Our new Head Coach has been hired after what was a short and poorly kept secret search. The PITT Search Committee floated some misdirection out by leaks here and there but since late last week it was narrowed down to Pat Narduzzi, the ex-defensive Coordinator for Big Ten’s Michigan State and basically no one else.
Love it or hate it, in my opinion it smacks as same old, same old for PITT’s run of head coaches. Not that I disagree or even dislike the choice, I’m OK with it actually, but it runs counter to what PITT’s stated goal was after Chryst left. That was to open the purses strings and make a “splash hire” by getting a successful guy who had already held a head coaching position in college and who knew how to handle to rigors of both on and off the field requirements of a large university’s football program.
The only variation, and it is a big one, is that the incoming HC won’t have to deal with the previous AD in Steve Pederson. That right there gives Narduzzi a bump in the right direction.
But in essence it feels like we replicated almost exactly what we did three years ago when we hired Wisconsin’s Offensive Coordinator Paul Chryst, taking the gamble that he’d have a successful transition to the Big Job. A coordinator turned Head Coach who had stronger loyalties for another school other than PITT as we have just seen. Now we are doing it again with Narduzzi so I’ll keep my fingers crossed that times change as the personnel do and that the last three years are bettered under the new HC.
That said, PITT has had some relatively success with college Assistant Coaches in their hiring of Walt Harris and Dave Wannstedt. Both had never been a college HC but were successful staff coaches previously. Both of them, after rocky starts, put together later winning seasons that raised PITT’s football visibility for a short period.
Yes, Wannstedt was a NFL head coach but to me that is a very different animal than being a college head coach in that he didn’t have to answer to an Athletic Director or to the Chancellor, Donors, Boosters and Player Alumni. That is a huge drain of energy for a college HC. On top of all that the HC has to steer and corral 100+ young men into positive behaviors and academic actions. Not an easy thing to do consistently, effectively and well.
NFL head coaches don’t really have to deal with amount of personnel problems on the level that college head coaches do. So there is a lot more autonomy and less overall responsibility in the NFL than there is at a university where the football tail doesn’t wag the university’s body.
While we are saying hello and welcoming Pat Narduzzi let’s also take a moment to reflect on Paul Chryst’s tenure at PITT and to say a proper goodbye to him.
Chryst’s departure has given rise to some negative feelings out there that I wasn’t reading about the week before the Wisconsin job opened up. It was almost like now that the guy has left the room we can talk badly about him. That’s OK in that not only does everyone have an opinion there are also some things that he could have done better while he was at PITT.
First off would be winning the close games that we tended to lose. Even if we use the 2014 season as an example we can point directly to the Duke game that we blew in two overtimes and which should have been our win in regulation time with a successful field goal attempt at the buzzer. Hindsight is 20/20 but when you really look at the circumstance of the end of that game you see that the kicker missed the FG but also that the HC didn’t put that kicker in the best possible place to make that rather short attempt either.
Win that Duke game and we are 7-5 right now looking at a winning season and a chance to get to 8-5 with a bowl win which would have been a fine season… although it still wouldn’t have kept Chryst from leaving.
The last three seasons are riddled with examples of poor game day management and head scratching decision making by Chryst. He had multiple brain freezes when it came to clock management and made some strange red zone calls. He made good decisions also but those just don’t stick out like his bad ones do.
We won some nice games over the past three years beating ranked schools such as ND, VT and Rutgers and our last game, a win over Miami was satisfying also. But in all honesty those don’t offset the bad feelings we had with the losses to YSU and Syracuse in ’12, then a poor Navy team and North Carolina last year and then the real kick in our collective asses being the loss to Akron this season.
He just never got us to the level of ‘beating the teams we should’ and that left a lousy taste in the mouth which wasn’t offset by the better winning games he did have. Always left us wanting a little bit more Paul did. I don’t really begrudge a 19-19 record as I think he really did have to rebuild the team and the roster.
Had we won all the games we should have, lost games to the clearly better teams and split with the teams on our same level and still ended up at .500 then I think we’d all feel a bit better about how it went down. The true hallmark of Chryst’s time as the HC is the utter inconsistency of the way we played the football games. Not just who we beat when but how we executed when out on the field. Not just game to game but sometimes half to half.
A good example of this was the first half of this season when we ripped off three straight wins beating a decent Boston College while doing so then turning around and losing a close game to Iowa where we just fell flat on our faces in the 2nd half. Then, to rub salt in the wound, we played horribly and with no spirit whatsoever in a 21-10 shellacking by Akron on our home field.
