Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi was in Charlotte on Thursday for the annual ACC media days. The Panthers coach met with the media and hit on a number of topics, here is a full transcript of everything he had to say.

Recently you made some pretty strong comments about not just the Big Ten but also your former offensive coordinator. Did you want to elaborate on those a little bit and kind of explain why you felt that way?

Narduzzi: Not really. (Laughter). I guess it was a long summer. You hear all these things during the summer about the Power 2s and all this stuff. We'll just start there. You know, we play some darn good football in the ACC, and I think people forget about it. I think Dabo made a comment yesterday about everybody talks about, oh, Clemson had a down year, and he is exactly right. People need to wake up. How about the teams that are getting better? I think Pittsburgh is getting better, so we'll start there. Again, any time you get -- I've coached in the Big Ten for eight years, so I know it. I don't know the SEC, so I'm not going to claim. I've never coached in the SEC, but I do know the Big Ten. I feel very confident -- and, again, it's not being arrogant. It's just kind of knowing the landscape and knowing what we played against in The Peach Bowl, just would have liked to have our backup quarterback the play the whole game. That's just confidence. That's no disrespect to the Big Ten or Michigan State. It's just about Pitt and about the ACC. Again, that's all I can tell you. I think ACC football is really, really good, and that's really the comment there that I was trying to get across.

What are your thoughts on the 3-5-5 scheduling coming to the ACC quite soon and playing Syracuse, Boston College, and Virginia Tech every season?

Narduzzi: I love the three teams we get to play, obviously, regional. Again, as coaches we really don't make those decisions. They get made above us. I'm still a proponent of the two divisions. I love the two divisions. I think Pittsburgh has come to where we are today, winning the ACC Championship a year ago, but it was developed from our 2018 Coastal Division Championship. I think there has to be a starting point. For me it's okay because we've built something good in the last seven years, and it's just going to continue to go, but I feel bad that some of the other teams maybe haven't been in that championship game, haven't been Coastal Division champions, and they won't have a chance here in the future if that stays true, because I really think that helped build us. When I was at Michigan State, we got beat by Wisconsin in the championship. We were division champions, got to the ACC championship and lost that game. That fueled us to come back and beat the No. 1 team in the country in Ohio State and play in the Rose Bowl. To me that was all fuel. You take little steps as you go, and I think it's a big deal to be a division champion. I think just like AFC and NFC championships, those are big games. There are celebrations after that game. I think it's the same thing with the Coastal and Atlantic. Again, you give them to us, we'll play whoever you tell us to play, we'll play. We'll play one division. We'll play 12 divisions. I don't care what we play, but I truly believe there was some merit to keeping the divisions.

Do you believe that NIL has tampered with the loyalty and fairness of the collegiate level for players?

Narduzzi: I'm sorry? One more time.

Do you believe the NIL has tampered with the loyalty and fairness for players at the collegiate level?

Narduzzi: I do. I love the opportunity for our players when you talk name, image, and likeness to make money. I want our players to make as much money. And we talk a lot about branding. I told our guys on our trip down yesterday, this is a big and a great opportunity to brand yourself. Who are you as a person? What do you stand for? Those type of things. I think the initial name, image, and likeness was to sell your brand, sell your jersey, to watch No. 5 or No. 7 walk around, No. 77 walk around with their jerseys and sell their jerseys, and the more jerseys you sell, the more money you make. I think that's where initially it stood with name, image, and likeness. You have heard the story, this is old news. Now it's become more of a pay for play. Obviously, you can't like where that's going, but I think the NCAA, somebody will get ahold of it and try to put some constraints and some borders on the whole thing.

Now that you guys have kind of reached that mountaintop, won the ACC, what is the biggest challenge in staying there, and also, how do you replace Kenny at quarterback?

