cincinnati at Acrisure Stadium in Week 2. They dug themselves an early hole and a late attempt at a comeback fell agonizingly short.
The way they fell behind created plenty of blame to share and the comeback yeilded some standouts. Here's three winners and two losers from the Panthers' 27-21 loss to the Bearcats.
Winners
Konata Mumpfield
On a night where very few things went right for the passing offense, Mumpfield was a consistent bright spot. He caught all four of his targets for 53 yards and a pair of touchdowns and is quickly establishing himself as the top receiving threat on this offense.
Mumpfield was an especially important clutch performer against the Bearcats. His acrobatic touchdown catch in the first half helped stabilize the team and in the second half, sparked them with an impressive touchdown catch in the corner of the endzone to draw Pitt within one score.
Kyle Louis
The redshirt freshman linebacker got in for a couple of snaps in the first half and made some nice plays. That earned him more snaps. Then he made some more nice plays. As the game wore on, he became more than just a reserve but a crucial part of Pitt's second half surge.
Louis, who missed all of his true freshman season and large parts of spring ball with injuries, has been a fast riser in training camp and the early part of the regular season. At just 5'11 and 220 pounds, he's a little smaller than some of his fellow linebackers, but hit with an attitude when filling run gaps. Expect Louis to be a much bigger part of the rotation moving forward.
Gavin Bartholomew
It was "The Gavin Bartholomew Drive" that truly kick-started the Panthers' comeback bid. Pitt's top tight end caught two passes for 76 yards, the second of which was an athletic touchdown grab on a back-shoulder throw from Jurkovec.
He was not targeted for the remainder of the game, and oddly absent from some crucial plays later in the game, as Pitt drove towards a potentially game-tying score. But Bartholomew proved definitively how valuable he can be to a quarterback an an offense that gives him a chance.
Losers
Phil Jurkovec
It's difficult to throw the blame for a loss entirely at the feet of one player, but Jurkovec earned the right to shoulder a vast majority of it following this loss.
He was simply very poor, completing just 31% of his passes for fewer than 200 yards and coughed up a costly fumble. He was consistently off-target and escaped pockets when pressure wasn't coming. Truly tested for the first time as a Panther, he floundered.
But the worst part of the entire ordeal is that Jurkovec compounded his on-field errors with a miscue in his postgame press conference, where he called Pitt fans who booed his performance "pathetic."
Week 1 was a picturesque homecoming and Week 2 was a nightmare.
The Defensive Line
Part of the reason Pitt fell behind by so much and so quickly was the inability of the defensive line and front seven were unable to contain Corey Kiner, who ran roughshod over the Panthers for 153 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries. As a team, Cincinnati amassed 229 total rushing yards.
Kiner ran through open hole after open hole and he crashed through Panther defenders to gain extra yards after a physical finish. They made a drastic improvement in the second half, holding the Bearcats to just 108 total yards - including 36 on the ground - and seven points in the second half. Their lone post-halftime scoring drive came after Jurkovec surrendered a short field with a fumble.
But that start dragged Pitt into a rough place, where a passing offense that was clearly out of sorts was asked to carry the unit back into the game without the luxury of a running game to support it. Next week, West Virginia brings a nasty offensive line and powerful running back to the party and Pitt needs to be ready for that challenge from the opening kickoff.
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