Slovis: 'This was definitely the right decision'
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Kedon Slovis liked almost everything that he saw from Pitt.
As the USC quarterback considered his transfer options, he saw bevy of returning talent that included a Biletnikoff Award winner and experienced linemen galore on a team that was fresh off an ACC championship win while producing a Heisman Trophy finalist.
But Slovis, a native of Scottsdale (Ariz.) had one hangup, one issue he had to get past before committing to the Panthers.
“I told Coach (Pat) Narduzzi from the beginning that my one hesitation with the whole thing was not having an offensive coordinator. That was the one negative about Pitt,” Slovis told Panther-Lair.com. "But the more I thought about it, I think it’s a positive. I’m coming in to win a spot, and doing that with a coordinator who’s already established with a guy is harder. So it was a drawback, because what if you bring in a guy that doesn’t fit me? But Coach Narduzzi said they’ll bring in somebody that fits with me, and I think it will be a positive to work with someone new.”
Narduzzi wasn’t the only person he spoke with about Pitt’s lack of an offensive coordinator. He also talked to Kenny Pickett, the aforementioned Heisman finalist who had a bit of experience with a coordinator change himself. After all, Pickett enrolled at Pitt in January 2017 before Narduzzi had hired a replacement for Matt Canada, and he was the incumbent starter after the 2018 season when Narduzzi was looking to replace Shawn Watson.
“I talked to Kenny about it and about his situation when they were hiring a guy. He said that Coach Narduzzi kept him informed and in the loop and that he’ll find a guy who works for me. He said it’s not something to worry about.”
With those concerns assuaged, Slovis moved forward with what had been an obvious decision and committed to Pitt on Tuesday. His transfer gives the Panthers a former Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year who burst onto the scene in 2019 as a true freshman when he took over for the injured J.T. Daniels and threw for more than 3,000 yards with 30 touchdowns.
A year later, Slovis was a first-team All-Pac-12 performer when he led USC to a 5-1 record and the conference championship game. But in 2021, Slovis encountered adversity. He had already suffered an elbow injury at the end of his freshman season and a shoulder injury as a sophomore, but last season he dealt with two injuries and ended up in a rotation with freshman Jaxon Dart.
When the season ended, Slovis decided to leave USC. He entered the transfer portal last Monday and heard from a long list of schools, including Notre Dame, Auburn, Arizona, Nebraska, Oregon State, Cal and Indiana. But the more Slovis looked at Pitt, the more he was drawn to the Panthers.
“There are a lot of things that are enticing. The first thing that jumps out was the success they had last year when they won the ACC. As an outsider who doesn’t follow ACC, that was surprising when I realized it. And then after seeing that, I assumed they were an older team and losing everyone, but when I got a call from Pitt they said that pretty much everybody was coming back. So then I really started looking into it from there.
“Late in the week, I was pretty high on Pitt. There were other places I was interested in for sure, but I think I had the least questions to answer at Pitt. My dad was like, ‘It seems like you’re only looking at the negatives in the other schools, so it seems pretty obvious that Pitt is the choice.’ From that point, I think I knew that this was definitely the right decision."
As such, Slovis plans to move to Pitt in the first week of January and enroll for the spring semester, which will allow him to compete for the starting job in spring camp. Because he entered the transfer portal after the start of the dead period, he couldn’t take a visit to Pitt. But he has been on Pitt’s campus “three or four times,” he said, since his girlfriend is Kate McKay, who plays for the Panthers’ soccer team.
“It’s definitely a bonus,” Slovis said of having his girlfriend at his new school, although he added that her being at Pitt wasn’t a top factor in his decision.
“She wasn’t happy with it but I said I had to make the best football decision. It just worked out really well that they had the best situation for me and she’s there, too.
“So I’ve been to Pitt three or four times. Coach Narduzzi said I could fly out there and see it, but I was like, I’m good. I feel like I know the campus pretty well.”
As to the matter of Pitt’s missing offensive coordinator, Slovis isn’t concerned any longer. In addition to trusting Narduzzi in the hiring process, Slovis also believes he can fit in most drop-back systems.
“That’s the thing: I think I can do a lot of things. I’m in an Air Raid now but I played in a pro-style in high school, so I think I can do anything a drop-back passer can execute. I’m not going to run for 1,000 yards, but I’m not immobile. I can move a little bit. But there aren’t many offenses I can’t fit.”