Narduzzi: I'll start with the end there. Replacing Kenny is never an easy -- Kenny Pickett was an outstanding football player. He was the leader of our football team. Not only will we miss the leadership he shows on the field, but we'll miss, obviously, the competitiveness he brought to the game every Saturday. So Kenny will be hard to replace. We've got two young men that are fighting for that position right now. Nick Patti, who played in a bowl game, at least the first two series of the bowl game until he was injured, and Kedon Slovis, a transfer from the University of Southern California. Those two guys are battling. They both had great springs. I think we can win a lot of games with both of them. I think that we'll have a very, very competitive August at camp with them. The beginning of that question, I forgot it already was? Okay. How do you stay where we are? That's always a challenge, but I would rather have that challenge than be sitting at the bottom trying to get my way up the ladder, but it's never easy I think. The attitude of our kids, the discipline, the passion they have, and I think the desire they have to be champions again. You did it once. That was a long time ago. It seems like forever ago. I think our kids are going to work one day at a time. This is 2022. It's a whole new season. We have a new football team, and I think our kids are going to work at that. I think it starts with the head coach. I think it starts with me. If I'm happy and complacent with where we are, then that's fine, but I don't think that will be happening with me. I think they'll feel that in August. I think they felt it in spring ball. We haven't done anything yet. We would like to win a national championship. We want to be in the playoffs. We're one game last year away from being that -- in that talk at least in the 14 talk. If you go to a 12-team playoff, we're in it. That's where we want to be. We're not happy with where we were last year, and we would like to win every football game.

The ACC champion team of last year was dynamic offensively. Led the league in total offense, led the league in scoring offense. That team, of course, featured not only Kenny Pickett, but Jordan Addison, Shocky Jacques-Lois, and then your tight end not to forget him...

Narduzzi: Gavin.

How do you see the personality of this year's offensive team? You return a lot of big linemen. Of course, Abanikanda in the back field.

Narduzzi: We had lineman returning. We have four kids that could have taken off. Carter Warren, one of them with us here today that turned down going to the Senior Bowl, playing at Mobile and the combine in Indianapolis to come back and play at Pitt. Our offensive line is back. Our running backs are all back. We've got some great weapons at the receiver position. Started with Jared Wayne, Konata Mumpfield, Jaden Bradley. I'm going to miss somebody without having a list in front of me. I feel great with the weapons we have out there. A kid named Bub Means, a kid that transferred in the summer. Jaylon Barden as well. We've got some outstanding receivers. We're going to get the ball in the guys' hands that deserve it. That's what we'll find out in August. Who are our playmakers? Who can we trust? Who can we hand it off to? Who can we throw it to? Who is going to be throwing that pass? I can tell you this, I'll say this again, in 2020 I thought we had an outstanding football team, a championship-caliber football team. With all the COVID things that happened, we've never got to get where we need to be. People say, hey, what was the difference between '20 and '21 with Kenny Pickett? You really couldn't tell because '20 was kind of just a crazy year where we're all rolling around with masks on and getting COVID'ed out and all that. That whole year I think we've built a program in Pittsburgh. It's not just a one-year splash, Kenny did it all and nobody else did anything. I think we've got a great football team. Kenny Pickett, the first quarterback taken in the draft, was outstanding. I think we've got other good football players as well. We've done a great job of recruiting. Character guys, athletic guys, and guys that can play football. I'll take these guys anywhere, these three here plus the rest of the gang back in Pittsburgh that we have. We've recruited for the long haul and not just for one season. It wasn't a splash. That's the expectations. I think we've got a good football team returning.

You speak on wanting to win a national championship and Tony Dorsett, Al Romano and the gang at Pitt did that years ago. When you look at recruiting and everything you've just mentioned, just what can you say about Pitt's history and marks what you built upon back then and have the bridge to the NFL to the gentlemen that are sitting here with you that just came off winning an ACC Championship?

Narduzzi: History is a great predictor. We won nine national championships in Pittsburgh. You talk about Tony Dorsett in 1976, winning the national championship. That's the last one. That's something that we're striving for. I think things go in circles. You look back years and years and years ago. Alabama wasn't very good. Look where they are today. That's something that, again, Pittsburgh is the same thing. We're going to finish the circle there and get around to that. We just continue to build and work on that championship season.

Really excited to see the opener and the backyard brawl coming back with West Virginia. That was a great rivalry for decades. Is this just a home and home with West Virginia, or is this going to be more than just a couple of years with West Virginia?

Narduzzi: We've got a four-year deal with West Virginia right now, and I'm not sure if there was the other four years has come through, E.J.? So eight of the next 11. I knew we were working on it before. I didn't want to spill the beans. 8 of the next 11 years we will be playing West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl, and I think we just redid another four years with their athletic department. It's something we're excited about. It's right down the road. It's a heck of a game. There's a lot of excitement in Pittsburgh for September 1st.