The weekend of October 6-7 could have been a disastrous one for fans of Pittsburgh's two football teams. Pitt was 2-3, was coming off of a loss to a bad North Carolina team, and was about to face 4-1 nationally ranked Syracuse. The Steelers were 1-2-1, playing lousy and were about to play a 1-3 Atlanta Falcons team that desperately needed to win a game. A loss for either team that weekend could have sent the respective seasons into a tailspin from which it might have been hard to recover.
We know what happened that weekend and what has happened since. Both teams have combined to go 11-1 since then and the loss was a near upset of still undefeated Notre Dame by Pitt. It's been a nice seven weeks.
Let's start with today's highly improbable win for the Steelers over the Jax Jaguars.
Jacksonville led 9-0 at the half and pushed it to 16-0 in the third quarter. The Steelers defense could not get off the field in the first half as the Jags and Leonard Fournette ran roughshod over them. Only the fact that Blake Bortles stinks and could not get into the end zone, prevented this from being a blow out. The Steelers offense was worse. Ben Roethlisberger threw three interceptions. James Conner couldn't run. Deep into the third quarter the Steelers had made only six first downs, and three of them came on Jacksonville penalties.
The something happened in the fourth quarter. The Steelers defense came alive, and realized that that was Blake Bortles and not Joe Montana at QB against them. A Roethlisberger to Antonio Brown pass clicked for a 78 yard TD pass in the third quarter, but Ben was still struggling. It wasn't until there was 2:28 left in the game that a Ben-to-Vance McDonald TD pass put the score at 16-13. The defense forced its fourth consecutive three-and-out, and the Steelers got the ball at their own 32 with 1:42 remaining. Nine plays later.....
Ben Scores with :05 left;
Steelers Win!!
....and the Steelers had an amazing and highly improbable 20-16 win.
I have written countless times in this space that "You are never - never! - out of a game with Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback." He proved that today yet again, and in game where for the first three quarters, he was just plain awful.
Steelers now at 7-2-1 and hold a two and a half game lead over both the Ravens and Bengals in the AFC North.
Meanwhile, down in Winston-Salem, NC yesterday, Pitt overcame a 10-6 half-time deficit to Wake Forest by scoring 28 second half points and handily defeating Wake, 34-13. It was Pitt's fifth straight ACC win, moved them to 7-4 overall, 6-1 in the ACC, and more importantly, clinched the ACC Coastal Division. In two weeks, they will play Clemson for the ACC Championship, and who besides Pat Narduzzi and the players themselves saw that coming after being pasted by Penn State and Central Florida, and losing to North Carolina?
Pitt did something that good teams do: They improved and got better as the season progressed. Good for the players and good for the coaches who made it happen.
Clemson is undefeated and ranked second in the nation. They will be heavily favored to beat Pitt in the championship game. In fact, it will be the exact same scenario as it was two years ago when Pitt went into Clemson and, uh, defeated them. It happened once; it can happen again.
Yeah, a good weekend to be a football fan in Pittsburgh!
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