Pitt Leaves Mark on Playoff Era with Penn State Upset

The Pitt Panthers' 2016 upset of Penn State has a lasting historical impact.

PITTSBURGH -- As the age of the four-team College Football Playoff ends with the pair of games on New Year's Day 2024 and the national championship a week later, the Pitt Panthers are one of the many teams that have never reached the exclusive field of four elite teams. But neither has rival Penn State, and they have Pitt to thank for that. 

ESPN's Bill Connelly identified Pitt's 42-39 win over Penn State at then-Heinz Field in Week 2 of the 2016 season as one of the 19 games that defined the four-team Playoff Era because it was that loss that ultimately kept the Nittany Lions out of the 2016 Playoff and set a precedent that the committee has followed ever since. 

"Most of the games on this list either happened late in a given season or involved two CFP contenders. This one did neither. It was a Week 2 matchup of unranked teams boasting only moderate ambitions," Connelly wrote. "But when Penn State ripped off 10 wins in its next 11 games - including a home upset of No. 2 Ohio State and a Big Ten championship victory over No. 6 Wisconsin - this one ended up giving the committee a tricky call: Should it select a one-loss Buckeyes team with wins over three top-10 (at the time) teams and a loss only to the Big Ten champ? Or should they absolve PSU of early losses to both Pitt and Michigan, reward it for late-season wins and break the two-loss barrier for the first time? They went with the former. In 10 years, they still haven't given a bid to a two-loss team."

This win for Pitt was significant enough on its own. 

In front of what was, at the time, a record-setting crowd at a sporting event in the city of Pittsburgh, the Panthers renewed their rivalry with the Nittany Lions for the first time in 16 years by emerging victorious from a dramatic, high-scoring affair. 

James Conner led the way, rushing for 117 of Pitt's 341 yards on the ground and scoring two total touchdowns. Ryan Lewis finished it off with an end-zone interception of Trace McSorely late in the fourth quarter. 

But hindsight makes the win even sweeter for Pitt fans. In similar fashion to their 2007 upset of then-No. 2 West Virginia, the Panthers notched a win over a hated rival that denied them a chance to compete for a national championship. 

Pitt finished just 8-5 that season and notched another massive upset of No. 2 Clemson on the road later in the year, but the game with the largest historical impact from the 2016 campaign, came on their home turf against their biggest rival. 

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