It seemed apparent to me that overall football-wise Chryst felt that his main, and sometimes only, goal was to get his offense established and clicking well enough so that it would relieve him of the tough in-game decisions a HC has to make. He also relied on that stronger offense to compensate for what was a very suspect defense over the last two years. What he should have done was leave that offense, once established, to his OC and then really cracked down on bettering the defense. Hiring his buddy Matt House in the important DC position wasn’t the way to do that.
So I wonder if Barry Alvarez, the AD over at Wisconsin, actually looked at the in-game coaching Chryst did over the time here was here. Does he think that aspect of Chryst’s skills will automatically get better just because Chryst is now at Wisconsin? Chryst is the Golden Child there and I wish him well but he comes with some serious football question marks. Perhaps Alvarez thinks “It’s PITT, so really, how well could Paul actually do there?”
Where there are no question marks, in my mind anyway, is in the way Paul Chryst handled all the other aspects of the PITT football program and his superb filling the Loco Parentis (‘in the place of the parent’) role that a HC has to master so as to benefit every aspect of his contract with the University. There is no doubt that he changed our past recruiting stance and targeted better students and players of high character rather than just looking at their football skills alone.
Like it or hate it, and some fans hate it for sure, that was what PITT wanted to do after the 2010 season and Graham’s midnight crawl. PITT’s admin wanted any news the program generated to be because of the games we played and not because of negative off-field issues and in that aspect Chryst gave them exactly what they wanted and what we needed.
Of course those exacting standards impacted the overall talent we had on our roster over the past two years, especially on the defensive side of the ball. To me it’s kind of a ‘chicken or the egg’ situation there. Were our player’s not talented enough to execute the DC’s game plans or was our DC so poorly skilled that our talented players were not put in the best possible position to succeed?
Either way it does fall directly on Chryst’s shoulders for not recruiting better defenders and for elevating and keeping Matt House in that DC position. Again, it seemed as if he didn’t think the defense was all that important. His decisions baked the chicken and scrambled the egg. Not a recipe for success by any means.
On the other hand we can’t find much fault in Chryst’s offensive systems and his recruiting of offensive players when we jumped from 24.2 points per game under Todd Graham and his ‘Pedal to the Metal’ offense in ’11 to this season’s 31.7 ppg. That scoring average is the highest we have had since DW’s 32.1 ppg in our 10 & 3 season in 2009.
Over his recruiting classes, with his first class being a HC-change class which is almost always sketchy, Chryst snagged one of the best WR’s in college in Tyler Boyd, one of the best RBs in James Conner and completely rebuilt the Offensive Line to his power run game specs. That last note may be the most important going forward under Narduzzi as his inherited OL is young and talented and has the depth necessary to get through a whole season without dipping too much in play due to injury.
Along with those standout kids Chryst worked magic with our QB position by getting way more out of Sunseri than fans thought possible in ’10, then his reaching out for a SR transfer in Tom Savage and coaching him to his best year also in ’11. Chryst then took Chad Voytik, who was recruited for a different offense altogether by Graham and had limited skills coming in, and worked with him to make his passing a positive aspect of Voytik’s game as opposed to being a knee-jerk ‘run-first’ QB.
Chryst took his time with Voytik and in turn Voytik studied hard, asked the right questions and turned into a QB who now understands both the college game and his own strengths and weaknesses. Voytik played well enough over the 2nd half of the season to make us feel that he’ll be a firm strength at QB moving forward and I attribute that directly to Chryst’s handling of him.
Chryst has left PITT with other very talent skill position players also; let’s not forget true FRs RBs Chris James and Qadree Ollison and WR Adonis Jennings. They will form a nucleus that will serve us well for the next few years, unless Narduzzi and his new OC screw around and change things too much that is. The best thing would be to play the offensive cards Chryst left you and make any changes gradually recognizing the type of offensive talent they have on hand. Defensively they can blow the joint up for all I care.
I firmly believe that Paul Chryst left this program in a much better shape all around then it was when he was hired. We have the type of student-athletes that every university should aspire to have and we have a program that is back in the good graces with the local high school coaches after DW’s firing and after Todd Graham’s arrogance alienated most of them. Narduzzi seems like the no-nonsense guy who won’t have to rebuild any bridges with WPA football and who will be received well by the same type of serious, tough coaches who play the same type of football Narduzzi does that they like so much in the tri-state area. Chryst was very well received by those guys.
