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In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're looking at Pat Narduzzi's contract extension, Jeff Capel's next move and a lot more.
The value of stability
The most prominent news in Pitt sports this week was the announcement of the long-awaited contract extension for Pat Narduzzi, so let’s talk about that.
First, let me just say that I was amused by all of the commentary on the news from outside the Pitt fanbase. For one thing, it maybe speaks to a bit of an ascent in national relevance for the program that it drew so much attention. More importantly, though, I just had to sit back and chuckle, because a fair amount of the outside opinion on the extension was negative, and yet the Pitt fanbase - never one to shy away from finding the darkness - was pretty strongly in favor of it.
But that’s neither here nor there. There were obvious reasons why this extension happened. The process really began in December, which makes sense since Narduzzi had just led Pitt to its first ACC championship. On top of that, Narduzzi’s contract was set to expire after the 2024 season; it would be tough for a head coach to recruit the classes of 2023 and 2024 right now if he couldn’t guarantee he would be with them for more than a year or two when they get to college.
So that’s why it had to happen. But let’s talk about the impact Narduzzi has had on Pitt’s program.
I mean, on one side, the impact has been huge. The program has more stability than it has had in a long, long time. Facilities have been improved, a very good staff has been hired, the support staff has grown and overall, Pitt is a very healthy program.
What about the results on the field? Narduzzi is 53-37 overall and 36-22 in the ACC. That’s pretty solid.
But Pitt has also gone 46-37 against FBS opponents under Narduzzi, 9-14 against non-conference FBS teams and just 2-11 against non-conference Power Five teams.
That’s not quite as good, and I’ll be the first to say that some of those numbers need to improve (and there will be a really good opportunity right off the bat in about five months).
There’s something else I’ve been thinking about, though, and it’s stability. I think stability means more than everybody knowing where their parking space is and not having to change the nameplate on the head coach’s office very often. I think there’s something to consider when it comes to the stability of results.
To me, there are two components: the floor and the ceiling. To maintain stability and flourish from it, I think a head coach is expected to stay above the floor and reach - and raise - the ceiling.
So when I look back at the first 22 football seasons of the 21st century, there are three instances of Pitt winning less than six games in a season:
2005 - Dave Wannstedt went 5-6 in his inaugural season.
2007 - Wannstedt capped a 5-7 put-him-on-the-hot-seat season with the 13-9 upset of West Virginia.
2017 - Pat Narduzzi’s worst season was, like 2007, a 5-7 record capped by a monumental upset in the regular-season finale.
Narduzzi does have a five-win season, but he only has one in seven years at Pitt. So he has maintained a floor of being at six wins or above, but I’ll go a step further and say that Narduzzi has actually lifted the floor. Because in four of Narduzzi’s seven seasons, Pitt has won at least eight games, with the exceptions being the aforementioned 2017 season, the Coastal championship season in 2018 and the Covid-shortened 2020 season.
In a broad sense, Narduzzi has more or less been operating with an eight-win floor during his time at Pitt. And that’s notable, because this program was a perennial six-game winner for the four years prior to Narduzzi’s arrival. Todd Graham’s team went 6-7 and Paul Chryst went 6-7, 7-6 and 6-7. The floor - and, to some extent, the ceiling - was six wins.
Narduzzi has raised that. I’ve often said that eight is the minimum for an acceptable season at Pitt, and Narduzzi has pretty much established that to the point where I think there will be considerable surprise the next time Pitt wins less than eight.
And then he hit the other component this season when he raised the ceiling with 10 regular-season wins, 11 wins overall and the conference championship.
Have there been games that got away? Of course there have. Chances are, there will be more of them between now and 2030. But in terms of establishing and maintaining a solid floor and then shown an ability to push through the ceiling, I think Narduzzi has put Pitt in a fairly ideal position.
The best win of all
Narduzzi has won 53 games as Pitt’s head coach over the last seven years. Which win was the best win? I’m going with one of the most recent games the Panthers played:
The win over Wake Forest in the 2021 ACC Championship Game.
