40 years ago

[owljag]

Today is the 40th anniversary of Pitt's infamous 19-9 season opening loss to Notre Dame. It was Sherrill's head coaching debut at Pitt, but Matt Cavanaugh's broken radius and a turnover epidemic doomed the Panthers. SI did a full story on the game:

https://www.si.com/vault/1977/09/19/621965/maybe-its-the-luck-of-the-irish

Short game highlight film here:



I posted the SI story, the video, and some newspaper clippings on my Pittsburgh sports history Twitter account, @PGH_Sports_History.

 

[Panther_in_Kentucky]

I was there. A loss to the team we had beat and were better than. Jackie Sherril learned a lesson from that game ( a painful one ) about having a backup QB ready to go. Ironic, Narduzzi did the same thing last season. The only difference was Wayne Adams failed under the bright lights with no preparation and Ben DiNucci played well enough to bring Pitt back for a victory. DiNucci's Pitt teammates let him down ( Conner, Dorian Johnson and Peterman all got hurt or took themselves out of the game. Orndorf, who had a great season, dropped the game tying TD pass ).

Wayne Adams had trouble taking snaps and his football career at Pitt was over shortly thereafter. A sad story as it wasn't his fault he wasn't prepared.

By the way, ND won the National Championship that year. It could have been Pitt.

 

[Skip74]

I was there as well. If Matt C doesn't break his wrist, we neat that ND team by 20 points!

 

[HailToPitt725]

That's your page.... no kidding. I love that account, lots of great tidbits every day. Must take a lot of work to keep that going. Keep up the good work!

 

[paulbl99]

I was there as well. If Matt C doesn't break his wrist, we neat that ND team by 20 points!

Easy.

I think Robert Heygood , who started ahead of Cav in 1976 but got hurt, had another year of eligibility left but didn't use it.
Can't remember why, perhaps he was hurt too badly , but I thought he could have come back ?

 

[oldpanther]

Today is the 40th anniversary of Pitt's infamous 19-9 season opening loss to Notre Dame. It was Sherrill's head coaching debut at Pitt, but Matt Cavanaugh's broken radius and a turnover epidemic doomed the Panthers. SI did a full story on the game:

https://www.si.com/vault/1977/09/19/621965/maybe-its-the-luck-of-the-irish

Short game highlight film here:

View embedded media

I posted the SI story, the video, and some newspaper clippings on my Pittsburgh sports history Twitter account, @PGH_Sports_History.

I was at the game also, Adams was not prepared but not his fault. Rick Trocano was next in line and started against Temple, Pitt won I think it was 76-0. Cavanaugh came back against Florida with a soft cast on his wrist and poor pitch to the running RB in the red zone resulted in a fumble and cost Pitt a win, the final score may have been a tie, 17-17.

 

[Panther_in_Kentucky]

I was at the game also, Adams was not prepared but not his fault. Rick Trocano was next in line and started against Temple, Pitt won I think it was 76-0. Cavanaugh came back against Florida with a soft cast on his wrist and poor pitch to the running RB in the red zone resulted in a fumble and cost Pitt a win, the final score may have been a tie, 17-17.

The next game was against William & Mary and Trojan was the qb who basically just had to hand off that game. Florida was a 17 - 17 tie.

 

[sliberty]

The next game was against William & Mary and Trojan was the qb who basically just had to hand off that game. Florida was a 17 - 17 tie.

Was at this game as well. If I recall, it was the debut of one Hugh Green, who was an absolute joy to watch for the Panthers. Talk about high energy.