Wait a minute, why is tonight’s game AT Pitt?

I know the answer to that question: the ACC tore up its original football schedule last year and revised it where each team played 10 conference games and one against an outside opponent.

For the COVID season, there were no divisions; the first two teams in the standings met in the ACC championship game. But the revision eliminated what was supposed to be Pitt’s turn to visit Chapel Hill.

So why does this season’s schedule have the Tar Heel playing at Heinz Field for the second straight time? Bubba Cunningham should have thrown a penalty flag on that one, considering Pitt’s record here.

The Panthers are 0-6 at Kenan Stadium, including when All-American Tony Dorsett led the world in rushing in 1974. Why can’t the Tar Heels get their sequential home game and not have to play at Pitt, where their record is a respectable 4-3 but hardly unbeaten.

Wouldn’t you want to play such a big game at home, a game that theoretically keeps Carolina’s slim chances alive to win the ACC Coastal Division? After all, UNC has beaten two of the three teams with better ACC records and could add Pitt by winning Thursday night.

If Carolina won out and finished 5-3, it could win tie-breakers over the Panthers, Virginia and Miami or all of them by virtue of head-to-head victories. Another reason the game should be here, not there.

Can the Tar Heels win in the Steel City? Certainly possible, considering they lost in overtime two years ago and might be ready to play their best football of the season. Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi likes to blitz and leave his secondary one-on-one against receivers.

Phil Longo may have unlocked the China cabinet that made Josh Downs Sam Howell’s most reliable, and pretty much only, receiver for the first seven games. But Downs going two straight weeks without catching a touchdown pass only means that Antoine Green, J.J. Jones, Justin Olson and the tight ends have been catching more balls.

Plus, the Panthers are banged up in their interior lines, where Carolina kept knocking Wake Forest players into injury timeouts. And guess what else? Pitt is enjoying the same Indian Summer weather we’ve been having – 60 degrees when they kick it off at 7:30 on ESPN.

Are the stars lining up for the Tar Heels? If so, it’s about time!

 

Photo via Jim Hawkins/247 Sports.

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