PITT’S 2015 SEASON-OPENING GAME WITH YSU TO KICK OFF AT 1 P.M.
The Panthers are already slated for two ESPN national telecasts.

PITTSBURGH—Pat Narduzzi will make his Pitt head coaching debut when the Panthers host Youngstown State on Sept. 5 at 1 p.m.

The opening kickoff time was announced by the Pitt Athletic Department today. The 2015 season marks the 126^th in school history.

Narduzzi has multiple ties to YSU and the city of Youngstown. His father, the late Bill Narduzzi, was the Penguins’ head coach from 1975-85 and was inducted into the YSU Athletics Hall of Fame.

Pat was an all-state performer at Youngstown’s Ursuline High School, leading the Irish to the Steel Valley championship and Ohio state playoffs as a senior in 1984. He was a starting linebacker under his father as a freshman at Youngstown State in 1985 before transferring to Rhode Island, where he was a three-year starter for the Rams from 1987-89.

Youngstown State will also have a new coach on the sideline when it visits Heinz Field. Bo Pelini, who spent the past seven years as head coach at Nebraska, was named head coach of the Penguins in December.

In addition to the season-opening start time, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced that Pitt’s Oct. 29 home game with North Carolina will be an ESPN Thursday night national telecast and kick off at 7 p.m. The Panthers’ Nov. 27 game with Miami at Heinz Field has been earmarked for either an ABC or ESPN telecast. The kickoff time for the game with the Hurricanes is TBA.

Narduzzi enters his first season at Pitt with 17 returning starters at his disposal, including All-America running back James Conner, the reigning ACC Player of the Year, and dynamic wide receiver Tyler Boyd.

Season tickets and mini-plans for the 2015 Pitt football season are now on sale. Fans have a new seating option at Heinz Field this fall with the debut of the South Plaza Champions Club. For more information, call the Panthers Ticket Office at (800) 643-PITT (7488) or log on to PittsburghPanthers.com.

The Panthers’ complete 2015 schedule with announced television coverage and kickoff times:

PITT ANNOUNCES THREE ROSTER ADDITIONS FOR 2015

 PITTSBURGH—Pitt head football coach Pat Narduzzi officially announced the addition of three players to the Panthers’ 2015 roster. They include wide receiver Rafael Araujo-Lopes (Winter Park, Fla./Winter Park H.S./Reedley [Calif.] College), defensive end Dewayne Hendrix(O’Fallon, Ill./O’Fallon Township H.S./Tennessee) and defensive tackle Mark Scarpinato (Milwaukee, Wis./Marquette University H.S./Michigan State).

Araujo-Lopes and Scarpinato will be eligible to play immediately. As a transfer from Tennessee, Hendrix will have to sit out this season under NCAA guidelines.

In his lone season at Reedley, Araujo-Lopes was a junior college All-American after compiling 74 receptions for 1,229 yards (16.6 avg.) and 17 touchdowns in 10 games. Playing at Winter Park High, a Florida 8A (largest classification) school, he rushed for 1,015 yards and scored 21 total touchdowns as a senior. Araujo-Lopes will join Pitt with sophomore eligibility.

“Rafael is a very exciting player who has the ability to make an impact in both the pass and run games,” Narduzzi said. “He has great hands and will add depth and competition to our wide receiver position immediately.”

Hendrix played in seven games as a freshman at Tennessee. He was a coveted high school prospect at O’Fallon Township, receiving more than 20 scholarship offers. An All-Illinois defensive lineman as a senior, Hendrix was rated the nation’s No. 5 strong-side defensive end and No. 78 overall prospect by Rivals. He will have three seasons of eligibility at Pitt after sitting out this season.

“Dewayne is an explosive player with big-play capability,” Narduzzi said. “We are looking to strengthen our numbers and production at defensive end and Dewayne is a key addition in that regard. In addition to his athleticism, he will also bring great maturity to the position.”

Scarpinato played three seasons at Michigan State (2011-13), where he first met Narduzzi, who was then the Spartans’ defensive coordinator. In 2013 he played in all 14 games, helping the Spartans to the Big Ten title and a 24-20 victory over Stanford in the Rose Bowl.

Scarpinato graduated from Michigan State in three years and then pursued his aspirations to be a doctor by enrolling at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2014. Following a one-year absence from football, he will join the Panthers as a graduate transfer and have one season of eligibility remaining.

“I obviously know Mark very well from our time together at Michigan State,” Narduzzi said. “He is a very athletic player for a defensive tackle. Mark has great knowledge of the game. He has the mental and physical abilities to play both tackle and end for us.”

For the latest Pitt football news, follow @GoPittFootball on Twitter and Instagram.  Note: With this new staff you may want to get on Twitter if you aren’t already – that is how they are going to call plays into Voytik from the sideline.

Also – as wbb pointed out in his comments in a different article here is the PITT 2015 Post-Spring two deep list.  There are a few eye openers so far are SR Ejuan Price starting ahead of JR Shakir Soto at DE;  rsFR Quintin Wirginis behind JR Galambos at MLB; SR transfer Jameel Poteat as the #2 SLB behind Grigsby and SO Jeremiah Taleni behind Render at DT.

I love this Wirginis kid since I saw him in the fall camp last season.  He’s a rocket to the ball and a hard tackler. I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts sometime this season.  I like Taleni also mainly because I know what the caliber of football played in Hawai’i is  is (very good) and I suspect this kid may turn out to be an underrated player.

But let’s remember that Fall Camp is where the rubber meets the road as far as competition goes and there will be some changes to this list. I know some PITT fans are projecting Jordan Whitehead to step into a starting role. It is a big jump from HS to starting in D1 college ball but kids do it well sometimes.  Although I suspect that the staff will put him in the two-deep rotation so he can get all the serious practice snaps in camp to get him ready to play more when the season gets underway.  We’ll keep an eye on that and discuss all the position competitions father down the road in July.

Finally – we saw there was a poll regarding two pretty silly PITT T-Shirts put out by the Media Dept a few days ago but this new shirt for the students (and voted in by the students as well) was unveiled on April 29th.  Nobody told me.