University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Fifty Years Later, the 1976 Panthers Still Chase the Play
10/9/2026 9:45:00 AM | Football
Jackie Sherrill was thrown out of a high school once.
He had come to recruit a skinny running back, and the school had turned a closet into a meeting room for visiting coaches.
He was waiting his turn when someone barged in.
"I sat down at the desk, and the door flew open, and all of a sudden here's a guy," Sherrill remembers. "He said, 'Who are you?' I said, 'Jackie Sherrill.' He said, 'Where are you from?' I said, 'Pittsburgh.' He said, 'Get out.' He kicked me out of the high school. That was the principal."
The previous Pitt staff had told the school the kid was too small for college football. Sherrill kept coming back anyway, day after day, until he'd befriended the principal. Then he went to work on the kid himself.
The kid was Tony Dorsett.
"Tony only weighed 140 pounds in high school, but speed makes you a lot bigger than what you are," Sherrill says.
Even Sherrill's own staff needed convincing.
He showed film to defensive coordinator Bobby Roper, who watched four or five plays, shut it off and cussed him out, sure he was being set up. Running backs coach Harry Jones got the same treatment at a basketball game, where Dorsett had just dunked with both hands.
The last hurdle was Penn State, Dorsett's final visit, which sent Pitt scrambling to keep him. It helped that his close friend Ed Wilamowski had committed to Pitt that morning. Dorsett followed that afternoon.
Pitt got more than lucky. It got a Heisman Trophy winner, a 1,948-yard senior season and, in 1976, a national championship.
A Program Rebuilt
The number on the ring means more when you know where the program started.
Pitt went 1-10 the year before Johnny Majors arrived. Al Romano, a defensive lineman from Syracuse, New York, toured a handful of schools and walked away uneasy at most of them. Pitt's facilities were a mess, but something felt different.
"We came in and the ceiling's leaking, the lockers are rusted, the training room was unsanitary. It was just awful," Romano says. "But I believed everything Johnny and Jackie told me. And when we came back from training camp, it was done. It was gorgeous."
Sherrill, who ran the defense under Majors, says the staff understood how deep the hole was.
"When you lose like Pitt did the previous three years, you lose everything. You lose your fan interest. You lose the interest of the television people. You had to climb so much," Sherrill says. "But Coach Majors was such a great salesman. He sold the administration at Pitt that Pitt could win."
The foundation was the 1973 recruiting class, which stayed together for four years and carried Pitt to the title.
The Pack
Pitt opened 1976 as a top-10 team with a road trip to Notre Dame. Dorsett took his first carry 61 yards. The Panthers won 31-10.
Jeff Matthews, then on the scout squad, says the win changed how the team saw itself. Randy Holloway, the defensive end, called it one of the best games of his career, with a pile of sacks and tackles.
The defense behind that win was built on a simple rule.
Nobody stops running to the ball until Sherrill's whistle blows, and he wouldn't blow it until the last man arrived. He once taped fly swatters to his defensive backs' socks, and every time the receiver they were covering caught a pass in practice, the whole secondary had to run over and swat him.
"Everybody's running to the football. Just because somebody's making a tackle, you don't stop," Sherrill says. "You ran until you heard my whistle, and I wouldn't blow the whistle until the last player got there. The players didn't like some of the things we did, but it ended up being good for them."
Holloway still describes the unit that way, and he says fear of letting down teammates kept it sharp.
"We were like a pack of starved dogs. The play was never over. You had to get to the quarterback. You had to get to the ball. We chased the ball," Holloway says. "I was afraid to fail, which is hard to believe. No matter what was going on, I had to hold up my end of the bargain of playing with these guys."
Romano's most vivid memory came against Syracuse, his hometown team, about 12 miles from where he grew up. Pitt was undefeated and clinging to a seven-point lead when the Orange faced a fourth-and-short deep in Panthers territory. Romano shifted the formation at the last second, pulling the team's heaviest lineman over the center and waving a linebacker into the gap.
"I motioned to our linebacker, 'Get over here!' And boom, it was snapped, and they didn't make that fourth down," Romano says.
He remembers it so clearly because he was terrified. A large section of his family was in the stands, and afterward his father walked unannounced into the locker room with Romano's brothers.
"Here we are undefeated, and we're going to get beat by Syracuse? Really?"
Number One
Pitt beat Army the same day then-ranked No. 1 Michigan lost. The Panthers learned they were No. 1 over the stadium speakers.
"I can remember it like it was yesterday. The announcer said it over the stadium, and the stadium went absolutely nuts," Matthews says. "I don't even think we went back to our dorms. We went to Peter's Pub and whatever establishments were down there. It was a huge celebration that lasted a couple of days, until you go in Monday, and the coaches get you refocused."
Refocused meant Penn State, the regular-season finale at Three Rivers Stadium and the game the team never talked about but never forgot.
Pitt won, finished undefeated and then faced a decision. Players dreamed of the Orange Bowl and a trip to Florida, but Majors told the captains that the only way to stay No. 1 was to play the best team available. That was Georgia, in the Sugar Bowl.
New Orleans was part training camp, part carnival. Pitt spent a week in Biloxi, Mississippi, with no curfew, then moved on to New Orleans, still with no curfew.
"Even before the game, we had a Sugar Bowl dinner where both teams were there, and the guest speaker was Bear Bryant. Back then, he was this mythical guy. I couldn't understand a word he was saying. He was growling," Matthews says. "Then we go to New Orleans, no curfew. I'm 17, 18 years old, and the streets of New Orleans are open to us."
The game was no contest.
Pitt beat Georgia 27-3, and Matt Cavanaugh was named the game's most valuable player. Sherrill says Cavanaugh never got the credit he deserved, and the same goes for defenders like Romano.
By the third quarter, Matthews says, Pitt's defense was dominating and the offense was scoring, and the team could finally relax. It was a team, Sherrill adds, that blended Pittsburgh-area players with players from the South, and that blend made the championship.
Fifty Years
The best part, Matthews says, was the trip back to Pittsburgh. Fans had been waiting to celebrate, and the party lasted months.
Holloway remembers the final whistle differently than you'd expect.
"It wasn't relief. It was a lot of fun. I remember walking off the field and seeing some of my family, some friends, some alumni. People were crying and happy, hugging. It was surreal," Holloway says. "I was hoping there was another team we could play. I said, we could do this the rest of my days, because we're going to beat everybody. I don't care who it is."
Dorsett was a big part of why Holloway was there at all.
The linebacker from western Pennsylvania had spent his high school years chasing Dorsett, and he decided to join him rather than keep losing to him.
Five decades later, Sherrill still puts Dorsett's four years against Notre Dame in a category of their own.
Matthews keeps his ring in a small safe next to his bed. The score, 27-3, is on the side, with his name.
On Saturday, the 1976 Panthers return to Acrisure Stadium as the 50th anniversary of that title is celebrated before Pitt hosts North Carolina at noon.
Some teammates won't be there. Holloway, inducted into the Pitt Athletics Hall of Fame this fall, says that makes it matter more.
"It's honor beyond honor. I just wish everybody was alive. There's a few guys that are gone. After 50 years, someone's going to be gone, but they'll be remembered. That's for sure."
Hear Al Romano, Jeff Matthews and Coach Jackie Sherrill tell the full story of the 1976 national champions on the latest episode of Beyond the Script, available wherever you get your podcasts.
