At least he didn’t throw another pick-six.
Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord’s hellish night against No. 19 Pittsburgh on Thursday ended in “Play the Benny Hill theme” fashion when the former Ohio State star sacked himself on his final play of the 41-13 loss when he tripped over his own feet for a self-sack.
McCord also threw five interceptions, including three that went for Pittsburgh touchdowns in the first half. The Panthers became the first FBS team to have three defensive scores in a half, per ESPN.
He also somehow rushed nine times for minus-32 yards.
“I’ve never at any level of football got beat like this,” McCord said.
McCord had one of the worst games you’ll ever see from any quarterback at any level Thursday in a prime-time showdown between two teams hoping to make an ACC statement.
The Panthers, now 7-0, certainly sent notice to the world.
And Syracuse, who dropped to 5-2, did for all the wrong reasons.
McCord threw his first pick-six with 12:47 remaining in the first quarter to give Pittsburgh a 7-0 lead when linebacker Rasheem Biles jumped a route and he tossed another a little more than six minutes later to make it a 17-0 game when linebacker Kyle Louis moved in front of the intended target.
The last one happened on a screen pass when the ball bounced off running back LeQuint Allen’s hands right to a defender — with Allen smothered in coverage — and the Panthers grabbed a 31-0 lead.
“This has got to be the best performance all-time on this team,” Louis said, per ESPN. “Somebody’s got to show me something better … We’ve got to get put on a wall or something after that performance.”
McCord remained in the game late even with the outcome all but finalized and that’s when he at least provided some comedic relief.
Facing a third-and-11 at the Panthers’ 15-yard line in a 41-13 game, McCord ran to his right to avoid pressure but wobbled and fell to the ground after attempting to stop and go to his left.
He rolled across his back while Pittsburgh tallied the easiest sack of its season.
To make matters worse for the Orange, they missed the pointless field goal attempt.
“I think it will be good for us to go back and learn from it,” McCord said. “Obviously, this sucks, this is a terrible feeling, but at the same time there’s still a lot of season ahead.”
McCord finished with a staggering 64 pass attempts in the game, completing 35 for 321 yards.
Syracuse coach Fran Brown downplayed his quarterback’s clunker.
“I mean, he just had one bad game,” Brown said. “It’s part of football, it happens. I think you’ll be able to see the kind of fighter he is as he keeps going from here on out.”
While McCord is only in his first year at Syracuse, he preached to his teammates that they can’t let his season snowball like it has in the past for the school.
“There’s no other way around it, they beat us tonight,” McCord said. “What I said to the guys — listen, this sucks. There’s no way around it. I think you have to just take it on the chin, but we can’t do with what Syracuse football has done in the past in the second half of the season and start turning in the wrong direction. I said to the guys, ‘We have way too much talent, we’ve put in way too much work to let that happen and everything we do from this point on has to be to learn from this and grow from it.’”
