The Bearcat's defense was not able to hold on vs a high-powered Pittsburgh offense on Saturday after the Panthers scored 22 unanswered points to silence the Bearcats 28-27.

The Bearcats defense allowed a total of 498 yards of offense on Saturday, in which 330 of those came in the second half after Desmond Reid and Eli Holstein took over. However, the Bearcats held the Panthers just to six points through the first 30 minutes of play, before the Panthers made the right adjustments in the second half in which they averaged nearly eight yards a play down the stretch.

Now the Bearcats just struggled to get to the quarterback for the second straight week, despite having Dontay Corleone back in the fold this week for the first time all season.

Here's the defensive players that stood out for the Bearcats.

Josh Minkins, safety- Minkins came away with his third interception of his career and first with Cincinnati on the Panthers opening drive in the end zone as Holstein didn't read the defense correctly as Minkins was hidden in the back of the end zone and read Holstein like a book to come away with the Bearcats only turnover of the afternoon.

However, Minkins didn't play much in the second half due to an undisclosed injury. Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield didn't give much clarification on the injury but just cited that he wasn't able to finish the game.

Dontay Corleone, defensive tackle- Corleone returned to action for the first time since being diagnosed with blood clots back in June. I think this was a great sight to see not only for Corleone, but Bearcats fans as well. Now, it was awesome to see Corleone get the reception he did when they announced him as a starter prior to kickoff and man did he make a difference in this one.

Corleone played 69% of the defensive snaps in his first game back and was a difference maker to say that. Corleone was looking like his old self prior to the health scare as you could really see the defensive line improve tremendously when Corleone was in the game and really slowed down the high-powered Pittsburgh run offense behind Desmond Reid.

The Cincinnati native finished the game with six tackles, sack and tackle for loss, and if you're Satterfield and Tyson Veidt, you have to be fired up to see those kinds of numbers from Corleone in his first game back this season.

Derrick Canteen and Mekhi Miller, safeties- Canteen and Miller anchored the Bearcats secondary as both had their best games as Bearcats. Canteen finished the game with a team high eight tackles and three pass break ups as the crafty veteran was all over the field for the Bearcats. Now for Miller, he finished with eight tackles as well along with a huge tackle for loss early in the second half.

Worth noting that Miller saw significant time at the STAR position after seeing true freshman Jiquan Sanks get the start at that position over the last two weeks.