The ACC Championship Game has a pair of teams that don’t normally make it going head-to-head on Saturday night, as 15th ranked Pitt and 16th ranked Wake Forest will play with a spot in the Fiesta or Peach Bowl on the line. The Panthers got the ball first on the evening, and their Heisman Trophy contender of a quarterback started things off with a bang.
Kenny Pickett, who has been in college for what seems like 30 years, took a snap on a third-and-5 from Pitt’s 42. He dropped back, looked to throw, then tucked it and ran. Fifty-eight yards later, he found himself in the end zone, and let’s see if you can spot the little bit of cheekiness that we got out of Pickett on this one:
Can’t say I’ve seen anything quite like this. Thing of beautypic.twitter.com/OgS5fMqTpX
— Mike Renner (@mikerenner_) December 5, 2021
That’s right, Pickett faked a slide at Wake’s 40 or so, froze a defender, and was able to take off down the sideline for six.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) December 5, 2021
It turns out this is not legal — once a QB starts sliding, defenders have to let them go down or else they’re going to get hit with a flag, so a fake slide puts the defense at a major, major disadvantage.
https://twitter.com/SNFRules/status/1467307885218705410
https://twitter.com/SNFRules/status/1467307887215132673
But hey, the refs didn’t call it, so you might as well take advantage of it. Pickett did, and as a result, Pitt got on the scoreboard early.
