New Hampshire head coach Sean McDonnell watches his team play against Pittsburgh last Saturday. (AP photo)

DURHAM– File that one.

As University of New Hampshire coach Sean McDonnell suspected and predicted at midweek, his club ran into a very talented team that was in a foul mood on Saturday at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh.

The outcome was not pretty. The Wildcats got off to a rough start and when it was over had dropped a 77-7 decision to slinging Kenny Pickett and the University of Pittsburgh, a team out of the Atlantic Coast Conference that has designs on a big season.

McDonnell’s group has little time to lick its wounds and regroup.

James Madison, one of the very best teams in the country at the FCS level, comes to Durham for UNH’s Homecoming, at Wildcat Stadium on Saturday (3:30 p.m., NBC Sports Boston).

The No. 21 Wildcats dropped their first game of the season at Pittsburgh and fell to 3-1. They are 2-0 in the Colonial Athletic Association and league rival JMU is 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the league.

Pittsburgh, an FBS school, improved to 3-1. The Panthers, after going on the road to knock off Tennessee in their second game, had been upset at home by Western Michigan last week.

McDonnell’s message in the postgame locker room at Heinz Field: “Short term memory. Short term memory. Learn from this. Get rid of it. Go on to the next one. Can’t linger on it. Take a look at the tape and see where our guys are and what we’ve got to do.”

The Panthers were as good and as fast as McDonnell feared they would be and jumped on the Wildcats early.

Pickett, certainly a candidate to be playing on Sundays down the road, was extremely accurate and passed for five touchdowns and ran for another. Three of the scoring passes went to sophomore speedster Jordan Addison.

The Panthers had burners all over the field and were disruptive on defense, starting with a safety on UNH’s first possession and following up with an interception return for a touchdown on the second.

“It was a rough one,” said junior running back Carlos Washington Jr., who had 91 rushing yards on nine carries for the Wildcats. “Definitely one to learn from. Not many good takeaways from it. So just have a 24-hour rule and forget about it and get prepared for another tough opponent next week.”

Washington broke a nifty 70-yard run to set up UNH’s only score of the game, a Bret Edwards to Sean Coyne 4-yard pass to open the second quarter.

“Carlos is a heckuva competitor,” McDonnell said. “He played at the speed they played at today. Two things have led to the way he’s played. He’s playing and practicing very well at that speed. And he wants to prove to some people what a good football player he is. He’s showing up every Saturday doing that.”

Now comes James Madison. The Dukes are ranked No. 3 in the country and will come in off a 37-24 win at No. 9 Weber State on Sept. 18. They had this weekend off.

“They had a bye this week and they’re probably going to have some funky stuff for us,” Washington said. “We’ve just got to be dialed in and play our game.”

James Madison is among the elite in the country – McDonnell called the Dukes either the best or second-best team in all of the FCS.

Three times in the last five years the Dukes have played in the FCS national championship game. They won it in 2016 – to match their first in 2004 – and were runnerup to North Dakota State in 2017 and 2019.

Last spring, James Madison’s only loss was to Sam Houston State, 38-35, in the FCS semifinals. Sam Houston won the national title in its next game.

The Wildcats and Dukes have split their last two matchups.

UNH lost 54-16 at JMU in 2019.

In 2018, the Dukes came into Wildcat Stadium as the No. 3 team in the country with a 6-1 record. UNH was struggling at 2-5. The Wildcats forced six turnovers and returned two of them for touchdowns – one a 75-yard interception return by current grad student safety Evan Horn – and won 35-24.

The Wildcats gave Pittsburgh its due. And vowed to turn the page.

“They played real well,” said defensive tackle and senior captain Elijah Lewis, who had one of two UNH sacks in the game. “There’s a lot of things we have to fix. This is just a lesson for us. We’re going to come back next week stronger and harder. We’ve got to watch film on JMU and when we go to practice, we’ve got to practice with a purpose.”

PARKING FOR SATURDAY

A limited number of parking passes for the Lot A tailgating area on Saturday are on sale now; all parking passes must be pre-purchased, as there will be no parking passes sold on game day.

The Boulder Field tailgating lot is sold out. For all Homecoming tailgating policies and the traffic flow map, visit the Homecoming Central page.

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