Pitt vs. Syracuse Game Time Revealed

PITTSBURGH - There is still a road test against No. 25 Florida State coming up, but the ACC has announced when the Pitt Panthers will square off against Syracuse.

The conference announced today that Pitt and Syracuse will kick off at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 18 at JMA Wireless Dome. The game will be broadcast on the ACC Network - with more information to be released next week.

Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi has his team coming off a get-right win against Boston College, which came after he benched incumbent Eli Holstein for true freshman Mason Heintschel.

"Well, we've got an excited locker room in there," Narduzzi said after the win. "I talked to our guys last night about visualizing that we would win this game and talked about the celebration we were going to have after the game. 

"Just proud of our kids bouncing back. It's a good football team in that other locker room over there, and our guys went out and executed like we needed to. It comes down to a game of execution. I thought coaches did a great job. Players did a great job in all three phases."

With Florida State and Syracuse coming up, it will be tougher on the Panthers than it has been to start the season, but it's not as if it's been easy going for the Orange lately.

Syracuse came out of the gates strong this season, knocking off a then-ranked Clemson squad, but since starting quarterback Steve Angeli went down with an ACL tear, it's been back-to-back losses.

The Orange fell to Duke, 38-3, and SMU, 31-18, over the last two weeks - but they'll have a bye week before the Panthers come to town.

Syracuse head coach Fran Brown inserted backup Rickie Collins into the lineup over the last couple of weeks, but the offense has suffered. And the defense has been gashed for 30 points in back-to-back weeks.

Pitt is 44-33-3 all-time against Syracuse, in a series dating back to 1916, and the Panthers are coming off a thoroughly dominant performance last season. Pitt forced 'Cuse quarterback Kyle McCord into five interceptions, on the way to a 41-13 win.