By: Matt Bowers
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— Pittsburgh outscored North Carolina, 10-0, in the fourth quarter and beat the Tar Heels, 34-24, in a back-and-forth game on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Kenan Stadium.
The Panthers ran over seven minutes off the clock with an 18-play drive in the decisive fourth quarter, leaving Carolina down 10 points with under two minutes remaining.
The two teams traded scores throughout the game. The first time either team posted back-to-back scores was when Pitt tallied the only 10 points of the fourth quarter to break open what was a tied game after three periods.
“We beat a good football team today,” said Panther head coach Pat Narduzzi. “Make no mistake about it, that’s a good football team. Looking at some of the critical plays in the game, we made some big plays. They moved the ball on us offensively. They moved it on us, but our guys toughened up on fourth down. It was just a great, all-around team win.”
The Panthers improved to 5-0, 1-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference with their victory. Pitt is 5-0 for the first time since 1991. Carolina dropped its third contest in a row to fall to 3-3, 0-2 ACC.Both teams moved the ball well offensively, but Pitt was 9 of 16 on third-down conversions and 1 for 1 on fourth down while UNC was 5 for 15 and 2 for 6, respectively. The Panthers converted 5 of 6 red-zone possessions into points while the Tar Heels were 3 for 5.
Omarion Hampton ran 23 times for 106 yards and a touchdown for Carolina, and Jacolby Criswell completed 24 of 45 passing attempts for 269 yards, a TD and a passer rating of 110.9. Nate McCollum caught 10 passes for 128 yards.
Pitt quarterback Eli Holstein was 25-for-42 for 381 yards and three scores. Desmond Reid caught 11 passes for 155 yards and a TD for the Panthers.
“We’ve got to be more consistent,” Tar Heel head coach Mack Brown said in his postgame press conference. “If you go back and look at third downs, we were 5-of-15 and they were 9-of-16. You can’t do that. The other thing is that we knew they were going to move the ball and score and so we wanted to be aggressive on fourth down. We were 2-of-6 on fourth down. If we had done those things better we would have walked out of the game a lot happier.”
How It Happened
First Quarter
• Pitt took the opening kickoff and moved down inside the Tar Heel 10-yard line before settling for a field goal and a 3-0 lead after a nine-play, 59-yard drive.
• After Pitt got the ball back and drove into the red zone again, Kaleb Cost picked off Holstein and ran it back 84 yards for a touchdown and a 7-3 Tar Heel lead.
Second Quarter
• In the opening minutes of the second quarter, the Tar Heels mounted their longest drive of the season, using 19 plays to march 81 yards to the Pitt nine before turning the ball over on downs when Criswell’s fourth-down pass attempt to Bryson Nesbit was wide and incomplete.
• Pitt retook the lead at 10-7 on a five-play, 91-yard drive highlighted by a 72-yard catch and run from Holstein to Reid down to the Tar Heel seven. Two players later, Holstein connected with Censere Lee for a seven-yard score.
• Carolina tied it at 10-all on a 34-yard field goal by Noah Burnette, capping a 58-yard drive.
• The Panthers made it 17-10 with 6:57 left in the first half with a quick, 75-yard drive in a span of 1:16.
• UNC’s defense forced a three-and-out on Pitt’s final drive of the first half, then the offense tied the score at 17-all in the final minute of the half. Hampton accounted for 32 rushing yards in the 10-play, 73-yard drive, including running through multiple defenders for a three-yard score with 42 seconds remaining.
Third Quarter
• Pitt opened the second-half scoring with a two-yard pass from Holstein to Reid that made the score 24-17. The key play of the drive was a 46-yard pass from Holstein to Konata Mumpfield to the UNC one-yard line.
• Carolina tied the score again when Criswell connected with John Copenhaver from 11 yards out, making the score 24-all with 2:07 left in the third.
Fourth Quarter
• Holstein ran it in for a three-yard score just over two minutes into the final quarter, taking a 31-24 lead on an 11-play, 75-yard drive in 4:23.
• The Tar Heels marched down the field and inside the Pitt five yard-line on its next drive but turned the ball over on downs with 9:08 to go.
• Pitt put together its longest drive of the day to put the game away as the Panthers ran 7:07 off the clock in 18 plays. The drive started at the 9:08 mark and ended with a 37-yard field goal by Ben Sauls with 1:54 remaining.
• Carolina turned the ball over on downs to effectively end the game with 1:11 left.
Inside the Box Score
• Cost’s 84-yard interception return for a touchdown in the first quarter was the first pick-six by the Tar Heels since Storm Duck returned one 20 yards for a score in the 2019 Military Bowl against Temple.
• It was the longest interception return by a Tar Heel since 2014 and the seventh-longest in school history.
• Pitt out-gained Carolina, 520-416, in total yards.
• A Tar Heel has rushed for at least 100 yards in each of the first six games for the first time since 1983, the only other time that has happened in UNC football history.
• UNC is the only FBS program with a 100-yard rusher in each of the first six games.
• UNC is 0-2 in the ACC for the first time since 2017.
• UNC has lost three regular-season games in a row for the first time since 2019.
• Hampton scored his 30th touchdown as a Tar Heel and his 28th rushing touchdown, tying Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice and Amos Lawrence for ninth on UNC’s all-time rushing touchdown list.
• Hampton passed Justice for ninth on UNC’s all-time rushing list. Justice rushed for 2,634 yards from 1946-1949, while Hampton has 2,669 rushing yards in the last two seasons.
• This was Hampton’s 14th career game with 100 or more rushing yards, tying Natrone Means for seventh on UNC’s list of games with 100 or more yards.
Up Next
Carolina returns home to host Georgia Tech next Saturday Oct. 12 at noon in Kenan Stadium.
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