No. 18: Pitt, 2003
June 20, 2010 11:32 AM | General
July 13, 2010
Walt Harris wanted to remind his Pitt players of their 24-17 loss to West Virginia in 2002. So he posted the date of the Panthers' next game (November 15, 2003) on the weight room wall for every player to see.
"It's a significant game to the success of our season and last year we didn't get the job done," Harris said the week of the 2003 Backyard Brawl. "That's why we want to remind our players of the importance of the game. Our guys seem to focus better when there are not a lot of distractions."
The Panthers appeared to be an extremely focused team heading into Morgantown, losing only twice in nine games to reach 16th in the AP poll. Pitt had the best receiver in the country in Larry Fitzgerald and West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez's No. 1 concern was figuring out how to keep Fitzgerald off the field.
"I think we have to run it," Rodriguez said. "One, because our offense kind of thrives on that, but two, we need to try and control the game from that standpoint and keep them off the field."
As irony would have it, a pass - to seldom used walk-on wide receiver John Pennington - would be the play that turned around the game for the Mountaineers.
West Virginia's secondary was having no luck guarding Fitzgerald, the sophomore burning the Mountaineers for a pair of touchdowns in a 24-point first half for the Panthers. West Virginia, too, was having some success against Pitt. Rodriguez had added a couple of new plays to take advantage of Pitt's aggressive defense, one a quick screen to wide receiver Miquelle Henderson that went for an 18-yard first-quarter touchdown.
Rodriguez came back to that play later in the game for another big gain.
But the biggest play of the game came right before the end of the first half with the Mountaineers facing a fourth and four at the Pitt 28 and only 38 seconds remaining in the half. The play Rodriguez dialed up was for quarterback Rasheed Marshall to fake a quick screen to the outside receiver, while slot receiver John Pennington curled around the screening receiver to get one-on-one coverage with a linebacker.
If the DBs didn't bite or the coverage was not favorable, Marshall could simply tuck the ball and try and run for the first down yardage, call timeout, and give West Virginia a chance to kick a field goal and go into halftime down four, 24-20.
But Marshall got the coverage he was looking for and floated a high arching pass toward Pennington running to the corner of the end zone. The 5-foot-10 inch Pennington somehow contorted his body away from Pitt linebacker Malcolm Postell and used all of his concentration to make a fantastic, sliding catch in the back of the end zone. The touchdown and extra point tied the game and gave the Mountaineers a huge momentum boost going into the locker room at halftime.
Wide receivers coach Steve Bird had an ear-to-ear grin on his face when Pennington returned to the sideline. "Now you can definitely die a happy man," Bird told Pennington.
"If I keep making catches like this, I might as well stay alive for a while," Pennington said.
In the second half, it was West Virginia's defense that came alive, holding Pitt to just one touchdown while picking off Panther quarterback Rod Rutherford three times in a 52-31 blowout victory.
Quincy Wilson ran for a career-high 208 yards and four touchdowns and Marshall finished the game 14 of 23 passing for 216 yards and two touchdowns.
The Mountaineers out-gained the Panthers 523-429, forcing Harris to remove the old sign from Pitt's weight room wall and replace it with a new one for the 2004 game.
