By Will Graves

The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh safety Javon McIntyre would have preferred another red flag after being coached on the road at SMU, a game in which the 23rd-ranked Panthers were outplayed from start to finish.

“It wasn’t ideal,” McIntyre said. “We didn’t want to get punched in the mouth.”

It happened anyway, though the Panthers (7-1, 3-1 ACC) are trying to turn it around before Saturday’s visit from Virginia (4-4, 1-3). A path to the ACC championship game remains if they win out, and the College Football Playoff committee ranked Pitt No. 18 in its initial poll, a sign that the CFP has paid attention to the program’s best start in decades.

However, McIntyre is well aware that nothing matters if the Panthers can’t find a way to come back.

“That’s how you answer,” he said.

Pitt is about to find out. While the Panthers trailed by 30 early in the second half, the Cavaliers rallied during the bye week after a loss to North Carolina. Virginia has dropped three in a row despite having leads at some point in each game.

“It was a tough day at the office last time,” Cavaliers coach Tony Elliott said. “This is how we are now until we fix it. So we can either sit here and feel sorry for ourselves and hope it just changes, or we can own up and be honest with ourselves, be honest with each other and get back to work.”

The same goes for the Panthers, who have won seven of nine meetings with the Cavaliers since joining the ACC in 2013. The offense that hummed so efficiently through the first five or so games has slowed down a bit. And against the Mustangs, the defense that had regained some of its bite was buried under a flurry of missed tackles.

However, Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi is confident it was just a blip after a string of solid performances. The proof came in a quiet team room less than 24 hours later as the players and coaching staff dug deep into their first loss.

“I think it hurt them,” Narduzzi said. “I don’t think they were happy. … I want them to be hurt. It would be nice to be hurt. We all work too hard to have a negative result. There better be some pain involved. When it hurts a little bit, it means something to you.”

Pitt remains in the ACC mix, but can’t afford to get caught looking past the Cavaliers and toward a visit from No. 19 Clemson next week. Virginia must win at least two of its final four games if the program is to head to a bowl game for the first time since 2019.

Raising Eli

Narduzzi playfully bristled when asked this week if he’s sticking with redshirt freshman Eli Holstein at quarterback. The Alabama transfer has thrown two touchdowns and three interceptions in the last three games after passing for 15 scores against three picks in Pitt’s first five contests.

“When you win, Eli will be the rookie of the week,” Narduzzi said. “When you lose, which is obviously our first, it’s not on Eli. We didn’t protect him well enough, we ran the ball well enough. We played really good defense.”

Virginia comes in with the ACC’s 15th-ranked defense, though Narduzzi fully expects the Cavaliers to tweak their game plan to slow down Pitt’s approach under first-year offensive coordinator Kade Bell. SMU gave the Panthers looks that the Mustangs haven’t played all season.

“You try to play chess and it’s hard because you don’t know what you’re going to get,” Narduzzi said. “That’s coaching.”

Reality check

Elliott wonders if his team got a little ahead during its 4-1 start. Elliott thinks there’s a chance the Cavaliers will lose some of the “connectivity” that helped them in September.

“That leads to adversity, to failure,” he said. “The question is whether this group is going to allow this to continue or are you going to say, ‘You know what, we’re going to take our failures and turn ourselves into success.'”