No. 25 FSU Football drops third straight, falls at home to Pitt, 34-31

A Florida State football season that began with great promise now appears to be spiraling toward despair.
Despite being double-digit underdogs and playing with a freshman quarterback making his first career road start, the Pitt Panthers rallied for 13 points in the fourth quarter Saturday to pull off a 34-31 upset of the No. 25 Seminoles in Doak Campbell Stadiun.
Florida State has now lost three straight games after a 3-0 start that featured a stunning season-opening win over top-10 Alabama. The Seminoles are 3-3 overall and 0-3 in the ACC, while Pitt improves to 4-2 and 2-1.
Florida State, which was playing without a slew of offensive starters, actually took a 24-21 lead midway through the third quarter on a 34-yard field goal by Jake Weinberg. And the Seminoles then got the ball back with a chance to go up by two scores, but running back Caziah Holmes fumbled at midfield. And Pitt responded with a short drive for a field goal of its own to tie the score at 24-24 early in the fourth.
The Panthers then added another field goal on their next drive to take a 27-24 advantage, and they sealed the win with a touchdown drive in the final minutes. They racked up nearly 500 yards against a Florida State defense that has had few answers in the past three weeks.
FSU made things slightly interesting with a 58-yard touchdown pass in the final two minutes — from Tommy Castellanos to Micahi Danzy — but the Seminoles were unable to recover the ensuing onside kick.
Freshman quarterback Mason Heintschel, who led the Panthers to a blowout win in his first career start last week against Boston College, picked right up where he left off on Saturday.
In leading Pitt to two early scoring drives, Heintschel completed 10 of his first 11 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown. His 24-yard TD pass to running back Desmond Reid put the Panthers ahead 14-7 early in the second quarter.
That came after Pitt running back Ja’Kyrian Turner capped off the game’s opening drive with a 10-yard touchdown run. Heintschel and the Panthers converted three fourth downs on what would end up being a 15-play, 75-yard march.
Florida State scored touchdowns on three of its five drives in the first half. Senior Caziah Holmes rumbled in from 1 yard out to make it 7-7, then Danzy hauled in a 33-yard pass from Castellanos to tie it at 14-14.
The Seminoles’ defense then intercepted a pair of Heintschel passes — one by safety Earl Little Jr. and the other by safety Edwin Joseph — to give the offense a chance to take control. And Castellanos found tight end Landen Thomas with a 25-yard touchdown pass in the final minute to give the Seminoles a 21-14 advantage at halftime.
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But after getting great field position to start the third quarter, thanks to a Pitt personal foul on the final play of the first half, Florida State’s offense went three-and-out and gave the ball right back to the Panthers, who tied it up at 21-21 with a seven-play, 85-yard drive.
The Seminoles entered the game without four offensive starters due to injury — tight end Randy Pittman, wide receivers Squirrel White and Jayvan Boggs and offensive tackle Micah Pettus — and they lost star wideout Duce Robinson in the first half.
With four of Florida State’s top pass-catchers out of action, Danzy had a career day. He caught seven passes for 133 yards and two scores.
Heintschel, who was making his second career start, finished the game with 321 yards through the air on 21-of-29 passing. He also was Pitt’s leading rusher with 64 yards on 16 carries.
Reid, the Panthers’ star running back who had missed Pitt’s last two games due to injury, caught eight passes for 155 yards and two touchdowns.
After a two-game homestead, Florida State will hit the road this weekend to take on Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif.
Stay connected for complete post game coverage.
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