I mean, take your pick or choose your own pair of opposites. But beware. Madness may be your end result if you try to figure it all out.

Pitt sits at 4-2 after the first week in October. Fully in the mix to win the ACC Coastal. Probably a top 28-35 team in the country. A potential top-25 team by the end of October.

Or they could end up in the lower half of the ACC Coastal. Trying to finish the season at 6-6 and some crappy bowl.

I know what I think Pitt should be. I know that I have no idea if that reality will occur.

I want to love this team. This insanely weird and often fun team. But they make it so hard for large stretches.

Last night in Durham, it was all on display. A nasty, aggressive defense that makes plays and is not simply “bend but don’t break.” An offensive that tantalizingly shows the potential to make the big plays and have long drives. Special teams that can change things.

And then the other side of the coin. The defense befuddled and quickly on its heels and confused when the other team changes tactics. Giving up the big play. Going for the hits rather then simply tackling. (No, I’m not talking about that hit. I’ll get to that.) The offense dropping to non-existent with bad playcalling and worse execution. And special teams that put the team in a hole.

In the last prior three weeks before last night I had watched Pitt from my couch, the pressbox and the stands. I had noticed my own pattern of behavior very influenced by the location.

The pressbox is where most of the people are trying to do their job and I happen to agree with the notion that it should be somewhere that allows for that. No shouting. No high fives. When big plays happen you get the collective “Ohhh” or gasps. Some reactions, but not really cheering (mostly). Heck, there’s a lot of collective muttering when a coach of either team makes a particularly dumb decision. In the pressbox, I was controlled, mostly clinical, and at least outwardly calm — though, I couldn’t stop both arms from shooting upwards in celebration on the conversion of the Pitt Special. The pressbox (at least in Heinz Field) is conducive to producing a certain detachment that helps in watching the game in a more macro sense.

On the couch it was a bit less restrained. Not full emotional rants — even if it was while watching Pitt-Penn State. Sure, I’d get up and pace nervously a bit. And, oh yes, there were emotional outbursts at big spots. Still, I’m on a comfortable couch. Preferred beverages readily available. And my family about — even if they want to avoid whatever room I’m in at that moment.

Last week was being back in the stands. As an aside, my kids still want to go to at least one game with me, and I take them separately as it is far easier for me and they each feel like it is their special day. But, boy howdy, do I get quite a bit more emotional and reactive sitting there in the open for the games. Living and dying on every play. Whipsawing the emotions. Ready to deify players, crucify coaches. And vice-versa. Sometimes on the same play.

The point is, I start to think I have a handle on how I’m going to be for the games depending on the location. And they you get a game like Pitt-Duke.

Please, please, please Coastal Division, never change.

What would we do without your rampant mediocrity, your bizarre circumstances, your routine bending of the rules of football time and space?

Only in the ACC’s Coastal could a game with seven personal fouls and 10 turnovers and an ejection pivot on a do-over, a completed play replayed, just like kids in the street when a car comes through, but without the cries of “game off” and “game on.” And naturally, with the opposite result.

That Duke still managed to come back to take the lead in the final two minutes Friday despite seeing a late tie turn into a deficit when two points were wiped off the board was entirely in keeping with a game that was out of kilter from the start. That Pittsburgh then answered with 38 seconds left for a 33-30 win was pure, unadulterated Coastal.

That capsulized summary doesn’t begin to capture the insanity of last night.

Hell, what follows won’t even do it justice.

Pitt’s defense came out roaring. They were everything that Head Coach Pat Narduzzi has wanted them to be and has been building since he started. They were ferocious. Intimidating. Fearless. Attacking.

After the way Duke destroyed VT on a Friday night game at Lane Stadium, Duke and Coach David Cutcliffe were getting some respect and attention. Cutcliffe was having a well-earned reputation as a fine coach further burnished by getting QB Quentin Harris to look like a dual-threat revelation.

Pitt’s defense was having none of that. They didn’t sack the unsackabble Harris in the first half, but they were beating the snot out of him. They got him to fumble and throw picks. By the end of the half, he was looking as skittish and unsure like any Rutgers QB after a season of beatings.

The offense was… not great. Not horrid, but like a car that has a bad tendency to stall out sporadically. A glitch that your mechanic can’t trace or explain. Or if he does figure it out. The cost of the repair compared to the value of the car has you deciding it is not that bad a problem.

Still, the offense seemed to slowly be coming together as the first half progressed. The offense was still down the top-two running backs. Pickett had missed the last game due to shoulder issues, and was getting back up to speed. You could kind of justify/rationalize it.

And the the third quarter looked to be more of the same after Harris fumbled again and Pitt scored another TD to be up 26-3 early in the quarter. The defense continued to make life miserable for Duke. Pitt’s offense, though, was stalling out as Pitt wanted to start bleeding some clock (conservative, questionable and highly predictable). The lack of a running game, making that plan unworkable.

And that’s when it all started going to hell. Less then four-and-half minutes left in the quarter, Duke punts and waiting to receive is Paris Ford? Ford had been having his giant-break-out game. He’s been great the whole season, really, but this was his game to shine. Two interceptions including one he took to the house. And he was subbed in cold to field the punt rather then Ffrench — who had some struggles in the offense to start the game — but roared back along with a 50-yard punt return at the end of the first half. It was questionable from the start and downright disastrous when Ford fumbled the punt at the 4.

Even Duke could score from there. Perhaps there was life? Perhaps a fluke.

