Friday Pitt Football QB Notebook: Slovis, Patti Nearing 'Final Exam'

Pat Narduzzi likened this Saturday's scrimmage to a midterm exam for the Pitt Panthers quarterbacks.

PITTSBURGH -- Stakes are rising gradually in the battle to become the next starting quarterback for the Pitt Panthers. Kedon Slovis and Nick Patti are on the doorstep of their position battle's next inflection point - the team's second live scrimmage, this time inside the more distinguished, but still friendly confines of Acrisure Stadium.

This is the second time in as many weeks that the Panthers have scrimmaged and head coach Pat Narduzzi is going to adjust some of the structure and procedure this time around. They’ll take fewer reps with their older players and limit the amount of contact, given that the season opener is less than two weeks away.

"I think there are some guys where we'll say 'You're only getting this amount of reps. We're going to go with [pass skeleton] to start off so we can get our passes done without being physical so we can get our work there, which we didn't do last week. We went right into contact.”

He added later that this will be an important inflection point for his two competing quarterbacks, Nick Patti and Kedon Slovis. Training Camp has already surpassed its halfway point and this is a kind of midterm exam. Every day builds upon one another but scrimmages - the closest thing Pitt

“Tomorrow will be a big day,” Narduzzi said. “It’ll really be our last big scrimmage. … It will be important what they do, how they do it. … It has weight, just like every scrimmage had weight, just every day does. But you measure the gamedays, the scrimmage days more heavily and this one is Acrisure Stadium, so it weighs a little more.”

The depth chart can swing officially with a single day’s work, especially so when it comes during a live scrimmage. A good day on Saturday probably won’t win either Slovis or Patti the job but it will give them a leg up with just a couple of weeks to go. Narduzzi said this week that he will likely make a decision prior to Week 1, meaning that each passing day’s swings on the depth chart are more and more consequential.

“We look and talk personnel daily at 6:45,” Narduzzi said. “The depth chart changes daily.” 

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