Well, it has been nine months since Paul Chryst left for northern pastures and Pitt hired Pat Narduzzi in his place and this may be a good time to review what has happened since then.

We’ve seen some big changes surrounding the Pitt football program as Narduzzi hired a new staff and Pitt hired a new Athletic Director who came with a fatter checkbook.  We’ve gone back to the ‘Script on the helmets and our season ticket sales and fundraising numbers have both gone up.  You have to attribute those last items to Narduzzi and the energy he’s brought to the program so far.

With the spring and fall camps giving us a look at the new staff and new players in action and with three games under his belt this is a good time to take a hard look both backward and forward to see if Narduzzi has met his challenges and our expectations in his new position.  Of course there are nine more games to be played so the football itself is still ongoing but let’s take a 360 degree look at Narduzzi’s tenure so far anyway.

The following is how I think Narduzzi has handled his new role and responsibilities after the quarter of the season has passed.  Please keep in mind that I have had a strong ‘wait and see’ attitude and issued a 6 -6 prediction for the regular season before the season started.  Here is how I asses his body of work to this point.

To recap the season so far; Pitt sits at 2-1 just as almost everyone thought we’d would, even to the point of us losing to Iowa as most thought we would.  Nearly everyone felt that we’d beat both YSU and Akron even if they weren’t ‘lock to win’ games based on their beating us once each in the not so distant past. I have no problem with a 2-1 record as any winning record for Pitt is a good thing no matter who we beat.  I felt we played well enough to win the away game at Iowa so that is a positive point also.

Narduzzi’s done well getting the kids and his staff focused and ready to play out those games and don’t see that changing in the near future. The players seem to like the new staff and seem excited about the direction the program is heading. Now, we have heard that before so a grain of salt at the ready may be a good thing to have when thinking about that.

Personnel and Administrative Issues:

Narduzzi is making some mistakes because this is his first rodeo as a head coach and that will lead to some missteps as can be expected.  I’ve had the feeling from the time of his hire through both pre-season camps that a lot of fans tended to overlook his lack of experience being the lead dog and thought he’d naturally and successfully move into his new job on the lone strength of his being a great DC.  That rarely happens in a rookie HC situation and regardless of wins and losses at the end of the season the real measure of how a new HC has done is how the football program as a whole is progressing in his first year and that may be more important than how the football team itself has fared.

That will be the case when we review what Narduzzi accomplished in the arena after the last game is finished this season regardless of his W-L record, at least in my mind.  Wins are great and important and we want a lot of them but with any major changes the status and strength of the organization itself is paramount.

There is a vast difference in responsibilities Narduzzi has to handle between being a full-time HC as opposed to being a coordinator.  He found this out first hand earlier in the year when he was hit with the news that two of his starting players had been arrested and were awaiting court dates. Both players, Tyler Boys and Rori Blair, were charged with DUIs and the latter’s case included possession of a Schedule 1 controlled substance along with four other serious charges. That couldn’t have been easy for a man who, when something like this happened at MSU while he was there, didn’t have the eyes of the sporting world focused on him to see how he’d handle it because it was above his pay grade to do so.  Not any longer though.

It’s no secret that I think he has done the necessary actions in handling both those personnel situations so far with his levy of suspensions and other internal discipline.  Other Pitt football followers’ opinions differ on that count.  Regardless, he may have his new leadership duties be tested again depending on the outcome of Blair’s trial in the PA Court of Common Pleas that begins on Oct 9^th.

Thinking about this issue I can’t remember a time going back to Dave Wannstedt’s time where a Pitt player has faced serious criminal charges like this while he was still on the team.  I may be mistaken with that fact but Narduzzi’s handling of this upcoming trial and the disposition of the charges incurred may set a program precedent.  All around not an easy thing for a new HC to deal with especially when the subjects are two highly regarded players who hadn’t been in trouble before.

Football related decisions:

Take a look back at the Weekly Media Planner schedules we post every week.  Even with all the other demands on his time between games, and there are many, Narduzzi has to be available just about any time the media is present. During game week the HC has at least five instances where he has to drop what he’s doing and deal with the media and address issues external to the playing football. Are we seeing Chaney or Conklin on the big stage nearly as often like we do with Narduzzi? No, and that is a real drain on his time and energy.  The ‘CEO’ of the program has to handle a million different things that have nothing to do with his main weekly goal of winning a game… or more precisely, he has to ensure his staff has taken care of all of it so that he can concentrate on having the game preparations run smoothly.

A new HC also has to make decisions based on what he and his staff wants to make happen, not on what the fans or the media wants to see.  This is true for even experienced HCs arriving at a new job but when a rookie HC makes big and unpopular decisions it puts extra pressure on his shoulders.

One of the most important tasks that a new HC has to take on is looking forward one or two years and then deciding what is best for the team and program both now and in the future. That means sometimes a HC will play personnel, most often are younger kids, so that they are well versed in the new offensive and defensive systems and coaching approaches in the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th years of his contract.  There is a trade off when a HC does that and it may mean a loss or two more in his initial season.  This happens a lot more than we think it does.

