For Pitt AD Lyke, stability was the key in Narduzzi extension

For Heather Lyke, the offseason coaching carousel didn’t look like an amusement park she wished to join. But that wasn’t the reason the Pitt Athletic Director gave her head football coach an extension this offseason.

Rather, it was about answering a simple question.

“Obviously there’s a lot of volatility and transition in the profession, but it was more about, what’s best for Pitt?” Lyke asked Friday.

The question was only partly rhetorical. Lyke already knew the answer, and that was why she initiated the process of a contract extension four months ago. This week, Lyke and Pat Narduzzi signed a new deal that would keep Narduzzi as Pitt’s head coach through the 2024 season.

“We want great leadership here,” Lyke said at a press conference she held with Narduzzi on Friday to discuss the extension. “We want continuity of great leadership. We want difference-makers here at Pitt.”

It didn’t take long for Lyke, who was hired this year, to recognize that what has held Pitt back in recent years has been instability. Walt Harris coached the Panthers for eight years from 1997-2004 and Dave Wannstedt followed that with a six-year tenure from 2005-10. But since then, Pitt’s football program has been a revolving door, from Mike Haywood’s two weeks to Todd Graham’s one year to Chryst’s three seasons.

Lyke saw that history and then looked next door to Pitt's football facility, where the Pittsburgh Steelers have had three coaches in the last 48 years. By contrast, the Panthers have had 12.

So the goal for any Pitt athletic director - and Lyke is the third person to hold that title in the last four years - was two-pronged:

First, identify the right coach. Then make sure he stayed in place for the long term.

Lyke felt like Narduzzi was the answer to the first part.

“What I knew was, he was a guy that - full of integrity, here coaching for the right reasons and wanting to be here,” she said. “Stability is something that we have never had at Pitt with the right people, so why wouldn’t you consider that? That’s really the thought process I had early on.”

Lyke had several descriptors for Narduzzi in Friday’s press conference. She called him a difference-maker. She said he is a “perfect fit for Pitt.” She said that being genuine is one of Narduzzi’s biggest strengths. And she called Narduzzi her “teammate,” which might be as important as anything to maintaining the stability Lyke is hoping to create at Pitt.

“That’s what it’s all about,” Narduzzi said. “It’s not about the money, the years; it’s about the people you’re working with. So it was easy to make a deal, a long-term deal at Pitt. I couldn’t be more excited.

“There’s just a confidence that you know that you have the right leader and he’s going to build it the right way and you’re doing it together,” Lyke said. “You strategize on things and you plan on things and you build a vision, and we’re going to make it happen.”