Pitt HC Pat Narduzzi Displeased With Officials in Wake Forest Game

Pitt Panthers head coach Pat Narduzzi was not pleased with the officials from the Wake Forest game.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers were flagged 13 times (their most in a game this season) for 101 yards against Wake Forest, a major reason why they let what seemed like a sure win slip through their fingers late in the fourth quarter. 

But Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi believes his team, the most penalized in the ACC, has simply come up on the other side of some bad whistles. He wasn't happy with many of the calls in his latest game and made sure the league office knew about it.

“Well, sometimes you feel hated on," Narduzzi said. "I don't share this with you. I don’t share these with you weekly about what goes into the ACC office. I’m not going to get into it, I’m not going to talk about what comes back but sometimes you feel like you’re - it just needs to be called both ways and sometimes you feel like it’s not as a coach.”

Narduzzi and the Pitt coaching staff send certain plays into the ACC offices weekly that they believed were not good calls but this week, he chose to voice his displeasure publicly as well. And he got specific too, evaluating many of the flags his team incurred individually. 

He took particular issue with one of the two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties levied against safety Donovan McMillon, which came at a crucial point late in the fourth quarter. McMillon was hit with his first for pulling a Wake Forest defender away from M.J. Devonshire, who had just come up with what looked like would be a game-sealing interception and the second when he pushed another opponent. 

"He was pulling the guy off the pile," Narduzzi said. "It was a penalty what he did. I don't know if the second one was real. It looked like, you know, someone threw a shoulder into him but I'm not the official. Players play, coaches coach and officials officiate."

McMillon was extremely apologetic to his coaches and emotional after the game, according to said.

Narduzzi added that he disagreed with the three defensive holding calls his secondary racked up. 

"I mean, you go back and watch A.J. Woods, he's on there, it's a tiny little tug, and the guy is jamming, and supposedly when you lock your arm out, it's supposed to be called as offensive pass interference," Narduzzi said. "But it doesn’t get called. When someone is pushing me off, I'm holding on for dear life, too."

Narduzzi also believed there were some missed calls that went in the Demon Deacon's favor as well. He thought there should have been a disconcerting signals penalty called on one of the opposing linebackers for clapping while Pitt was punting to try and throw off the snap count. 

Narduzzi is always one to make his voice heard when he disagrees with a call - on the field and in postgame press conferences. This week, even after a couple of nights to sleep the loss off and review the plays in question on film, Narduzzi still wanted to make his case that some of these calls should have swung the other way. 

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