The 2021 Wake Forest Demon Deacons weren’t the best team Pitt beat in Pat Narduzzi’s first seven seasons as head coach. They probably weren’t even the best team Pitt beat in 2021. But that night in Charlotte and its place atop this list are about more than the quality of the opponent.
Because what Pitt did at Bank of America Stadium on December 4, 2021, was nothing short of an exorcism.
Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not by much. Because that night was the culmination of a journey that had more than a few bumps. Since the end of the Jackie Sherrill era in 1982, Pitt fans have seemed to suffer every manner of indignity, with team after team failing to reach its potential and more gutting losses than you can count. The last 40 years of Pitt football have been defined by falling short, and even the biggest wins were ultimately minimized by the bigger picture (the 13-9 win was achieved by a 5-7 team; the 2016 wins over PSU and Clemson led to a loss in the Pinstripe Bowl).
Pitt could never seem to put it all together, could never seem to really win when it counted, with the lone exception being the 2018 Coastal Championship run - which was rewarded with a beatdown by Clemson.
Winning the big one just didn’t happen. The Panthers didn’t rise to the occasion.
Until they did, on that night in Charlotte.
The demons that were felled that night were not of the Deacon variety; they were the demons harbored by a fan base that had waited a long, long time for its program to return to national prominence, to truly succeed at a relevant level.
And that’s what happened on Dec. 4. Spare me your talk of a weak ACC and unimpressive opponents. The 2021 Pitt team had a chance to achieve on a big stage, and they did it.
For one glorious night, everything was right in the world of Pitt. A fanbase that had seen so very many disappointments finally found itself genuinely and rightfully satisfied.
That wasn’t just Pat Narduzzi’s best win at Pitt. It was the fanbase’s best win in a long time.
The best of the rest
I put that Wake Forest game at the top of the list, but that’s one of 53 wins since the start of the 2015 season; surely there are more to discuss.
(I’ll take a brief moment to point out that Jim Hammett already did something like this on the board this week, but my list is a little different from his so I’m going to kind of copy his format.)
Here they are:
2. Clemson 2016 - This would be No. 1 if Pitt hadn’t beaten Wake Forest in the ACC Championship Game last December. What more can you say about that game in Death Valley? No one gave Pitt any chance to win - not the media, not the fans, probably not even Clemson. But the Panthers got really opportunistic on defense and rose to the occasion on offense, capped by a game-winning field goal that was sealed with a kiss. There are so many iconic moments from that game that it’s tough to pick just one.
But I’ll pick this one.
3. Penn State 2016 - The choice between this game and the Clemson game was a tough one. How many storylines do you need to make for a great game? Because this one has it all: the renewal of Pitt’s greatest rivalry, a home game in front of the biggest crowd to watch a sporting event in Pittsburgh history, James Conner’s comeback after battling cancer. And an epic battle that went down to the wire. It was a great day at Heinz Field and one of the great wins in Pitt history.
4. UCF 2019 - You know, 2019 wasn’t really a great year for Pitt. The Panthers hit that floor we talked about with eight wins, but they missed two-should-have-been wins against Miami and Boston College that would have truly elevated the season, and they weren’t really too hot for a lot of that year. Even the season-ending win over Eastern Michigan in Detroit was a double-edged sword, since Pitt trailed in that one until the final minute. But the highlight of the 2019 season is also one of Narduzzi’s highlights. The Panthers had low expectations heading into a matchup against a top-15 UCF team that had won 24 regular-season games in a row, but they took a 21-10 lead at halftime, watched the Knights take the lead in the third quarter and went into the final minute trailing 34-28. Then, on one of the most iconic plays of the Narduzzi era, the “Pitt Special” knocked out UCF on a fourth-and-2 from the 3.
5. Virginia 2021 - This is probably a dark horse pick, but I think it merits inclusion here because it really does have everything. Pitt’s home game against Virginia last season was a matchup of two teams vying for the ACC Coastal Division title. Virginia needed a win to stay alive in the hunt for the division, and while Pitt could clinch the title with a win, a loss would have put the Panthers in a really tough spot. Throw in a matchup of the ACC’s premier quarterbacks and add a dash of consistent back-and-forth scoring that kept the teams more or less within three points through the entire second half. And to cap it off, let’s have one of the greatest individual plays in Pitt history:
Oh, and did I mention that all of this happened in front of a home crowd at Heinz Field?
