Pat Narduzzi Accuses Utah of Flipping Pitt Commit Daidren Zipperer using NIL Promises

Pat Narduzzi believes the Pitt Panthers lost a wide receiver commit because of tampering.

PITTSBURGH -- Pat Narduzzi has not been afraid to go on record and call out coaches and programs he believes are tampering to recruit Pitt Panthers players away from the program. 

He did it last spring when he claimed USC head coach Lincoln Riley used promises of lucrative name, image and likeness deals to convince the Panthers' leading receiver and the reigning Biletnikoff award winner, Jordan Addison to transfer and become a Trojan. Just this week, he alluded to yet more tampering in college football - this time saying star UNC quarterback Drake Maye was promised $5 million to transfer from Carolina. 

Narduzzi claims yet more tampering and pay-for-play deals have hit Pitt where it hurts again during this recruiting cycle. He said during a Signing Day press conference that Utah used NIL in the recruitment of one-time Panthers wide receiver commit Daidren Zipperer, who flipped his verbal pledge to the Utes this past October. 

"Shoot, I’ll just say it," Narduzzi said. "We lost one to Utah that was a good receiver for us and I think [NIL] had something to do with it."

Narduzzi added that he fears coaches and programs are lying about the benefits they'll be able to provide to an athlete during the recruiting process. And because there are no shared records of who is giving what to who and when, there's no way to verify the wild rumors that fly around the sport. 

I don’t know if they’re signing contracts that say don’t say a word because it is hush-hush," Narduzzi said. "You hear rumors and high school coaches will tell you stuff but a lot of its hush-hush and you don’t hear. ... You just don’t know sometimes what to believe. I can tell you this, with all the stuff going on in this recruiting, and it’s sad that we’re in this space even, but there’s no tracking anything out there."

Narduzzi said he has heard directly from the NIL representatives that help broker deals for athletes that coaches are over-promising and under-delivering. He believes that NIL record-keeping would hold everyone accountable and do a better job of preventing the tampering Narduzzi is so afraid of. 

"I think through the years we’re going to find out that kids are being told ‘You’re getting this much’ and they’re not getting it," Narduzzi said. "I’ve been told by enough agents, enough NIL agents, … that what they’re being told is not true and then they get there and they find out, get kind of disappointed."

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