SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Something about Syracuse brings out the cardiac in the fellows from Cardiac Hill. They make the game gripping. They make it close.
Problem is, they make it only so far before the Lucy in Syracuse yanks the football away from the Charlie Brown in the University of Pittsburgh Panthers.
Good grief, last night was no different.
After a four-hour, heart-rending struggle that included a half a dozen missed field-goal attempts -- one by each team in the first overtime -- Syracuse's Troy Nunes converted a third-and-23 pass after scrambling from lakes Erie to Onandoga. Suddenly, somehow, nanoseconds before getting crunched by Pitt linebacker Gerald Hayes, Butler High School graduate Nunes found receiver David Tyree in the end zone for the winning score in double overtime, 24-17, before 40,699 in the Carrier Dome.
That marked Nunes' second touchdown pass to Tyree on a third-and-long play.
Pitt failed to score on four downs to end the game.
So ended the winningest start by the Panthers (4-1, 1-1 in the Big East) since a 5-0 beginning to 1991.
Continuing are streaks by Syracuse (3-2, 1-0) against Pitt -- a 10-game winning roll and a nine-game Dome run without a loss (8-0-1).
"They've been a demon to this program," Pitt tailback Nick Goings said in the gloomy Panthers aftermath. "They still are."
"A tremendous football game," said Pitt Coach Walt Harris. "I tell you, our fight, our heart -- tremendous. When we fought back in the fourth quarter -- tremendous. But Troy Nunes made the play of the game. Made two of them. The same kind of plays. Almost died by it, too."
Both teams added to the drama in regulation, the Orangemen missing three field-goal attempts ( 22, 38 and 40 yards) and the Panthers one (38) in the second half. Both had their electric moments. The Orangemen turned a third-and-20 Nunes scramble into a 65-yard touchdown pass, and the Panthers' John Turman accounted for the tying touchdown and two-point conversion with 77 seconds remaining.
Oh, and on that two-point conversion, Pitt made it twice. The first time, a pass to R.J. English was nullified by penalties against Syracuse for pass interference and Pitt for an ineligible receiver downfield. It was English who scored a touchdown on the previous play, bulling his way into the end zone with an 8-yard Turman completion.
No matter, for the Panthers scored on the next two-point try as Turman ran in untouched on a quarterback draw on an audible. "I wish I could say that was mine," Harris said of the call.
It capped a 14-play, 48-yard drive on which Turman (20 for 44 for 228 yards) completed fourth-and-short passes to Antonio Bryant and Latef Grim.
The closeness of the game was fitting for the series. Five of the past 10 Syracuse-Pitt meetings have been settled by a touchdown or less. Despite the close scores, Syracuse has owned Pitt. In 1991, the Orangemen scored a touchdown with nine seconds left for a 31-27 triumph. In '93, the Orangemen stymied Pitt's Curtis Martin on a fourth-and-2 at the Syracuse 3 with fewer than three minutes left and won, 24-21. In '97, the Orangemen got a 24-yard touchdown pass with 28 seconds left for a 32-27 triumph. In '99, the Orangemen -- in the form of Ringgold's Jamont Kinds -- intercepted David Priestley's last-gasp pass in the end zone to preserve a 24-17 triumph.
You don't win nine consecutive games over Pitt and 14 of the past 16 without a little good fortune.
"It will take a couple of days for us to get over this," English said. "But Syracuse is a good team, and it's definitely going to help our confidence level. We can definitely play with the elite in the Big East ... Virginia Tech, Miami, Boston College, all the rest of them."
"We've got to upgrade our play in order to win," Harris said. "The want-to and the fight is there. Believe me, it's there. We just have to become better football players. I think our team will learn a lot from this game."
Last night, both teams missed field-goal attempts on their initial overtime series -- Nick Lotz hooking left from 30 yards, then Shafer slicing the potential winner to the right from 36 yards for his fourth miss of the night.
"He's a good kicker," Goings said of Lotz, who missed from 38 yards midway through the fourth quarter after drilling a career-best 48-yarder in the first. "We're definitely trying to pick him up."
In the first half, Pitt got into Syracuse territory on four of its six drives, but the visitors could muster no more than a 9-0 lead -- that after the opening two possessions. On the first drive, Lotz kicked the longest field goal of his three-year Panthers career, a 48-yarder that carried far longer. On the second drive, the Panthers faced third-and-6, third-and-7, third-and-12 and third-and-10, and they converted each one. Turman completed passes to Lousaka Polite, Grim and Bryant. Then, on the final third-and-long, Turman tucked and ran from the pocket. Eighteen yards and one move past Syracuse cornerback Will Hunter later, and he had his first rushing touchdown in 14 Pitt games. Lotz's extra point try went wide left.
Syracuse chipped away at the 9-0 lead. The running of Nunes and James Mungro (101 yard) set up a 37-yard field goal by Shafer two minutes into the second quarter.
One series later, the Orangemen found themselves faced with a third-and-20 situation at their own 35. Nunes, eluding the Pitt rush, rolled right and heaved a dandy spiral before getting crunched by Pitt's Nigel Neal and Bryan Knight. Tyree, the backup Syracuse receiver, having beaten Pitt cornerback Tutu Ferguson, hauled in the pass and completed the 65-yard touchdown play with 5:36 remaining in the half. Shafer made his point-after attempt to give Syracuse a 10-9 lead, reviving a relatively sparse and heretofore hushed Dome crowd. It put Nunes well on his way to a 20-of-29 passing game for 279 yards.
David Priestley started the second half for Pitt, but the Panthers had only seven plays in a third quarter owned by Syracuse. The home team ran off 20 for 107 yards by comparison. The Orangemen missed a field-goal try, but James Mungro ran 5 yards for a touchdown late in the quarter for a 17-9 lead.
Turman directed the Panthers to the tying touchdown and two-point conversion, yet in the end the Panthers were undone by missed opportunities in double overtime. Undone again by Syracuse.
"In the classroom, some people aren't test takers, but they know everything," Pitt's Bryant tried to explain. "I feel this was a quiz. This was no test. And we're going to get ready for the exams."
Boston College comes in two weeks.
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