Pitt Football Still Projected for Major Bowl Game

For the third consecutive week, the Pitt football program is being projected to play in a major college bowl game.

As he does every Monday during the college football season, Action Network’s Brett McMurphy releases his updated bowl projections based off the current standings along with future projections.

Once again, McMurphy forecasts the No. 19 ranked Pitt Panthers playing in a January bowl game.

McMurphy has Pitt football (6-0) pegged to play in the Gator Bowl against the No. 21 Missouri (6-1) from the SEC. In previous weeks, McMurphy had Pitt taking on Oklahoma and most recently LSU. The TaxSlayer Gator Bowl is played on January 2nd in Jacksonville, Florida.

Considering where Pitt football was one year ago, this would be a major accomplishment for Pat Narduzzi’s program.

Prior to playing in the Peach Bowl in 2021, the last major bowl game that Pitt participated in was the Fiesta Bowl in 2004, when they took on Urban Meyer and Utah. If you want to go back even further, before the Fiesta Bowl in 2004, you’d have to go all the way back to Foge Fazio and the Fiesta Bowl in 1983.

So, it goes without saying, this would be a big step for Pitt football.

In order for this to happen, you’d have to think that Pitt would have to pick up 3 to 4 more wins and looking at the upcoming schedule, that won’t be easy.

The last six games on Pitt’s schedule are: Syracuse, at SMU, vs. Virginia, vs. Clemson, at Louisville and at Boston College. The combined records of those 6 teams are 29-12.