Miami Football: 3 takeaways from ugly victory over Pitt in Week 7

It was not pretty, but Miami football gets bounce back victory against Pittsburgh football to move to 4-1 and keep ACC championship hopes alive.

This was going to be an interesting game for Miami in many ways. In years past, Miami has not played well when coming off of a loss in big game and the Hurricanes have come out sluggish against inferior opponents and some of that may still be true but nonetheless, Miami came out on top.

Pittsburgh was short-handed with their starting quarterback Kenny Pickett being out for the game and he has been one of the most underrated quarterbacks so far in this season.

Both teams came into this game looking to shake off tough losses last week as Miami was blown out by Clemson and Pittsburgh had a heartbreaking loss to Boston College and both teams needed a win today. Pitt turned to Arizona State transfer Joey Yellen to lead the offense and he just never really looked comfortable throwing the ball down the field and he was never able to get help from the ground game.

Miami’s offense sputtered in the first half and they could not get the ground game going. Pitt tried to copy parts of Clemson’s game plan from last week by playing a lot of man to man and forcing Miami’s receivers to try and win one on one matchups and Miami still struggled to get a lot of separation on the outside.

D’Eriq King came out very crisp in the second half and led a big touchdown drive after halftime and that was much needed for the Canes offense.

Pitt had a lot of missed opportunities in this game, especially in the red zone. King threw a pick late in the first half and the Panthers could only manage a field goal. After a big play from freshman receiver Jordan Addison, Pitt had negative plays that forced them to kick a field goal. Missing Pickett and red zone inefficiency cost the Panthers in this game.

Here are the three takeaways from Miami’s win over Pittsburgh.