Pitt Continues Trend of Disappointing Bowl Appearances

The Pitt football team closed out their 2018 season with a 14-13 loss to Stanford on New Year’s Eve. It was a frustrating result given the at times dominating defensive effort that the Panthers gave in containing the Cardinal offense. 2nd team All-Pac 12 Quarterback KJ Costello was held to season lows of 105 pass yards and a 35.3% completion rate (6/17). Their 208 total yards and 14 points also both marked this year’s nadir in terms of offensive production for Stanford. However, the Panthers weren’t much better at moving the ball. Despite this, they were able to put together several drives that led to a prime scoring chance. Unfortunately they were unable to capitalize on these scarce opportunities, only managing to score one touchdown out of three trips inside the Stanford 10 yard line. Settling for Field Goals on the other two opportunities proved to be the difference in the one-point loss. Looking at all of this, it’s hard not to see the Sun Bowl as a blown opportunity for Pitt to end their season on a high note. Unfortunately for the Panthers, end of season disappointment has been very much the norm in the program’s recent history and this year’s edition continued the trend.

After failing to qualify for the postseason for three straight seasons in the mid-2000’s, Pitt has made a bowl game in 10 of the past 11 seasons (dating back to the 2008 Sun Bowl). While the Pitt football team has consistently been good enough to be selected for an end of the season contest, their performances in these games has also been pretty consistently disappointing. While the results of these games doesn’t actually matter, perception-wise winning your bowl game can serve as a springboard into the final recruiting push before the February signing date and build excitement around the program going into spring ball and the off-season. Pitt hasn’t gotten this very much as they are 3-7 in their 10 most recent bowl games and have now lost 4 straight that they have played in.

Overall Pitt has lost these games by an average score of about 25 to 20, so it’s not as though they have gotten blown out in all of these games. However, this may be indicative of how disappointing and close these losses have often been. The results have been similar regardless of what type of opponent the Panthers are playing. When playing teams from a Power 5 conference Pitt has gone 2-4 and have been 1-3 against teams from Group of 5 conferences. Ironically, they’ve been slightly better as a whole against Power 5 teams, losing only 19-17 to those teams on average compared to losing 34-25 on average against Group of 5 teams. Regardless of opponent, Pitt has been a disappointment in attempting to cap their season’s with a statement victory.

It hasn’t all been bad for the Panthers. Their best win probably came in 2009 when they beat 8-win North Carolina in the Meineke Car Care Bowl (now known as the Belk Bowl). Pitt kicker Dan Hutchins hit a Game-Winning 33-yard Field Goal with less than a minute left to give the Panthers the 19-17 victory. The win also gave them a 10-win season, their only such season since 1981 (and also represented their last win over UNC). The next year they had a dominating 27-10 victory over Kentucky in the BBVA Compass Bowl, the first of three straight trips to Alabama for the game now known as the Birmingham Bowl. Their only other win in this stretch came in 2013 when Chris Blewitt hit a 39-yarder to beat 10-win Bowling Green in the now-defunct Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl. However, these games probably stand out simply due to how common the losses have been.

So where does this year’s Sun Bowl loss compare with the other recent bowl disappointments? I made an attempt to rank them in terms of disappointment, but it was difficult and I made several changes as I was compiling them. I generally took into account the arc of the game, the expectations going into the game, and the relative importance of the game. You may feel differently, but this is how I see them stacking up.

Note: Year given is for the regular season that the game followed. It is not necessarily the year that the game took place during.

7. 2015 Military Bowl – Navy 44-28

Pitt drew probably the best Navy team since the 1960’s in the 2015 Military Bowl. The 11-win Midshipmen finished behind only the 13-win Peach Bowl champion Houston Cougars in the West division of the American. They were also led by electric Quarterback Keenan Reynolds who won conference player of the year, came in 5th in Heisman Trophy voting, and finished his career with the NCAA record for points in a career. The game also occurred in Navy’s home stadium. All of this combined led for the Panthers to be considered sizable underdogs. While the game started with excitement when Quadree Henderson returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, it didn’t last and the Panthers ultimately lost by 16. Between the low expectations, relatively unimportant game, and exciting opening play, this game gets my vote as the least disappointing among a group of letdowns.

6. 2012 BBVA Compass Bowl – Ole Miss 38-17

In a season that Pitt began with an embarrassing loss to Youngstown State, Pitt found themselves barely qualifying for the postseason when they won their last two games to finish 6-6. As a reward, the Panthers got to return to Birmingham for the 3rd straight season. With this game being played in a destination that no one associated with Pitt wanted to return to and playing an Ole Miss team on the rise appearing in their first bowl game under pre-scandal Hugh Freeze, there was a distinct difference in motivation between the teams. Unsurprisingly Pitt lost big 38-17, but given that most Pitt fans probably want to forget that they ever went to Birmingham regardless of the outcome, this game remains pretty low on the list.