Honorable mentions:
Both wins over UNC - The first one was a long time coming and both were overtime overtime games at home.
The Wake Forest game in 2018 - Clinching the Coastal Division after a really great stretch of games. I’ll give an extra nod to the games that led up to the trip to Wake: an overtime win against Syracuse, a last-second win over Duke, an upset win at Virginia in primetime and an absolute pounding of Virginia Tech at home. That was quite a stretch.
Clemson in 2021 - Yes, Clemson was down last season, but that game at Heinz Field stood as a “Let’s see what they’re really made of” moment. And it turned out that Pitt was made of quite a bit.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
What’s next for Capel?
Let’s talk a little hoops this week. Not too much, but a little.
Pitt’s season has been over for a couple weeks now. In that time, we’ve seen five players go into the transfer portal - Noah Collier, Chris Payton, Dan Oladapo, Onyebuchi Ezeakudo and Ithiel Horton.
We’ve seen two players publicly state their intentions to return - John Hugley and Nike Sibande - and we’ve gotten pretty strong indications that Nate Santos and Jamarius Burton plan to be back, while Will Jeffress also appears to be returning.
The question mark is Femi Odukale, who has been rumored as a transfer candidate for some time, but has not officially entered the transfer portal as of Friday morning.
The same goes for Max Amadasun.
That’s potentially seven players who will return and, just as relevantly if not more so, six open spots to fill. At this point, none of those six spots has been filled.
So what’s the move?
We’ve seen Capel and company connected to more than 20 players in the transfer portal, and the number they have actually contacted is probably even higher than that. We’ve seen a few key options emerge, like western Pa. native/Colgate guard Nelly Cummings. He’s a top priority, and the staff even went so far to offer his younger brother, 2024 Lincoln Park guard Brandin Cummings during an in-home visit this week.
Eastern Kentucky guard Jomaru Brown also looks like a priority target; so do George Washington’s Brayon Freeman, Drexel’s Cam Wynter and Jason Roche from The Citadel, among others.
Pitt needs forwards big-time, though, and that is proving to be a bit tougher. The staff was in early on The Citadel’s Hayden Brown, but he has narrowed his list to Georgia Tech, South Carolina and Loyola Chicago. Ditto for Jaylan Gainey from Brown, who committed to Florida State this week.
Mo Njie is getting some interest, but he played center at Eastern Michigan; he could be Pitt’s five of the future, but the more pressing need right now is at the four. The same goes for Sam Onu from Memphis; he’s another freshman center who has heard from the Pitt staff, but I’m not sure he’s a player the coaches see lining up next to Hugley this season. Phillip Alston is somewhat similar - he played center at Cal (Pa.) - but he won’t be a five in the ACC, so the coaches have to determine if he can hang as a four at this level.
Kalu Ezipke from Old Dominion could be an option. He’s a 6’8” forward who averaged 10.3 points and 6.7 rebounds last season. Ball State’s Miryne Thomas looks like one to watch, too.
And there are many more names to watch out there as well. But all of this is to say that Capel and company have a lot of irons in the fire. They have contacted a lot of players, they have had conversations with a lot of guys and they’re casting the proverbial wide net because they need a lot of help.
What happens next? A recruiting dead period just started, meaning recruits and coaches can’t have any in-person contact. That will last through the Final Four until noon of next Thursday; after that, I would expect to see Capel and the rest of the staff go back on the road for in-home visits and host a few transfers on campus.
It will be tough to land any commitments between now and then when most of these players haven’t seen Pitt’s campus, but the one exception is Cummings: he’s a local who has been to Pitt plenty of times (and even played there this season).
