Vukovcan: The Highs and Lows of Being a Pitt Fan

A regular college football fan will see the final score of the Pitt-Florida State game and be surprised that the Panthers went on the road as 10-point underdogs and pulled out a 34-41 win over No. 25 Florida State.
However, if you’re a Pitt fan, nothing about what took place this afternoon at Doak Walker Stadium surprised you at all.
Nothing at all, because that’s the life of being a fan of Pitt football and that pretty much epitomizes the ups and downs of the Pat Narduzzi coaching era.
Just take a look at last year. The Panthers start the season 7-0 with what looks to be a redshirt freshman phenom, get ranked in the initial College Football Playoff rankings and then go on to lose the last six games of the season.

Fast forward to 2025 and after two wins to start the season, Pitt then loses two disappointing games –one to a really bad West Virginia team and the other to Louisville after owning a 17-point lead.
Following the Louisville loss, the fire Pat Narduzzi talk began, and the fan base was thinking of ways to come up with a $30 million buyout to send Duzz packing.
The criticism of Narduzzi was certainly warranted as Pitt had lost six consecutive games to Power Four opponents and were 12-17 in their last 29 games. The offense was a mess, the team was committing a countless number of penalties and with the upcoming schedule, the season looked loss.
Simply put, this team and program looked stale and in need of a new voice.
In typical Narduzzi fashion, he blocked out the noise and then made a decision that was completely uncharacteristic of him and benched incumbent starting quarterback Eli Holstein and handed the keys to the car and possibly his Pitt coaching career over to true freshman Mason Heintschel.
Credit Narduzzi because through two games, it’s turned out to be a stroke of genius and looks to have completely turned around the outlook of the season.
Heintschel’s performance Saturday against FSU was more impressive than what he accomplished against Boston College. In his first road start at a very difficult venue, he put aside a couple of bad plays, showed the next play mentality that any successful player must have and brought Pitt back after trailing multiple times in the game.
When a pass needed to be completed, Heintschel got it done. When yards needed to be picked up, Heintschel either used his legs or found a way to get the ball to one of his playmakers, like Desmond Reid, Raphael Williams or Kenny Johnson.
Against FSU, Heintschel went 21 of 29 for 321 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. He also picked up a very important 64 yards rushing.
So, in his first two starts, this freshman is 51 of 70 for 644 yards, six touchdowns and two interceptions.
Because of a terrible couple of games, Pitt looks to have found themselves their next big-time quarterback. To be honest, that’s very un-Pitt like. Good things like that usually don’t happen to this program.
Not to be the glass half-empty guy but if the right guy started the season and by all accounts, Heintschel has been Pitt’s best quarterback since the spring, there’s a really good chance this team would be 6-0 and ranked close to the Top 10.
The question now is how long can this last?
Pitt now sits at 2-1 in the ACC with upcoming games against Syracuse, N.C. State and Stanford. If this offense continues to perform like this, Reid stays healthy, and some players can return from injury, those looks to be three winnable games.
That would take Pitt’s overall record to 7-2 and 5-1 in the ACC.
Did anyone think that we’d be talking about record after the collapse against Louisville? No, me either but once again, that’s the ups and downs of a being a Pitt football fan.