The Pitt Panthers’ College Football Playoff chances took a big hit with their loss to North Carolina on Oct. 10. The loss of quarterback Mason Heintschel proved too much to overcome as backup Holden Geriner struggled in the 21-17 defeat.
Now, at midseason, coach Pat Narduzzi’s 5-1 team is looking to avoid the type of losing spiral that has frequently scuttled their seasons in the years since their 2021 ACC championship.
Doing so will likely require figuring out the path forward at quarterback without Heintschel, the star sophomore who'd passed for 1,304 yards and 14 touchdowns against just one interception in the first five games of 2026.
Who is Holden Geriner?
Geriner completed 27 of 44 passes for
219 yards and two interceptions with no touchdowns in his place against the Tar Heels. Narduzzi said Monday that the plan is for him to remain the starter this week.
“We’ve got a ton of confidence in Holden,” he told reporters at his weekly news conference. “The guy was 71% completion rate in the first half. Didn’t play a good second half. Put that on the coaches a little bit as far as what we did, how we did it.”
The fifth-year player has experience on his side from stops at Auburn and Texas State before arriving at Pitt for 2026 to back up Heintschel.
Holden Geriner backup
Should Geriner continue to struggle, however, freshman Corey Dailey could also get a look. The Seguin, Texas product was rated a four-star recruit coming out of high school, and many fans would be eager to get a look at him with Heintschel down for an extended time period.
“He’s a puppy for sure,” Narduzzi said. “He’s young. He’s still green. But so was Mason a year ago. I’ve got a ton of confidence in Corey Dailey.”
That confidence may be required to avoid repeating what’s happened over Pitt’s past three campaigns.
Pitt Panthers recent struggles
The 2023 season was flat out bad. Pitt suffered two different four-game losing streaks en route to a frustrating 3-9 finish.
The 2024 season started with a lot more promise. The Panthers raced out to a 7-0 start and had designs on making the field for the first ever 12-team playoff – or, at least, a major bowl game.
Instead, they took their first loss in early November against SMU, and never bounced back. They dropped five consecutive games – only one to a ranked opponent – to finish 7-6 with a loss to Toledo from the Mid-American Conference at the GameAbove Sports Bowl in Detroit.
Then, a year ago, Pitt was 7-2 when Notre Dame came to town in mid-November, bringing the national spotlight of a "College GameDay" visit with it. The crowd at Acrisure Stadium was one of the biggest in recent years, drawing 68,400 fans, over 15,000 more than 2025's second-highest home attendance. Chances at an at-large berth to the playoff were bleak, but a path existed for Heintschel to lead the team to the ACC championship and win its way into the mix.
The Fighting Irish went on to hammer Narduzzi’s team. So did eventual national runner-up Miami in the season finale. An ignominious loss to East Carolina of the American Athletic Conference followed in the Military Bowl for another thud ending to a season.
That’s the history the Panthers would like to overcome, and there are reasons to think they still could.
Pitt football 2026 outlook
One reason for optimism: The remaining schedule does not present as exceptionally difficult. The Hurricanes are the only ranked team on the slate. The other five opponents – Boston College, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Louisville and Cal – are all .500 or worse.
The Panthers also have the bones of a fairly dynamic passing game if offensive coordinator Kade Bell can create a reasonable facsimile of what it was with Heintschel under center. Pitt enters the week ranked No. 16 nationally in passing yards per game at 299.8.
Then there’s the defense that stacks up fairly well statistically. The Panthers are 15th in the country in scoring defense, allowing just 14.7 points per game. Their only real off day came in the 35-33 win against Virginia Tech on Oct. 2.
The skeptics might point to the schedule Pitt has played and question the heft of that data. ESPN ranks the strength of record and No. 34, behind five other ACC teams.
With the schedule such as it is, however, the theoretical path to double-digit wins remains, and whether that would be enough for a CFP berth is somewhat beside the point for the moment. The only guarantee is to win the conference.
As a program, the first big step is to avoid letting one loss turn into two, three or more and take a step back toward ACC contention late into November.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mason Heintschel injury has created QB question Pitt's Pat Narduzzi must answer
