Pat Narduzzi Wants Pitt to Target Gavin Bartholomew More

The Pitt Panthers are focused on getting their star tight end more involved.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers offense left Notre Dame having accomplished an impressive feat - not getting the ball to tight end Gavin Bartholomew at all. In fact, they didn't even look his way once. Bartholomew finished the game with zero targets, something that hasn't happened since Week 2 of his freshman season.   

This season, Bartholomew has just 17 receptions but ranks 26th in all of college football in yards per reception, a mark that puts him ahead of some potential All-American pass catchers like LSU's Malik Nabers, Washington's Rome Odunze and Texas A&M's Anias Smith. Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said the offense can't afford to keep him so limited moving forward. 

"As a head coach, I'd like to see Gavin obviously get more targets and play more plays," Narduzzi said. "I think we've got to keep him on the field."

The play count that Narduzzi referenced was stunningly low for a player of Bartholomew's caliber. Of the 51 plays Pitt ran against the Irish - 32 of which were passes - Bartholomew was on the field for just 27 of them. 

Narduzzi said the offense tries to keep their tight ends fresh and the fact that they didn't want to run as many two-tight end sets against Notre Dame as they normally do contributed to Bartholomew's relatively limited involvement. 

Starting quarterback Christian Veilleux said there are a variety of factors that lead to Bartholomew not getting the ball, but took responsibility as well, saying he just plain missed his big tight end on a couple of instances. 

"There were a couple plays where I feel like when I look back at the film, I'll say 'Hey, I could have gone off the first progression and looked at the tight end there,' stuff like that," Veilleux said. "Gavin's a great player. We got to utilize him."

Narduzzi said he talked over the phone with Bartholomew at the beginning of this week to say that he wanted to get the Panthers' top tight end more involved. 

"I actually had a conversation with Gavin this morning. I called him," Narduzzi said. "I asked him, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ No doubt about it, like, you only had 27 [plays]. How are you doing? I wasn't happy with it when I saw the play count."

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