PITTSBURGH — The two big plays on offense would have been enough for Pitt to shake off the disappointment of last year's season opener. The two big plays on defense gave hope that this season will be much better than the last.

Tyler Palko threw a pair of first-down touchdown passes longer than 70 yards and Pittsburgh got off to the kind of strong start in coach Dave Wannstedt's second season that it wanted in its first, routing Virginia 38-13 Saturday night.

Palko, in his third season at quarterback but teamed with an almost-new cast of receivers, played a near-perfect game except for an interception that was returned 47 yards by Nate Lyles to set up Virginia's only touchdown. Palko finished 17-of-22 for 283 yards with three touchdowns, including a 72-yarder to Oderick Turner and a 78-yarder to Derek Kinder.

The Panthers also returned two interceptions for touchdowns during a game in which they had three scoring plays of 70-plus yards.

"We set some kind of NCAA record with those four one-play touchdowns," Virginia defensive lineman Allen Billyk said.

Palko showed off a deep passing game that Pitt lacked last season while going 5-6. The Panthers started that season in the Top 25, only to be routed at home by Notre Dame 42-21 in their opener en route to an 0-3 start.

"It's like coach Wannstedt said, everybody was tired of talking about last year and how would we respond," Palko said. "Now we don't have to hear about this and that, we can come out and see how good we are."

This debut game was nearly the opposite of last year's, except that Pitt also began it with an opening-drive touchdown, just as it did the Notre Dame loss. Palko found Turner for 20 yards on Pitt's initial third-down play of the season. That led to Palko's 1-yard scoring flip to Darrell Strong on a misdirection play that found Palko and Strong wide open by themselves on the left side of the field.

"Darrell and I ran that in practice, and I think we were the only ones who knew about it," Palko said. "If I had to do it over again, I would run it in. But it worked out."

Palko, who followed up an excellent sophomore season with a good but not great junior year, hit on the first deep throw he attempted, finding Turner open down the middle for a 72-yard touchdown midway through the second quarter to make it 17-3.