It will be a quick turnaround on Saturday, Nov. 16 for the Pitt fans who attend the Backyard Brawl at the Petersen Events Center.
The ACC announced Monday that Pitt vs. Clemson on Nov. 16 will kick off at Acrisure Stadium at noon. ESPN will broadcast the first matchup between the conference opponents since 2021.
More information regarding the television broadcast will be released next week.
Pitt hasn’t played Clemson since 2021, a 27-17 win at what was then Heinz Field, and it was one of the biggest Pitt games in Pittsburgh in quite some time. Kenny Pickett threw for 300 yards and two touchdowns to advance his Heisman Trophy narrative.
Pitt has only played Clemson five times in program history, dating back to an inaugural meeting in 1977. Pitt knocked off No. 2 Clemson in 2016 in dramatic fashion, and the Tigers smacked the Panthers, 42-10, in the 2018 ACC championship game.
No. 19 Clemson is coming off a loss to Louisville, the Tigers’ first conference loss of the season and second overall. Clemson is 6-2 (5-1 ACC), and the Tigers are still one of the most complete teams in the conference. It will be a tough test for the Panthers.
Pitt is back in action this weekend against Virginia, following a tough result against SMU in Dallas, Texas.
It’s a bounce-back opportunity for the Panthers, following the first loss of the season — in devastating fashion. A loss is one thing, and the season certainly isn’t over, but SMU beat the brakes off the Panthers. It wasn’t close.
If Pitt is truly rebound this season, with four games remaining on the schedule, it will start against Virginia.
Virginia is 4-4 (2-3 ACC), and the Cavaliers have lost three straight games — 24-20 against Louisville, 48-31 against Clemson and 41-14 against North Carolina. UVA is one of the weaker teams in the conference, but it’s still a game that Pitt needs to win. It’s just the next game for Pat Narduzzi.
“The message is it’s one game,” Narduzzi said Saturday night. “And like I kind of started off at the beginning, it’s hard to win every week. It’s hard to be on every week. And maybe as a team and a staff, we didn’t handle success. I always say the hardest thing is to handle success. Our guys will handle adversity, and this is adversity, and our guys will bounce back.
“You could see it in the locker room, they’re not discouraged. I told them I loved them, and I love them as much or more as game 1 or game 7, and we win as a team and we lose as a team.”
