It’s not a surprise that Pitt has fallen quite a few spots in the ESPN Football Power Index following a loss to Virginia, the second straight loss for the Panthers.
The FPI is a predictive tool to measure how a team is projected to perform throughout the remainder of the season.
Pitt has a 6.3 Football Power Index score, which is 41st-best in college football (a 6-spot drop from last week) and eighth-best in the ACC. The second loss for the Panthers isn’t viewed favorably by the index.
The Index predicts Pitt will finish 8-4 (8.1-3.9) this season (with a 100% chance to hit the 6-win mark, as the Panthers sit at 7-2), but for the first time this season, the postseason aspirations feel out of reach.
Pitt has a 0.2% chance to win the ACC outright, an 0.4% chance to make the College Football Playoff (which is tanked from last week) and a 0% chance to make the national championship game.
With a loss to Georgia Tech, Miami has dropped out of the FPI’s top 10. Miami sits at 11, with Clemson, Louisville and SMU lurking.
Miami (17.9, 11th), Clemson (15.4, 12th), Louisville (15.1, 13th) and SMU (14.3, 17th) pace the ACC in the FPI, and Virginia Tech, Cal, Georgia Tech, Pitt and North Carolina are all within the top 50 nationally.
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. The Panthers knocked off No. 2 Clemson in 2016 in dramatic fashion, and the Tigers smacked the Panthers, 42-10, in the 2018 ACC championship game.
Clemson is coming off a bounce-back win against Virginia, and the Tigers sit at 7-2 (6-1 ACC). The Panthers are the final conference test for the Tigers.
And it comes as Pitt is coming off perhaps its worst performance of the season against Virginia. The Panthers came out flat, failed to adjust and went out with a whimper against Virginia. Pat Narduzzi blamed himself for the second weekend in a row.
“It starts with me, starts with our coaches putting our kids in position to make plays,” Narduzzi said Saturday night. “We had way too many penalties in the first half offensively. Again, we got iPads. So I’m seeing a lot of things on iPads. But we lost as a team. Again, it starts with me. I’ve got to do a better job getting our guys prepared. I thought we had a great week of practice, but Virginia came in with a week off and did a nice job.”
The Panthers dropped to 7-2 (3-2 ACC) with the loss to Virginia, a 7.5-point underdog, and the record doesn’t do a good job highlighting the hole they’ve fallen into over the last month.
Pitt and Clemson are scheduled to kick off at Acrisure Stadium at noon on Saturday.