5. 2011 BBVA Compass Bowl – SMU 28-6

This game is in this spot for many of the same reasons that the next year’s BBVA Compass Bowl is in the previous spot for. The three straight seasons of Pitt going to Birmingham is a pretty bizarre occurrence that I still can’t quite believe happened. They were all generally forgettable games and this one is no different. Pitt went down to SMU big early and never got anything going on offense. This game is considered slightly more disappointing due to the opponent being of a perceived lesser quality than the 2012 game and the lack of scoring. This game also occurred at a time when the football program was reeling after Todd Graham surprisingly bolted for Arizona State after only one season. This was likely a game that Pitt wasn’t at all prepared to play due to the dysfunction and it was the second year in a row they had to travel to an undesirable location.

4. 2018 Sun Bowl – Stanford 14-13

This is the game where we start getting to the true disappointments. I ended up putting this year’s Sun Bowl smack in the middle of the 7 losses in terms of disappointment. However, there is definitely a gap between this game and the prior three described. I’ve already detailed in the opening paragraph why this game was so disappointing. Only losing by one point with blown chances has definitely been a bitter pill to swallow. I wouldn’t consider this game as disappointing as the ones to follow despite all of this. This likely says more about how awful these games have been. What maybe keeps this game from surpassing any of the following examples is the fact that the putrid offensive performance likely played a contributing factor in the decision to part ways with maligned Offensive Coordinator Shawn Watson.

3. 2016 Pinstripe Bowl – Northwestern 31-24

Pitt lost this game by a touchdown, but despite this I consider it to be more disappointing than the recent one-point Sun Bowl loss for several reasons. First of all the 2016 Pitt Panthers had a historically good offense, but put up a season-low 24 points in this game. A big part of that may have been due to the next reason, as key injuries struck Running Back James Conner and Quarterback Nathan Peterman. This unfortunate end to their respective Pitt careers were a significant disappointment. Finally, expectations were high going into this game as Pitt were distinct favorites to take down the 6-win Wildcats. The Panthers came into the game ranked and a win would’ve meant that they likely would’ve finished the season ranked in the AP Poll for the first time since 2009.

2. 2008 Sun Bowl – Oregon State 3-0

The last time Pitt went to El Paso prior to last week was when they were selected to play Oregon State in the 2008 Sun Bowl. Despite opening the season with a loss to Bowling Green, Pitt came into the game ranked 18th and a win would’ve given them a 10-win season. However the Panthers came out and laid an egg, or rather a goose-egg on the scoreboard. Quarterback Bill Stull only went 7 for 24 and Running Back LeSean McCoy was only able to muster a 3.5 yards per rush average. Though the defense stepped up and only held the Beavers to 3 points, that somehow wasn’t enough. This was truly one of the most ridiculous bowl games and Pitt unfortunately ended up on the wrong end of it.

1. 2014 Armed Forces Bowl – Houston 35-34

This game takes the cake when it comes to disappointing Pitt bowl game losses. Pitt was only 6-6 and this was a pretty minor bowl game. It also occurred during a coaching transition, with Paul Chryst having recently taken the job at Wisconsin and Pat Narduzzi not having officially begun his tenure at Pitt. All of this means, that a flat performance wouldn’t have been that much of a disappointment. However, Pitt played a great game for about 50 minutes and took a 31-6 lead with 13:58 remaining in the 4th quarter. Houston then proceeded to outscore Pitt 29-3 over the remainder of the game. Pitt’s defense completely disappeared over this period and Houston scored three touchdowns in the final 3:41 of the game without the Panther offense touching the ball until they trailed with under a minute left. The Cougars were aided in this by the unlikely occurrence of them recovering back-to-back onside kicks. While onside kick rates vary, expected onside kicks have been successful around 15% of the time. That puts the approximate odds of what Houston did being successful just over 2%. This doesn’t even account for the odds of them scoring on all 3 of the drives when they needed to. Overall, this game was the largest 4th quarter comeback in bowl history and, with Pitt once again on the wrong side of bowl history, it earns the top place in this ranking of recent bowl game disappointments.

As you can see, while last week’s game against Stanford was disappointing, it is eclipsed by several other games in recent program history. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, this says more about Pitt’s bad luck over the years than anything regarding this year’s game. Perhaps it’s fitting that Pitt had a bit of an unusual loss to Stanford to end what has been a pretty unusual season as a whole. Looking on the bright side maybe history will repeat itself, because last time Pitt lost a defensive struggle in the Sun Bowl they followed that up with a 10 win season and even beat UNC. Perhaps Pitt’s disappointing end to 2018 will be followed up by a much better 2019.

*Stats courtesy of ESPN.com and College Football Reference

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