Pat Narduzzi has been Pitt’s coach longer than the other six coaches in the ACC Coastal division have been at their schools combined. A lot of that has to do with the fact that four of the programs have first-year coaches, but it also says a lot about the stability that has been achieved in Pitt’s program.
Narduzzi has built a program that is sustainable and seems to be set up to be a contender in the ACC for a long time. That’s what Heather Lyke envisioned he could do when she gave him an extension in 2017 with very little evidence he deserved one, and it is why she gave him another extension — through 2030 — in March.
Last season all of that faith — much of it blind — in Narduzzi paid off in a big way as the Panthers won the ACC championship and got to a New Year’s Six bowl for the first time. The prevailing sentiment seems to be that the results of last season were largely due to the play of Kenny Pickett and that there will be a drop off this year and beyond.
I don’t think that is the case for a few reasons, but the most important one is that Narduzzi has consistently recruited well from the high school ranks and he has been really good at retaining players for four or five years. In the age of transfers and transfer portal madness, that is saying something, and it also speaks volumes about the stability — and by extension, the sustainability — of the program.
Narduzzi has been a master of using the transfer portal to fill gaps, but for the most part his teams are built on third-, fourth- and fifth-year players whom he recruited out of high school and developed over time. That’s one of his strengths as a coach and why he is likely to have a program that wins eight games or more annually and often reaches the double-digit wins mark.
Yeah, I know, this past season could be a fluke, but I really think if that is how you are viewing it, you are viewing it wrong. It took Narduzzi a few years to get the program stable and built. It took him a few years to establish the depth necessary to survive a season, and despite that he still managed to win at least eight games in five of his eight seasons. And one of those three seasons he didn’t get to eight wins, he won seven and the team’s first Coastal division title.
Narduzzi is 53-37 overall and has only had one losing season, but here is the other number that I think is most relevant: He is 36-22 in ACC games. That means in the games against the teams he has to play the most, he has been extremely successful. That trend will likely continue, as Pitt is one of the most stable programs in the ACC.
The key to sustain it is recruiting, obviously, and again I think Narduzzi’s ability to recruit high school players, develop them, retain them and complement them with key transfers is a formula for long-term success. We saw him add some key transfers — like quarterback Kedon Slovis and receiver Konata Mumpfield — earlier in the spring to help with this season.
And now in June, Narduzzi hammered the 2023 recruiting trail and nearly filled his class. He has 17 commitments for that class and 15 of them came in June during camp season. Most of the players are 3-star athletes (according to the recruiting websites), but those are the kinds of players that have thrived under Narduzzi.
“This was another successful June for Pat Narduzzi,” said Chris Peak from the Rivals site Panther-Lair.com. “Pitt took its recruiting class from two commitments to 17 in the span of roughly four weeks, filling needs at defensive back, linebacker and offensive line while winning recruiting battles against the likes of Virginia Tech, Michigan State, Tennessee, West Virginia and those are the types of programs Pitt needs to beat off the field in order to elevate the program.”
Peak said some of the top players in the class are defensive backs Shadarian Harrison, Brice Pollock and Jesse Anderson from the South; defensive tackle Isaiah Neal, who has a skill set that should fit well in Narduzzi’s defense; and highly coveted offensive lineman Ryan Carretta from Ohio, who picked Pitt over offers from Michigan, Michigan State, Tennessee and others.
To Peak’s point, there was once a day when many of Pitt’s recruits chose the Panthers over schools in the MAC and FCS schools, but that doesn’t seem to be the case any more. Most of the players I looked up had other Power Five offers, and that means the Panthers, whose recruiting class will likely again end up in the top 25, are getting better players.
Recruiting is the lifeblood of any program, and recruiting well is something Narduzzi has been able to do. He has gotten better at it almost every year, as he has grown as a head coach. This tidal wave of recent commitments isn’t a surprise, as it seems to happen every June, but it is a sign that the program is healthier than it has been in decades and likely on track toward long-term success.
Paul Zeise: pzeise@post-gazette.com or Twitter: @paulzeise
First Published: June 28, 2022, 6:12 p.m.
Updated: June 29, 2022, 10:31 a.m.