But the self-destruction was just getting started. Pitt immediately comes out throwing, and on a solid catch and run by Dontavius Butler-Jenkins, fumbles the ball on a strip-tackle. Duke goes pure option and runs it right down Pitt’s throat for 43 yards. All on the ground. Helped along by two personal foul penalties.

Suddenly it is 26-18, and there is still 13 minutes left in the game. Notice that I haven’t mentioned penalties and officiating yet? That’s a whole separate area, and if I start on that in this recap — well, it’s a rabbit hole.

Pitt’s offense implodes again as Pickett throws his second interception of the game. Once more, Duke goes option — successfully mixing in passes this time — with a short field and scores once more.

The two-point conversion that failed. Look, I’ll keep it simple the refs screwed that up so bad, that both sides felt jobbed.

Four years after Miami was gifted a game-winning touchdown return under Wallace Wade’s lights by gross officiating incompetence, Duke had a successful two-point conversion that appeared to tie the score in the fourth quarter thrown down the memory hole. Line judge Peter Beratta ran in, waving his arms to indicate an unsuccessful conversion, while Duke quarterback Quentin Harris was still fighting to get across the goal line. Then linemen Jack Wohlabaugh and Rakavius Chambers pushed Harris across and Beratta quickly thrust his arms in the air.

The teams were already lined up for the kickoff after a TV timeout when referee Tra Blake, grimly, made the unfortunate announcement that due to an “inadvertent signal” the conversion had to be replayed. The scoreboard was adjusted from 26-26 to 26-24, and on the re-try of the try, Harris was stopped.

Wow. I mean, to everyone watching. Including the announcing crew, it sure looked like Harris’ forward progress was stopped. But there was no actual whistle. It was one of those plays where they screwed it up twice, but got the right result. Pitt was clinging on to a slim lead, but no Pitt fan was believing at that point.

Not with 9+ minutes left. Not with the collapse that had occurred in less then ten minutes of game action.

And yet… Pitt wasn’t doing anything on offense, but neither was Duke after that. Punts were exchanged and the game was under 4 minutes. It looked like Duke was going to stall out until Paris Ford got tagged with a targeting call. He was ejected and the penalty gave Duke the first down and scored the go-ahead TD with 1:29 left. That they failed on the 2-point conversion was more of a grim taunt — it didn’t mean a thing. 30-26

Pitt’s dead and buried offense would still need to score a touchdown to win regardless. And then a funny thing happened.

Pitt found it’s groove one last time.

With Duke doing everything to keep the ball from Mack and Ffrench (and yes, French stepping out of bounds for no reason on that pass — despite the loud cries to the contrary picked up by the mics by Narduzzi). Pickett found, well, everyone. He got the ball to Mack. French. He hit Aaron Mathews. He found Shocky Jacques-Louis. Then he got it to V’Lique Carter about 5 yards past the 1st down marker in the open field. Carter put a devastating spin move on the Duke defender who is still on the field looking for his jock and went cleanly into the endzone for the touchdown.

Pitt snatched the game back 33-30.

But there were still 38 seconds and Pitt’s defense would still have to finish it. And after everything else that had happened. I had legit fears that Pitt had, well, scored too quickly.

Instead, the defense showed complete rejuvenation. Harris, forced to pass, never had a chance. The coverage was tight and without any fear of him running, Pitt attacked and forced yet another fumble on the sack.

I was so exhausted and awake by the end I sat numbly on the couch and watched the entire second half of Washington-Stanford with slightly glazed eyes.

Okay, now about that officiating.

Woof.

Pitt gets a lot of penalties. They play with a lot of emotion and, yeah, that was on full display before the game even started with both teams in some sort of jawing. Ffrench really got things going with a drive killing unsportsmanlike when Pitt was inside the Duke 15 — after making the play.

You saw a lot of what we had seen through most of the first 5 games. Sloppy and weak line play by the offense — false starts and holding calls galore. The defense hit with personal fouls and pass interferences.

Pitt earned a lot of them. And here’s the thing. As Pitt has this reputation, the officials are going to watch Pitt players more closely as a result.

The problem is, the officials were anticipating calls on Pitt in several instances when none. I’m thinking of a couple of the block in the back calls that clearly weren’t.

It only gets worse when the same was missed or being let go on the other side. Add in missing calls like the obvious facemask when Pickett slid in the first half on a run. To Pickett getting his head slammed to the turf on an obvious roughing the passer call that wasn’t made and it was feeling worse by the moment with the officiating.

Then there was the targeting call on Paris Ford. Unfortunately that was the right call once it was made.

The targeting rule is a very imperfect rule for a good perfect. It takes trying to divine intent out of the equation. It doesn’t simply mean helmet-to-helmet. It is about trying to protect players in defenseless positions from hits that could do some real harm.

Duke’s Scott Bracey absolutely ducked his head down as he was still trying to pull free of the tackle. Paris Ford came in hard, but it was going to be a clean hit to the body with his shoulder before Bracey lowered his head. Instead, Ford hit him in the helmet with his shoulder.

Should the flag have been thrown? I don’t believe it should have been. Especially since Bracey was still trying to keep going as a runner. But once the flag was thrown, there was no choice. The video review had to confirm the call, as it met the elements of the rule.

It’s hard to have just one feeling about this game.

So many problems. So many issues. So much frustration. So much potential. So many possibilities. So close to disaster.

And yet, they showed a resiliency and more force of will then we’ve seen from past Pitt teams. Cautious optimism is my main feeling as Pitt heads into a well-needed — by all of us — bye week.