Blue tops gold in annual Pitt spring football game, 17-10

In the annual Blue-Gold Pitt football spring game, the Blue team (Team Fitz) topped the Gold (Team Donald) in a 17-10 win.

The Blue win wasn't too surprising given that they had the top three skill players in the game - quarterback Chad Voytik, running back James Conner, and wide receiver Tyler Boyd. Pitt got an early touchdown run from Conner and Voytik tossed a 26-yard strike to Elijah Zeise later in the half. The Gold team's lone touchdown came on a 34-yard pass from Adam Bertke to Zach Challingsworth.

Each side also picked up a field goal and Chris Blewitt's kick came from 55 yards out.

While Boyd had a huge day with six catches and 112 yards, Conner and the rest of the running backs had trouble doing much of anything. No running back averaged even three yards per carry as Qadree Ollison led all backs with 54 yards on 20 carries. The flipside, of course, is that the defenses were solid against the run.

These things have so little meaning in them that it's difficult to take any of the stats seriously. Head coach Pat Narduzzi had the right context afterwards:

"The number one thing is that we came out of this game healthy," Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said. "Tyler Boyd and James Conner came in a little banged up, but got the reps in early. The big thing is, you come in to the spring game with 14 great days and you want to make sure on the 15th day you just come out of there healthy."

Really, this whole thing is about rewarding the kids for their work in the spring and getting some enthusiasm around the program for the fans - not much else.

JD is going to chime in a little later on the atmosphere surrounding the game. One cool thing was that in addition to Larry Fitzgerald and Aaron Donald being there serving as honorary captains, other Pitt alum like Lesean McCoy, Curtis Martin, and Jim Covert were all there as well. I made this point in the past but bringing back more alumni is a great move and something that, really, should have been happening more.

All in all, sounded like a great day. The crowd was still tiny compared to other spring games around the country, but 5,325 fans were announced while the venue seated only 3,500 so it didn't look small compared to the stadium.

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