Pitt is finally starting to gain some respect in the Football Power Index.
It took a 4-0 start and a 73-17 demolition of Youngstown State, but the Panthers are starting to claim in the ESPN FPI. Pitt made its greatest leap of the season, rising over 20 spots nationally to sit just outside the top 25.
The FPI is a predictive tool to measure how a team is projected to perform throughout the remainder of the season.
Pitt has a 7.0 Football Power Index score, which is 33rd-best in college football (a 22-spot jump from last week) and sixth-best in the ACC. It’s the first week Pitt has risen since a Week 1 win against Kent State.
The index now predicts Pitt will finish 8-4 this season (with a 96.8% chance to hit the 6-win mark, considering the 4-0 start), and if that mark isn’t hit now, the season will be a colossal failure.
Pitt has a 2.3% chance to win the ACC outright, a 9.7% chance to make the College Football Playoff and a 0.3% chance to make the national championship game.
Miami remains in the FPI top 10, the lone ACC schools in the top 10, and Louisville, Clemson and SMU are lurking.
Miami (20.4, 7th), Louisville (15.7, 11th) and Clemson (13.8, 14th) are the FPI leaders in the ACC, and SMU (8.7, 26th) and Boston College (8.0, 26th) round out the top five. Pitt, Georgia Tech, Cal, Virginia Tech and Florida State round out the top 10.
Pitt is coming off its most complete performance of the season in a 73-17 win against Youngstown State Saturday at Acrisure Stadium — and it meant a lot to Pat Narduzzi.
“That’s the way we scripted that win today,” Narduzzi said Saturday night. “Talked to our guys just about the attitude we take and making a statement in regards to who we played. We wanted to put the foot to the pedal and show who we are. You look back at 2012 and Paul Chryst’s first year and you think about how far we’ve come as a program. They got beat by that team coming in here in ’12. Then in ’15, my first game, we beat them barely. ’17, we go overtime with them.
“Again, wins are wins, but this third one is the way it was supposed to be. They may have preached all week about, hey, last time we took them to overtime. That was 2017. That was before a Coastal Division championship. I was proud of the way those guys went out there and played.”
Pitt has a bye week before traveling to Chapel Hill, N.C. to take on North Carolina in the conference opener. Pitt is 0-7 all-time playing UNC in Chapel Hill.