I think the staff would love to get Cummings on board before the dead period ends and then work to build around him. The key will be landing one of the forwards, but I don’t think we’ve seen the full breadth of the players the staff will target there just yet. Student-athletes have until to May 1 to enter the portal and be able to play next season; I expect more forwards to become available over the next month, so new options will emerge.
Where are all of these guys coming from?
Keeping on the topic of recruiting but going back to football, this spring has been pretty remarkable.
You’ve certainly seen the updates over the last month, but to sum it up as succinctly as possible, Pitt has brought a ton of talent to campus this spring. Pitt has hosted more than two dozen offered prospects for visits this spring, including these four-star recruits:
That’s quite a list, and the full list of spring visitors is just about as impressive a list of spring visitors as we’ve seen in quite some time. The last spring that I remember being this loaded with visitors was the spring of 2019, when Pitt’s Coastal Division championship and the addition of Chris Beatty brought a ton of recruits to campus for visits.
Like these guys:
Combined with a host of offered recruits - probably three or four dozen - that’s pretty impressive stuff, too. This year is looking like it will be even better by the time we get to the end of spring camp, but here’s the main point that encompasses both of those strong recruiting periods:
When you have a successful season, it pays off in recruiting the next year.
How many times did we say this last fall? When people kept asking why Pitt’s big season was followed by a 12-man recruiting class that didn’t rank among the best in the ACC, what did we say? We talked about how they had limited scholarships available (that was the first point) and we talked about how the real rewards are reaped in the next year’s recruiting class.
You recruit a class on the results of the previous season, and when you get to spring camp, you’re recruiting with the most recent memories coming from the fall that led into it. Right now, those memories are of an 11-win Pitt team that has a shiny ACC championship trophy standing in the lobby, not to mention a Biletnikoff Award winner and a Heisman Trophy finalist.
When you have that kind of success, you parlay it into recruiting, and Pitt has done just that.
ONE PREDICTION
This team will have a lot of leaders
This is pretty lame as a prediction - really, it’s not even a prediction at all - but there’s one other topic I want to talk about and this is the only section left in the column, so it’s going here.
Cornerbacks coach Archie Collins said something this week that stood out to me. He was talking about safeties Erick Hallett and Brandon Hill, and this is what he said.
“They’re at a level right now where they can change up during a game like we did toward the end of last season, as soon as they got relaxed in there. But they understand all of the checks, they understand how to utilize the checks and they have the ability to come on the sideline and say, ‘Coach, they’re doing this, that and the other; what do you think about this?’
“So that’s always good. It broadens your menu. You always want to have a small menu with big understanding, but with that being said, you can kind of expand a little bit, so now you can get a little bit of whipped cream on your sundae if you’re like that.”
Okay, the second half of the quote wasn’t really necessary. But the bit about whipped cream on the sundae was too good to leave out.
But the meat of that quote came earlier when Collins talked about Hallett and Hill being able to come off the field and communicate not just what they were seeing but also what the defense should do in response.
To me, that’s huge, and it’s what can truly separate great teams. Talking about having a “coach on the field” is a cliche, but that’s the territory we’re getting into here. If Hallett and Hill can perceive the offense to the point where they not only have a handle on what’s happening but also suggest ways to address it.
I have to think coaches love it when they get to the point where they can talk with players like that. It becomes less of a player/coach relationship and more of co-conspirators. “Two heads are better than one” type of stuff.
And one of the reasons Collins’ comment stood out to me so much is that he’s not the first coach to talk like that this spring. Charlie Partridge expressed similar sentiments about the defensive line a week or two ago, and Dave Borbely did, too, with the offensive line before that.
We didn’t ask Ryan Manalac last week if he has that kind of relationship with SirVocea Dennis, but I would be willing to bet he would say the same thing. I bet Dennis comes to the sideline this season - and maybe last season - and tells Manalac what he’s seeing and what he thinks Pitt might need to do.
I imagine that’s got to be one of the greater thrills for a coach: when a player you have taught and trained and coached points out something that you yourself did not see.
So my “prediction” for this week is that Pitt is going to have a bunch of players who can do just that: who can be coaches on the field and help the coaches on the sideline make adjustments during a game.
