University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Damon Ferguson Arrived Late. He Didn't Play Like It.
9/16/2026 2:55:00 PM | Football
Rain hammered Pitt's turf for most of Saturday night, turning what was supposed to be a balanced offensive attack into a straightforward math problem: run the ball or lose it.
The answer to that problem, for long stretches, was a freshman who hadn't even been on campus five months earlier.
Damon Ferguson Jr. finished with 59 rushing yards and a touchdown, becoming the only Pitt player with a score in each of the team's first two games. He did it filling in for returning starter Ja'Kyrian Turner, and he did it as a running back who arrived in June, well behind a recruiting cycle that now sends most freshmen to campus in January.
For a position built on timing and instinct, that gap should have mattered. Instead, Ferguson looked like he'd been there all along.
The late start wasn't lost on him. Most of his classmates had a full spring of install under their belts before he ever set foot in a meeting room, and the difference showed up fast once he got there.
"I kind of felt like I was playing catch up, but not really," Ferguson said. "Some of the guys there, they've been there since December and January, so they had a little bit more knowledge on what to do. When I saw that I wasn't really understanding the plays, it was kind of hurting me inside."
That discomfort pushed him toward the room rather than away from it. He said he leaned on Turner specifically, spending time with him three days a week to pick apart the offense, a back who had walked the same road a year earlier behind Desmond Reid.
The rest of the running backs group stayed late with him too, running through installs after practice until the terminology stopped feeling foreign.
By the second or third week of fall camp, the gap had closed. Snippets of OTAs he'd caught before officially enrolling started coming back to him, and calls that once felt unfamiliar clicked into place.
Offensive coordinator Kade Bell noticed the shift wasn't just mental. Coming in that late means learning install without pads, and without pads, most players hesitate the first time real contact shows up.
"There are some guys that when there's two or three people there when you're making a cut they slow down without pads on, and there are some kids that just don't slow down," Bell said. "From the first day we put pads on, Ferg is that kid. He's not afraid. It's not too big for him. He plays like he's supposed to play at running back."
Ferguson never framed any of it as a bid for playing time. Heading into the fall, he said he wasn't thinking about a role at all, only about finding any way onto the field, special teams included.
That kind of patience is easy to say and harder to actually live with, especially for a player with his speed and burst sitting behind a crowded backfield. But it meant that when the assignment did come, it came without hesitation.
He didn't get an extended heads-up before Saturday's game that he'd be handling the load. He got his name called, and the rest sorted itself out from there.
"To be honest, I don't know what went through my head. I just know coach called my name and I was like, here's my chance," Ferguson said.
What followed was four quarters of a true freshman running downhill through a monsoon, absorbing contact from a physical Big 12 front and still finding room.
His teammates in the running back room said they weren't surprised, framing it less as a breakout and more as the payoff for the work he'd already put in behind the scenes.
Head coach Pat Narduzzi came away impressed too, even while acknowledging the rough edges that come standard with a first-year back getting that much work.
"I'm sure he made some mistakes, bounced some runs when he shouldn't, freshman mistakes," Narduzzi said. "But I thought he did a nice job. That one run, that's a big-time run. Good day by Damon."
The touchdown itself came on a play Ferguson credited almost entirely to the group in front of him. It's become something of a pattern with him. Ask about the line, and he'll talk for a while.
Ask about himself, and the answer gets short.
"It was my O-line," Ferguson said. "Without them guys, without them giving me the extra push I wouldn't have been able to get in there. So I thank my O-line for that one."
That instinct, to point away from himself, may be the clearest window into how he closed the gap in the first place.
He didn't get a head start like most of his classmates. He built one, three days a week in meeting rooms with a starter who'd once been in his shoes, grinding through installs long after practice had ended, until June stopped mattering by the time the lights came on in September.
