Pat Narduzzi, Pitt Football Hope To Summit A Higher Peak in 2022

The head coach of the Pitt Panthers is embracing the challenges that come with success and turnover.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers arrived at ACC Media Days as the reigning champions. They certainly aren't shy about celebrating the record-setting 2021 season in which they won the first outright conference title in program history, but head coach Pat Narduzzi wants his team to turn the page. 

'That was a long time ago,' Narduzzi said in an appearance on the ACC Network Thursday. 'It was great to be on that stage after the game, but we're moving on to the next one.'

There have been a litany of well-documented changes. Starting quarterback Kenny Pickett - a first-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers - and his top target Jordan Addison, are gone. So is offensive coordinator Mark Whipple, but Narduzzi doesn't seem bothered by that. 

The turnover is notable because of the quality of the departures, not the quantity - Pitt returns 74% of its snaps from a year ago - but the Panthers will nevertheless have to adapt. Narduzzi has to walk a fine line between sticking with what got them to the mountaintop while adjusting for different personnel.

'You don't change who you are,' Narduzzi said. 'We're not going to change what we did last year. We're champions so let's do it that way. The blueprint is the blueprint. We're still going to be physical. We're still going to be tough. ... We'll just have some different players playing different positions.'

The Pitt defense will be a typical Narduzzi-led unit that sells out to stop the run and trusts its defensive backs to win on an island. But it is the offense, which drove the Panthers to a league title, that will have to adjust the most. 

'Good football coaches put their players in positions to be successful,' he said. 'So you move and change based on who your people are. ... Last year we had Kenny Pickett who could throw the ball, so why not put the ball in the best players' hands? ... We want to be a little bit more balanced this year. ... But I like touchdowns. I don't really care how we get it done.'

But there is a larger, philosophical challenge to this season for Pitt. Plenty of teams have been able to capture lightning in a bottle, but few can parlay one breakout season into sustained success. It's about more than just stacking good wins and seasons - it's about perception. Narduzzi notices what people outside of the program think of Pitt and it matters to him.

In an appearance on a Twitter live stream with Shults Ford, a car dealership in Pennsylvania, Narduzzi said he thinks the Panthers would have won the 2022 Peach Bowl against Michigan State if Pickett had played or if back-up quarterback Nick Patti didn't injure his shoulder on his second drive. He added that his Panthers could be one of the top teams in the Big 10 if they were in that conference.

Narduzzi elaborated on those comments on Thursday, saying that he wanted to speak more to the strength of his program and the ACC at large instead of taking shots at Michigan State or the Big 10. 

'You know, we play some darn good football in the ACC, and I think people forget about it,' Narduzzi said. 'I've coached in the Big Ten for eight years, so I know it. ... I feel very confident -- and, again, it's not being arrogant. It's just kind of knowing the landscape and knowing what we played against in The Peach Bowl. ... That's just confidence. That's no disrespect to the Big Ten or Michigan State. It's just about Pitt and about the ACC.'

Narduzzi has his eyes on bigger aspirations and says the only way to satisfy his appetite for respect is by summitting an even larger mountain and believes that his team isn't far from that goal.

'We haven't done anything yet,' Narduzzi said. 'We would like to win a national championship. We want to be in the playoffs. We're one game last year away from being that -- in that talk at least in the four-team talk.'

It's a different kind of hurdle to clear - program maintenance instead of program building - but having won is still preferable to chasing victories, according to Narduzzi. 

'That's always a challenge,' he said. 'But I would rather have that challenge than be sitting at the bottom trying to get my way up the ladder.'

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