Pitt's rousing rally brings back memories of comebacks for former QB Dave Havern

Dave Havern was enjoying a relaxing afternoon Saturday, listening to the Pitt game on the radio while driving to Erie to celebrate his wife MaryJean’s birthday.

“We listened to it up until about Meadville,” the former Pitt quarterback said. “I thought that I heard the field goal was good, but I wasn’t quite sure.”

Sometime after Ben Sauls’ field goal gave Pitt a 28-27 come-from-behind victory against Cincinnati, Havern’s phone started buzzing with text messages from buddies and former Pitt teammates.

One read, “A very Havern-esque victory.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant until he heard the details — Pitt had rallied from a 21-point deficit in the third quarter to win the game. It was the largest second-half comeback by a Pitt team since Havern led a rally from a 35-10 halftime deficit to beat Navy, 36-35, on Oct. 9, 1971.

Havern, who coaches quarterbacks at Shady Side Academy after 13 years as the school’s head coach, was the quarterback in 1970 when Pitt recovered from a 35-8 halftime deficit to defeat West Virginia, also 36-35.

Havern said memories of the WVU victory are more pleasant than those of the Navy game.

“The Navy game, it was not the thing of beauty that the second half of the West Virginia game was,” said Havern, a redshirt senior in ’71. “It was a horrible game. I tried to get tricky, and I ended up pitching it to a defensive end from Navy. I catch him about the 10, and he runs me over and scored. It was that kind of game.

“It was so bad. It was like Casey Stengel said (when he was manager of the expansion New York Mets), ‘Doesn’t anyone know how to play this game?’ ”

But Havern gets solace from a quote he once heard from a coach: “Winning is like deodorant. You can play bad, but if you win, it doesn’t stink as bad.”

“The relief of winning is more satisfying than the joy of winning,” he said. “The ’71 game, we probably should have won outright without all the dramatics.”

Havern remembers with pride how Pitt converted 18 of 20 third downs to help complete the 1970 comeback and ended up snapping the ball 60 times in the second half.

Havern threw game-winning touchdown passes late in the fourth quarter of both games — to Bill Pilconis in ’70 and Les Block in ’71.

He remembers Block catching the pass after beating the Navy defensive back in the back of the end zone.

“I could just throw it up, and he would catch it,” said Havern, who was slightly shaken up on the play. “God bless the Navy guy. He was probably going to Vietnam right after that.”

In both years, Pitt coach Carl DePasqua opted to kick the extra point, instead of going for the 2-point conversion to give Pitt a 38-35 lead. The kicker missed both times. There was still time on the clock, but because Pitt won, DePasqua’s decision was barely questioned in the newspapers the next day. Bill Hillgrove, radio color analyst at the time to play-by-play man Ed Conway, did mention it, however, during the 1970 broadcast.

A year later, Havern and offensive lineman Bob Kuziel were at the bottom of a pile after the game-winning touchdown when Kuziel looked at him and said, “I bet he kicks it.”

Havern said he doesn’t remember details of the team’s postgame celebration, other than there definitely was one.

“It was Oakland in the ’70s. Obviously, we celebrated,” he said.

Havern was pleased that Pitt won Saturday even while part of him secretly enjoys knowing both comebacks emerged from a larger deficit.

“I’m glad we won in ’71, and I’m glad the kid (quarterback Eli Holstein) won (Saturday). It only took 53 more years to do that.”