One last point to consider with Chryst is the way he ran his practices, camps and scrimmages in a very open and transparent manner. He and EJ Borghetti made is so very easy for Chas, Justin and myself to be there in person and ask the tough questions. That type of courtesy can’t be overstated especially for us writers and readers of The Pitt Blather. We have no guarantee whatsoever that the next regime will be that generous.
As a side note, there are a myriad of reasons I want EJ Borghetti to stay in either his current position or move into one of more responsibility but his dealings with us at The Blather have been truly excellent and very much appreciated. I can’t stress enough how different this Blog would be if Borghetti hadn’t taken a fancy to us and given us media credentials.
I wish Paul Chryst all the best with his new position and understand exactly why he chose to do what he did. I also appreciate the real caring he had for the University of Pittsburgh and its football program. He’s one of the ‘Good Guys’ that college football needs to stay as great it is. I don’t necessarily wish he’d continue on at PITT but sure do wish him well at Wisconsin.
P/S: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. Remember to swallow that pride and get a sober driver if you have any doubt whatsoever if you should be on the road. We need all the PITT fans we can get.
I don’t think anyone could accuse Paul Chryst of being a good man who wanted to ensure his team represented the school in a classy manner. To me, this is important and is the price of entry for a team and coach.
But, you can represent the university well and still win enough games to make supporters of the program be proud of the success of the team. Paul Chryst finished 19-19, and as you pointed out that record could have and should have been much better. When I look at games “given away” vs games “taken away” I estimate that Chryst teams were at least a -6 in that regard. So, they could have easily gone 25-13 in the last. 3 yrs. And, that may be generous to him. I always got the feeling Pitt would find a way to lose games that were up for grabs down the stretch, and I feel that was the case far more often than not. So, from my standpoint, if Narduzzi & staff just improve their decision-making & strategy late in close games they can win 2/3 of their games with all else being equal vs the Chryst era .
As for UWM, I think they are getting a good man who has not really learned how to manage late game situations very well. I see a lot of 7-6 & 8-5 seasons in their future. I see more 9 win seasons for Pitt. I, too, wish they had chosen an existing successful head coach. But, I think they chose a solid man to lead the program. I just hope he adjusts to head coaching better than PC did .
Merry Christmas everyone!
Net net PC did us a huge favor. Wish him well. Hiring
is risky business. Next year at this time we will have the answer. Nevertheless hoping Pitt got it right this time. Awaken
the sleeping giant of Pitt FB!!!!!!!
How long the Narduzzi honeymoon lasts depends on how well Pitt handles the Youngstown States…
In the end, we will always be Pitt fans, it’s in our blood. So, hail to Pitt and its loyal followers. We deserve better and hopefully 2015 will leave us satisfied and proud. Happy Holidays!
I agree with Reed, Narduzzi is a risk as our next HC, but this hire feels totally different to me than Chryst’s did. Pat is not Paul but Pat must still “show me”! He needs to show immediate leadership here at Pitt, first by not coaching in the Cotton Bowl because his focus from today on should be ALL ABOUT PITT. Second he has to be urgent about retaining this recruiting class, especially Jordan Whitehead, who BTW, should love this hire. But to get this recruiting class intact to LOI signing day will take appropriate effort by Narduzzi to assemble, at least the major cogs of his staff before the middle of January so that these recruits know who their coaches will be. Lastly, Narduzzi has to start selling Pitt Football, to the recruits, to the fan base, to the media, and most importantly to himself and his yet to be assembled staff. He has to have a vision for Pitt Football before he can sell it and I want to know what his vision is.
None of the above was ever properly accomplished by HCPC. He lacked the motivation to assemble the best staff possible from across the country but rather he opted for hiring friends and sure bets that where mainly within his circle, he was slow to make those hires in a timely manner and failed to emphasize recruiting efforts concerning those hires. Both of those issues negatively impacted his recruiting success while here. Lastly can anybody tell me what Chryst’s vision and goals were for this program other than stability for the program and recruiting kids of good character? If those were his vision for the program then Chyrst should feel as though he has succeeded here at Pitt, but few objective observers would agree with that assessment.
HCPC, made enough of the typical “learning on the job” errors to label his tenure here as mediocre at best and I’m not even referring to his W-L record. His staff, his recruiting classes, his public relation skills and his promotion of the program all turned out to be mediocre. Those are all reasons the current interest in Pitt Football has waned recently. The fans in a football metropolis like Pittsburgh know good football and Paul Chryst failed to produce a good product for that fan base to consume during his tenure here.
