Pitt beat No. 2 Clemson, 43-42, in Death Valley on Saturday, in a game full of officiating controversy. The game could have huge College Football Playoff ramifications. It ended after a 48-yard field goal by veteran Pitt kicker Chris Blewitt, who, in this case, very much did not blow it.
Pitt shocks Clemson in Death Valley with game-winning FG by kicker named Blewitt
A close game finally bites Clemson, and the Playoff picture will change at least a little bit.
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Clemson turned the ball over on downs at Pitt’s 36-yard line with 58 seconds remaining, as the Tigers tried for a game-sealing first down. Quarterback Nathan Peterman marched Pitt 34 yards in six plays, and Blewitt connected to flip a two-point Pitt deficit into a one-point Pitt win. Clemson tried a lateral play on the ensuing kickoff, but time expired as Pitt snuffed it out.
Deshaun Watson threw three interceptions for Clemson, including one near Pitt’s goal line in the fourth quarter that started the Panthers on the comeback trail, when they’d been trailing by eight. He finished a remarkable 52 of 70 for 580 yards and three scores, but those interceptions will sting.
Peterman had a career game for Pitt. He was 22 of 37 for 308 yards, five touchdowns, and no interceptions. James Conner had 132 yards on 20 carries, and a 20-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run was crucial in setting up Pitt’s last-second triumph.
The Tigers’ living on the edge finally caught up with them.
Clemson had previously kept up a trend of being totally un-killable, even when things looked tense right until the end. Clemson’s needed narrow escapes to beat teams of varying caliber: Auburn, Troy, Louisville, NC State, and Florida State.
The Tigers have flirted with a first loss in six of their 10 games, and now, they’ve finally gotten bitten. They’re still likely to win the ACC Atlantic and have a good shot at the Playoff, but this will hurt. And they’re not nearly the sure thing to make the Playoff that they were entering Saturday, obviously.
For Pitt, this is a terrific win. The Panthers haven’t been able to finish games at all this year, and now they’ve finished one against the second-ranked team in the country. This is the Panthers’ best win in Pat Narduzzi’s two years, and even though the Panthers won’t win the ACC Coastal, it’s a huge deal. Pitt’s developed a deserved reputation as a team that doesn’t close games or win big ones. This helps to combat that.
There were plenty of refereeing oddities: an overturned Pitt fumble recovery return that became a Clemson TD, a missed timeout call that led to a missed Pitt field goal, and a couple of soft penalties on Clemson that set up Pitt touchdowns in the second half. The game, if nothing else, was never, ever boring.
The Tigers are going to be mad, but they made enough mistakes that they left themselves vulnerable to exactly this fate. It could hurt for a while.
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