Ten carries, 102 yards, and a job kept
Damon Ferguson Jr. was not supposed to be carrying the ball this month. The freshman filled in for Ja’Kyrian Turner for a second straight week and needed only 10 attempts to post the first 100-yard game of his career. Pittsburgh beat Syracuse 27-13 on Thursday night and stayed unbeaten.
Ferguson finished with 102 yards and a touchdown, his third straight game reaching the end zone. A week ago against UCF he had 59 yards. The jump arrived on a 32-yard run down the right sideline with 12:38 left in the second quarter, two plays after Syracuse handed Pitt a pass interference call and an unsportsmanlike conduct flag on the same sequence. That made it 14-0.
Pitt piled up 245 rushing yards. Syracuse never found an answer to any of it.
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Narduzzi passes a name from 1938
La’Vell Wright added 81 yards on the ground and opened the scoring with a 2-yard touchdown, 3:16 left in the first quarter. Mason Heintschel completed 10 of 23 passes for 123 yards, ran for 41 more, and scored from nine yards out in the third after another Ferguson burst, this one for 33 yards, set him up. Antonio Chadha kicked field goals from 42 and 34 yards.
The game was Pat Narduzzi’s 144th in charge at Pitt, moving him past Jock Sutherland, who ran the program from 1924 to 1938, for the most in school history.
The Panthers are 3-0 overall and 2-0 in the ACC. They have won 12 in a row at home against Syracuse and have taken 21 of the past 25 meetings between the two.
Syracuse keep beating themselves
The Orange conceded the first 17 points and committed 10 penalties for 94 yards. Last week against California they committed 14. That is not a run of bad luck.
Steve Angeli completed nine of his first 11 passes and then unravelled, finishing 13 of 25 for 161 yards with two interceptions. Amari Odom replaced him with 8:09 remaining and went 7-for-7 for 44 yards. The Kennesaw State transfer has earned himself a conversation this week.
Ahmad Miller led Syracuse with 78 rushing yards and scored from two yards out late in the second quarter. Shay Barker kicked the first two field goals of his career, from 42 and 30 yards, after Tripp Woody pushed a 29-yard attempt wide. Syracuse drop to 1-2 and 0-2 in the conference.
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