Paul Chryst is a nice guy, a great OC, but up to this point he’s an average HC. Let’s give thanks for that Miami victory though, because that provided the bare minimum results needed for Barry Alvarez to call Paulie back home without causing a fan revolt at Wisky.
Thanks for that Barry, because now Pitt’s administration has decided to get off their asses and do something about our languishing football program as a result of Paulie’s departure. Our fresh leadership in Chancellor Gallagher has injected a huge amount of hope into the remaining Pitt fan base with the timely dismissal of Pederson. THAT alone demonstrates to me that this administration is tired if doing things the SOP way.
Even though I agree with Reed here and would have preferred a seasoned, successful power 5 HC taking over here at Pitt, Narduzzi just might have a plan that this search committee bought into. I don’t see the hiring of a DC from a power 5 team as a SOP move IF it’s backed up with hiring of a great staff that can recruit like mad, that is motivated by their new 1st time HC who possesses a clearly focused vision for this program. When you back that up with an administration that is providing the resources and support to get it done, then my friends, the sky is the limit.
As our departed HC liked to say, now it’s time to “show me”!
Merry Christmas to all and Hail to Pitt!
I think a pool of Blatherers on these firings, resignations and hirings would be interesting.
It would also be interesting to learn who were the big names that inquired about the position or was that just a red herring?
I wrote a while back when you and Chas indicated that you did not think Petersen would be dismissed, something to the effect that this was an opportunity for Gallagher to show what he is made of. He has certainly answered that question.
I am hopeful that the announcement tomorrow confirms a stronger commitment to football and that Narduzzi makes a strong presentation. Will be strong in comparison to the last introduction I’m sure.
Any time you make any hire you never really know how it will work out. It appears that with Narduzzi, you can check off a lot of desirable indicators.
Let’s hope he hits the ground running.
Merry Christmas, indeed!
It helps if a coach has charisma and is inspirational. It sounds like this is part of Narduzzi’s skill set.
Chryst left the program stable. Nard needs to take her to the next level. Win the Coastal. Get to the ACC championship. Finish in the top 15. It shouldn’t be difficult with good assistants, and a chancellor and new AD that are supportive.
Expect donations to roll in. Expect attendance to increase. Expect a renewed sense of spirit and purpose. Expect more talk about what it will take to make Pitt relevant again and a destination for coaches and players. I don’t expect Pitt to become consistently elite but I do expect 10 win seasons. Enough of being mediocre.
Let’s hope that bigger names, than have been leaked, are in line.
As the Rolling Stones song says – “you can’t always get what you want” – we truly did need an upgrade on D and we got it. HC experience, no.
I’m committed to supporting Pitt FB and I’m renewing my four season tickets. I am also excited for the press conference at 3:30pm tomorrow – let’s get back to the winning ways we all so cherish.
HTP! And Merry Christmas
To me, narduzzi IS a splash hire. I dont know what people expected pitt to do. The dan Mullen thing was a puipe dream and that just raised expectattions to an unattainable level. If you say you wanted a guy with HC experience, thats fine. I would’ve liked that too. However, Narduzzi has a completely different personality and mindset from Paul Chryst. Across the country this the media is buzzing with positivuity about this hire. Narduzzi is a perfect fit here and from what I’m hearing about assistants and overall how he wants to handkle things, pitt is in good hands.
With every pitt hire ive been positive but ive always had that gut feeling that says “somehow someway this will go wrong”. I dont have that with Narduzzi. Obviously the transition from coordinator to HC can be tricky but i am supremely confident that they got it right this time.
Merry Christmas
I gave XHCPC a 5, 6,4 out of 10.
My friends at MSU give Nard a 9, 9 and 10 in those same categories. We’ll see if that translates to HCPN!
Merry Christmas from one old Presbyterian to another!
Anyways, HTP, lets hope this does not turn out to be SOP…which would be, looking back three years from now, at 6-6 each year, looking for the next head coach! You never know, but as a Pitt fan, I have to stay optimistic in the face of huge past disappointment.
Happy holidays all!
Nowhere.
At no time were the words “big” or “splash” uttered by anyone at Pitt (for attribution). It was all “reports” from “sources” that Pitt fans ran wild with. Some blogs/national CFB/PG/Trib/local TV news reporters were “told” that Gallagher wanted to “go big” and make a “splash.”
This is not SOP! Nordenberg is gone, Pederson is gone, the new chancellor seems to have a clue, the offense is in great shape and the new coach can string a number of sentences together.
