Karma? How ‘arrogant’ Clemson actions in 2020 game motivated Pitt in this year’s win

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There was an extra element of satisfaction Saturday among the Pitt football team in consuming the final 7 minutes and 56 seconds of the game with a drive that ended in the victory formation and a 27-17 win over perennial ACC power Clemson.

Some might call it karma. Others would say it was payback.

“I didn’t like how they did us last year, how arrogant they were,” Pitt senior defensive back Damarri Mathis told reporters after the game.

In the 2020 edition of this matchup, the Tigers held a 52-17 lead in the fourth quarter of the game that was played in Clemson’s Memorial Stadium. With 6:56 to go, Clemson threw three passes among five plays before punting. And instead of running out the clock on the next Tigers drive that started with three minutes left in the game, Clemson only called a series of three passes.

Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi acknowledged Monday that the team did not forget how last year’s game ended.

“You’ve always got to look back on the past and what has happened,” he told reporters in his weekly press conference. “We try to do things with class here. The victory formation is a good formation, one of my favorites. It’s nice to end the ballgame that way with two minutes left, no timeouts.

“Other people decide to do it a different way than what we do, but it’ll always come back and get you. Karma is rough.”

Clemson ruffled the feathers of South Carolina and former head coach Will Muschamp in 2016 by calling two timeouts at the end of a 56-7 blowout in order to put Tigers seniors back in the game for what amounted to curtain calls. Muschamp was 0-4 against the Tigers as USC’s head coach.

Narduzzi, now in his seventh years with the Panthers, is the only head coach not named Nick Saban to have two victories over Clemson since the 2015 season. And with Saturday’s win, Pitt now holds a 3-2 all-time series lead over the Tigers.

Saturday’s final drive started at the Panthers’ own 25-yard line. While quarterback Kenny Pickett did throw an incomplete pass to start things off, the next 11 Panthers plays were all rushes. After a trio of kneel-downs, the 15 plays went for 49 yards and accounted for the final nearly eight minutes of the game.

Narduzzi discussed how the ending of last year’s game might have played into motivation for Saturday but said his own message to the team was more about playing a good, fundamentally sound game.

“It was nothing about payback or anything I talked about,” Narduzzi said, before adding “I’m kind of a payback guy myself.”