It's Time to Take a Hard Look at Pat Narduzzi
The Pitt Panthers entered the 2022 college football season in the best shape it’s been in for a lengthy period of time. They won the ACC and played in the Peach Bowl against Michigan State. Kenny Pickett came off a Heisman Finalist season in which he parlayed into being a first-round draft pick and staying in Pittsburgh with the Steelers where he was officially named QB1 on Tuesday.
Kedon Slovis, an oft-injured yet talented quarterback, transferred from USC. Despite losing Jordan Addison, the Panthers entered the season with a young Gavin Bartholomew and way-too-talented-for-Akron transfer Konata Mumpfield. They returned all five starters from their offensive line.
Defensively, they returned a few starters from a unit that finished second in the nation in sacks and featured a few veterans and some young playmakers.
They even spotted a nice little number next to their name signifying that they were the 17th best team in the nation.
To top it all off, they would open the season against West Virginia in the first edition of the Backyard Brawl since 2011. Everything was pointing sky high.
They won that game despite more struggle than anticipated after M.J. Devonshire’s heroic pick-six late in the fourth quarter that gave chills up and down my spine while watching.
Then, in classic Pitt fashion, the Panthers were unable to win their week two matchup, at home nonetheless, against a tough SEC-opponent in Tennessee. While the Volunteers were favored, it wasn’t unreasonable for the Panthers to win. They were able to win in Tennessee last season.
Slovis was injured in the Tennessee game and sat out against Western Michigan before returning against Rhode Island and handily taking care of business.
They rode high into a game against one of the worst teams in the Power-5 in Georgia Tech, a school fresh off the firing of their head coach. Sometimes the power of an interim coach, especially one in their first game, can be too much to overcome.
Again, in classic Pitt fashion, they lost. They’re no longer ranked. The fire around Kedon Slovis potentially being an even more talented quarterback than Kenny Pickett has been doused with water. Any hopes Pitt had of making a run at the College Football Playoffs are dashed. Considering they won the Coastal Division with an overall record of 7-6 back in 2018, anything is possible as far as returning to the ACC Championship game, one the Panthers won last season. It was the first time Clemson didn’t win the conference since 2014.
Yet, here we are. It’s now year eight of the Pat Narduzzi Show at the University of Pittsburgh and I again find myself asking if it’s time to cut the cord with the head coach?
Lazy, lousy timing you might say. And that’s fair. Anytime a head coach loses a game to a team that is clearly inferior to them, everyone calls for heads to roll and Narduzzi’s is the easiest to call for.
Is it really a far fetched idea, though?
Narduzzi started out as a defensive coordinator for the Michigan State Spartans in 2007 and stayed there until 2014. Narduzzi won the Broyles Award in his final season as the DC for Michigan State, the award given to the best defensive coach in the nation.
He brought that pedigree to Pittsburgh which had people thinking that the Panthers would boast some of the best defenses in the country.
Since Narduzzi’s debut season, these are the Panthers’ nationwide finishes in points per game allowed: 59th, 58th, 106th, 65th, 75th, 38th, 37th, and 42nd. Not a singular finish inside the top-25. Ouch.
Where do the Panthers rank this season through five games? They’re currently 70th allowing 25.6 points per game. All of these sub-par results from a defensive-minded head coach and he’s been given a golden pass year-after-year?
In the landscape of college football, how many coaches have been fired for much less?
Ironically, a former Pitt head coach was just fired from his job at Wisconsin in Paul Chryst. Chryst turned in a 67-26 career record for the Badgers. After a .500 career record across three seasons at Pitt, Chryst posted a .720 winning percentage at Wisconsin across the same amount of time that Narduzzi has posted a .589 winning percentage for a record of 56-39.
Another comparable is Bo Pelini, former head coach of Nebraska who spent eight seasons there. He posted a very similar 67-27 record from 2008-2014. Nebraska has seen three head coaches fired and are on their fourth currently with Mickey Joseph all since the firing of Pelini.
Offensively, the Panthers have been through five offensive coordinators in Narduzzi’s eight seasons. Jim Chaney (Georgia) and Matt Canada (LSU) accepted jobs with a higher profile school. Shawn Watson was fired after two years. Mark Whipple left following last season and gave way to Frank Cignetti Jr.
Going through a whole host of coordinators like that isn’t necessarily a good look for a head coach. Maybe he’s hard to work with. Or maybe he churns out good OC’s and sends them off to other schools. At some point, you’d have to think the fault is no longer completely on the coordinators.
It’s crazy to think that a head coach can last eight seasons in the college football landscape with just one conference championship and no significant bowl game wins to his name.
There’s always going to be their win over Clemson and giving them their only loss in 2016. Who can forget the magical season that was in 2021? Of course, they were able to pull off the thrilling victory in the Backyard Brawl this year.
But for every “42-39”, there’s a 1-3 record against Penn State as the head coach of the program and a continual string of shots fired at a school that won three out of four games against him. There’s the 6-17 record against top-25 opponents across eight seasons. Let’s not forget all the loud-mouth statements he’s made over that eight year span that make you look at him and shake your head.
One that sticks out to me the most is when he said that “we’d have kicked Michigan State’s butt” in the Peach Bowl last season had Kenn Pickett decided to play. Then, he continued on with “If that was one of the best Big Ten teams last year then let’s go to the Big Ten and win it every year”.
At some point, enough has to be enough when it comes to Pat Narduzzi and his tenure at Pitt. But in March, the Panthers signed Narduzzi to an extension through 2030. If he were to finish out the length of that contract, he’ll have spent three less seasons in Pittsburgh than Ben Roethlisberger did.
Is that really what yinz want?
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