Narduzzi: '10 years would be a dream to be here'
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If Pat Narduzzi stays at Pitt for the full terms of the contract extension he signed this week, he’d still be leading the Panthers in 2024 - which would be his 10th season as Pitt’s head coach.
That would make him just the third coach in Pitt history to reach 10 years and the first since John Michelosen coached the Panthers for 11 seasons from 1955-65.
And that’s exactly what Narduzzi hopes to do.
“10 years would be a dream to be here and I intend to be here for 10 years,” Narduzzi said Friday at a press conference to announce his new contract. “I don’t have the desire to go anywhere else.”
Athletic Director Heather Lyke is hoping that’s true. She started talking to Narduzzi about a new contract before the 2017 season started, and while Pitt went 5-7 this fall, punctuated as it was by an upset win over then-No. 2 Miami, her confidence remained high.
That confidence isn’t just in Narduzzi’s ability to build the program. It’s a confidence in Narduzzi’s sincerity when he says he wants to be at Pitt for a long time.
“I’ll just say that Coach Narduzzi is, obviously, incredibly competent, incredibly genuine; I don’t know that there’s a stronger word to describe him as far as his genuineness,” Lyke said Friday.
Narduzzi - who says with a bit of pride that he doesn’t have an agent, instead relying on an lawyer for such negotiations - believes that it’s in his nature to stay put.
“I’ve not been a guy that looks for jobs. I like stability. I don’t like moving around.”
It’s not just stability that Narduzzi craves. A long-time defensive coordinator under Mark Dantonio at Cincinnati and Michigan State, Narduzzi was patient before taking the next step in his career. He waited for what he viewed as the right opportunity, and when the Pitt job came open in December 2014 after Paul Chryst left for Wisconsin, Narduzzi found what he has been looking for.
He took over a program that had won six regular-season games for four consecutive seasons. Since then, Pitt has posted two eight-win seasons as Narduzzi has set about building the program. And that’s the key word for Narduzzi:
Building.
“I love to build, and we’re building a championship university here and we expect to win them,” Narduzzi said. “This whole building has changed and that’s fun; we have our mark on it. Heather’s putting her mark on the future with all the things she’s talking about doing. There are great things happening in Pittsburgh and I’m excited about it. That’s what gets me going.”
To that end, Narduzzi has produced on and off the field. Despite some growing pains in the last three years, his 21 wins are the most by a Pitt coach in his first three seasons since Jackie Sherrill won 28 from 1977-79. He has faced the No. 2 team in the country twice and won both times. And he led Pitt to a win over Penn State in the return of the rivalry.
Off the field, Narduzzi has overseen significant improvements to Pitt’s football facility - improvements that he and Lyke said would continue in the next few years. Both head coach and athletic director believe the commitment and resources are in place to get the Panthers to Coastal Division championships, ACC championships and, eventually, the College Football Playoffs.
“I think that’s what we both share in common is the belief that we can build it here at Pitt,” Lyke said.
The common belief in what can happen at Pitt is key for Narduzzi, but so is one other element that he has cited in the past, often with a nod to the 11 years he spent at Dantonio’s side:
Loyalty.
“Loyalty means a lot to me and loyalty is a two-way street: loyalty to the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh being loyalty to me,” Narduzzi said.