That means extra and immediate pressure and criticism from the fans, boosters, alumni and the school’s administration; all who want to see immediate results.  Paul Chryst did this in a real sense when he got rid of a lot of players who he thought, for various reasons, wouldn’t help the team as much as his own new players would in the near future.  That didn’t work out as well as he expected on the field though.

All of these issues and more ‘routinely’ urgent situations popped up in front of Narduzzi’s face starting the day after he was hired by Pitt.  I have to say that he’s handled things well and aside from a few public utterances such as mentioning mistakes his players made in a game and his suspect “4^th down go-no go” call in the Iowa game he’s made much the same decisions that good and experienced HCs tend to make.

This brings us to his biggest challenge and the choice he made regarding the starting lineup for 2015. We know what has happened to this point with our QBs. After a close run competition in the fall camp both Narduzzi and Chaney used the first three games to try to figure out which QB, Chad Voytik of Nate Peterman would be the best player to advance the team through the rest of the schedule.

It was obvious that Voytik was given a shorter audition period than Peterman had once the season started.  That wasn’t the case in the fall camp however as they both got equal time as QB1 with the 1st string offense and playing against the 1st string defense.  Peterman played well, especially in the scrimmages, and that real-time production probably stuck in the coaches’ minds when the time came to rotate both QBs with the first team offense during the actual games. Narduzzi has said that “There were times we thought Nathan would pass him (meaning Voytik), but he didn’t,” when talking about the two kids’ play in camp.  Voytik got the green light to start in the opener because 1) He played well in camp, 2) he was the incumbent and 3) they wanted to see his demeanor and abilities out on the field for themselves.

Then Chaney and Narduzzi used those first three games to make sure Peterman could play in real time as well as he did in camp…as some QBs are better in practices than they are in real time.

It seemed as if the fact that Narduzzi did what said he do in letting the QBs play their way onto the field took fans by surprise.  Voytik had a pretty decent season last year and showed progress as the season went by so it is understandable that some felt he shouldn’t be benched for a transfer who never really excelled on the field at his old school.

But every new HC is going to change things up from the previous one.  Why is that hard for some to accept when we have seen it happen with every HC at Pitt over the last 12 years at least?  Harris had a big passing offense; DW put the brakes on incumbent QB Tyler Palko’s passing and went to a more run-heavy offense.  Then Graham came in with his high-octane offense obsession even though he didn’t have the QB to make it work.

The wheel spins around again and Chryst comes in and gets rid of a slew of players who won’t fit his system, goes back to the run heavy offense and tries to make Voytik a pocket QB. Then when Voytik can pass a bit better Chryst allows him to run more as the season goes on.

Now Narduzzi comes in and goes back to a more pro-style offense and he and Chaney use new personnel to make that happen.  That decision was made because last year’s team didn’t win enough games to make the new HC feel he had to ‘stick with what worked’ because the truth is that it didn’t work all that well.  Therefore a QB who was on a 7 loss team was expendable to the new staff.

However, the main point here isn’t if Voytik got shafted with shortened playing time as he may well have been, or if Peterman won the competition outright as that outcome could have been slanted toward him even before camp began.

The point is that Narduzzi came in and instead of being awed or intimidated by his first HC job he put the dice in the cup and shook out a major change to the team. I say team because it isn’t just the offense that will feel that change but Narduzzi sent a strong message to every single player on the roster that there are no ‘jobs for life’ at Pitt any longer.

As said above HCs do try to win in their 1^st season but they also are looking at least one season ahead to when their new staff, systems, plans, and players have been in place for a full season.  It was obvious that once we learned Peterman had two full years with Pitt after his transfer there was a good chance we’d see a QB change sooner or later to get Narduzzi’s first two seasons off to the start he wanted..

That certainly wasn’t an easy decision to make yet Narduzzi dove right into it with both eyes open. Agree with the change at QB or not we can’t say that Narduzzi hasn’t done the hard work and taken the chances to position Pitt football to be successful.  Time will tell, even week to week, whether some of his decisions pan out and help the team and program or not. But he took strong actions when he felt he needed to.

I find it exciting that Narduzzi came in and instead of just blabbering on about how ‘things are going to be different… no really, they are!’ (T. Graham, circa 2011) he is taking concrete steps to ensure that positive changes happen both on the playing field and off of it.  This alone makes me feel more comfortable about his hire and more optimistic that we will see a different Pitt football program making progress going forward.  Still thinking we’ll be 6-6 on the field but in better shape off of it.

NOTE: Here is a quick comparison of Pitt’s defense between last season and this one and through three games this is where we stand.  The numbers shown are the opponent’s…

In 2014 our opponents were Delaware, BC, and FIU.  This season they were YSU, Akron and Iowa.