Let’s be honest: this is a COMPLETELY different than three years ago. Narduzzi may turn out to be a putz, but he is on MUCH firmer footing than HCPC ever was.
Now, most blogs, twitter, etc which are not confined by the rules of journalism has someone say that I would be more wary. For example I write mostly opinion stuff and will say “I think” or “I believe” if that is the case. I will be more specific if I’m passing along something that I have learned from those closer to the program than I am and who I trust to be reliable and then I’ll write something like “I was led to believe” or ” in conversation with someone who knows the situation…”
But in my experience over the last five years doing this I can pretty much tell what comes from the PITT campus and what doesn’t.
That said, do you think ‘big and splashy’ wasn’t the goal with the Admin? I sure do and whatever words and channels they actually used to get the point across it was thought that it would be a ‘big’ hire. Maybe Narduzzi is considered to be just that by PITT and others – ESPN certainly likes the move and obviously some fans feel the same way – that Narduzzi is a Big Deal hire.
I am certain with good coaching other offensive recruits might be able to make the transition, hopefully the OL recruits to DL. Chryst could not coach them for such a transition but Narduzzi could. This would balance the one-sided recruiting of Chyrst.
My best wishes and warm welcome to Coach Narduzzi and his staff (whoever they may be.) NO ONE is hoping for your success more than I.
Merry Christmas to all reading this board and HAIL TO PITT!
I think it’s important that as fans we don’t lose sight of the fact that he impressed the most important and powerful person at Pitt as far as purse strings and decision-making are concerned.
Do we have any reason to doubt Chancellor Gallagher at this point? I don’t think so.
He said he wanted the coach to know he had a direct link, line of communication, with the head guy.
Selfish politicians at Pitt – usually greedy, self-promoting athletic directors – have a history of hurting the football program.
If Chancellor Gallagher stays in touch and on top of things, we’ll praise this hire down the road.
Above all that, although Pitt may have 10 win talent on offense, they certainly do not on defense. If Narduzzi can coax 10 wins out of this team next year, Pitt should immediately double his salary and erect a statue. Just beat Youngstown St. and Akron first, and then we’ll see from there!
Here’s hoping Pitt maintains positive ties with Joe Rudolph, too.
Merry Christmas.
H2P!
Up and coming head coaches like Narduzzi choose programs like Pitt as a stepping stone. They’re getting their tickets punched in the “head coaches’ club,” but they’re really shopping for their next program while they’re here.
It would be nice to see someone less transitional, looking to build on their success at Pitt for the long haul.
Who is Wilson (RB) you are referring to that could convert to LB?
Also, Dr Tom – Spartan Tailgate is hearing that Narduzzi plans to serve as Michigan State’s defensive coordinator against Baylor in the Cotton Bowl on New Years Day.
Not the start we hoped for, but I’m still pumped up for the change – no more Pederson & House. Chryst leaving was a must to make this all happen – I wish X HCPC well. I’ll be routing for Wisconsin unless we lose some of our 2015 recruits/prospects to them…
HTP!
Comment by pitt 1972 12.25.14 @ 11:04 pm
1972 – you’re modifying a bit. I did not say don’t expect 8-9 wins, I said don’t expect 10. Eight wins may be achievable. Ten would be a significant accomplishment to say the least. I expect (hope) Narduzzi will ultimately be a better HC than PC. But he will still be a first year coach in 2015. And Pitt is still losing it top tacklers from an already weak defense.
My sense of this is that the days of 6 and 6 seasons against feeble opposition are over. It remains to be seen if we can get to 10 or 11 wins a year but this guy isn’t comming here to drag us through the mud of mediocrity that Chryst did. I would bet my nuggets that he will attract some quality assistants, recruit like crazy, communicate well with the media, and win way more games. How much bigger of a splash can we expect for a program that hasn’t been relevent to top 20 football for almost 4 decades?
If it is the ‘splash’ thing you are looking at it one way but there is another POV. PITT looked at guys who were free agents or ass’t coaches and pretty much had a deadline of around Jan 1st so a new HC can try to firm up the recruiting class before LOI Day in Feb. It sounds like you believe PITT ‘had’ to act on Narduzzi because he’s such a great hire but at the same time it could be thought that he was the only guy left standing out of a very short list of candidates in PITT’s price range.
Which BTW isn’t going to be unlimited as we just saw. I think Narduzzi will get right around the $1.6M or so, maybe a bit more, Chryst was getting and that’s about a $700+K annual raise. We all think the purse strings are going to magically open really wide just because a new Chancellor fired SP and they probably will a bit but the BoT also signs off on big money issues and it could well have been that there was an acceptable salary limit PITT had to work inside.
Notice that PITT didn’t go after any really successful and established HCs at the bigger B5 programs that would have cost more money than we’ll pay Narduzzi. Highly coveted and high profile successful HCs are like mercenaries – they go wherever the money is and PITT didn’t get, or even really try to get, those more expensive top shelf “splash” guys. If PITT was really serious about hiring the best guy possible their short list would have been guys they could entice away with the offer of big money and that didn’t happen.
All that said I wouldn’t have expected PITT to do that and personally like the financial approach PITT took and the guy they hired, it may be a great ROI move for us. But if anyone thinks Narduzzi is the ‘best’ coach money could buy at this point in time they are mistaken – he’s the best coach PITT’s budget could buy in their price range. It all depends on what one’s definition of ‘splash’ is I suppose.
Again, I think the hire is fine and I’m excited to see what happens, but I also think there are more similarities to what we did three years ago than not. I think PITT fans have short memories when it comes to stuff like this.
link to mlive.com
We are almost dead at the halfway point at # 59… guys, Central Florida pays almost $200K more than we did. Iowa State, Illinois, Maryland, Purdue, Utah, Kentucky, Kansas & Kansas St…. etc. Those schools opened up their checkbooks and got some name people.
I really don’t expect PITT to pay a whole lot more than Chryst got. Maybe if PITT is super generous they go to the $2.2M mark but if they were willing to do that, which I doubt, we should have shopped more.
I’m a wait and see guy so I’ll figure out if Narduzzi is right for the job and the salary when things start moving. Adding quality defensive recruits to the 2015 class would be a nice start.
No one from Pitt was ever actually quoted as saying “go big” or “splash.”
So I shouldn’t have put either in direct quotation marks.
There was also nothing anywhere except footballscoop’s one report and Rich Walsh running with it on KDKA and his twitter to say that they were going after an established P5 HC.
Here’s a lecture for you, thanks for the unnecessary one on how media “quotes” and paraphrases take on a life of their own:
You don’t say “same old Pitt” when you support something Pitt does. That expression has a strong and well-known meaning in Pitt fandom, and you don’t use it to describe a move by Pitt you agree with.
We PITT fans were just as excited getting Chryst onboard back then as we are getting Narduzzi now – we are assuming the same things also. Mainly that we’ll automatically get better in the HC’s expertise area. That really didn’t happen for two season under Chryst so lets hope it gets better quicker under the new guy.
The player is Oadree Olson, RB (RS)
HIGH SCHOOL: The top running back prospect in the state of New York according to Rivals and 247Sports…rated a consensus Top 5 overall prospect in New York by the major scouting services…two-time New York State Sportswriters Association (NYSSWA) Class AA All-State selection…finished as the all-time career rushing leader at Canisius with 4,147 yards, a total that ranked third in Monsignor Martin Association (MMA) history…scored 57 career touchdowns…rushed for 1,465 yards and scored 22 touchdowns as a senior…in the MMA championship game played in Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson Stadium, Ollison closed his high school career by rushing for 240 yards and five touchdowns on 20 carries (12.0 avg.) to lead Canisius to a 41-7 victory over rival St. Joe’s…as a junior, rushed for 1,876 yards and scored 26 TDs…led Canisius to a 20-2 record (.909) his final two seasons, including back-to-back MMA championships…played under Coach Rich Robbins.
Good size for LB.
link to pittsburghpanthers.com
and he was as good at RB as Chris James in the fall camp, but we do have RBs for ’15. Conner might leave after this season though so if he does looking ahead to ’16 we’ll not have Bennett or Poteat any longer and the remaining RBs will be: SR Ibrahim, JR Briggs, JR James and JR Ollison.
Take away Ollison and we have on two established RBs ready to go – or three if Briggs gets some work this season.
BTW – here is a good article about the younger players going into this last season…
You mentioned it, as have others, but I think overall it’s under-emphasized how much the AD firing, and the timing thereof, affected this process.
I know it had to be done, and I’m very glad it was, but the timing sucked. Leaving that gaping hole at AD undoubtedly affected the way Pitt went about this search.
It may have even precluded a real “splash” hire. Big-time, experienced head coaches may have said “screw that” to walking into such an unknown environment, not knowing how a yet-to-be-named AD would affect their program.
Actually, I’m grateful that Narduzzi chose to look past that little wrinkle and take the job anyway. He’s just about the best we could have hoped for, and let’s hope he knocks it out of the park.