Daily Notebook

Friday Pitt/WPIAL Notebook

Published

7 years ago

October 28, 2016

Mike Vukovcan

UPDATE (7:55 PM)-

Look what Narduzzi brought to the Clairton game !

This is outside Clairton at Jeannette. Lamont Wade see it??? pic.twitter.com/52FKJhUG7d

— Mike White (@mwhiteburgh) October 28, 2016

UPDATE (7:32 PM)-

**A day after a tough loss to Virginia Tech, Pat Narduzzi is on the recruiting trail and he’s watching the most important recruit in the Class of 2017.

Narduzzi is at Jeannette HS watching Clairton and Lamont Wade. It goes without saying, Wade would change the face of Pitt’s recruiting class and possibly their 2017 season.

UPDATE (12:03 PM)-

Can't wait 2 take MY MEN back 2 battle!
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but rising every time we fall.”~N. Mandela

— Pat Narduzzi (@CoachDuzzPittFB) October 28, 2016

UPDATE (11:07 AM)-

Syracuse was in this morning for top-50 2018 Mars High guard Robby Carmody, per source

— Corey Evans (@coreyevans_10) October 28, 2016

I’m going to start this off by re-stating something I wrote a month ago that was contested by plenty of people.

If Clairton’s Lamont Wade signs with Pitt, barring injury, he’d start at Pitt from DAY ONE. A lot of people responded to this by reminding me that Avonte Maddox was only a junior and that Pat Narduzzi would start him.

Let me repeat myself. If Lamont Wade comes to Pitt, he starts DAY ONE. End of story.

Lamont Wade visiting Pitt – Photo courtesy of Lamont Wade

**Speaking of cornerbacks, there’s no doubt that the Panther DB’s had their problems again last night but I’m going to defend them in regards to one thing.

I’m not a coach and am not going to pretend to be one. Me like a lot of people wonder why the cornerbacks never turn around to find the ball or very rarely out their arms up while the ball is in the air. I’ll let the coaches answer that because I’m sure there’s a reason and I’m not qualified to answer.

However, it doesn’t take an expert to realize and see that the refs last night were pathetic. The crew working the game was as bad of an officiating crew as I’ve witnessed in a very long time.

(Photo credit: David Hague)

One reasons the Pitt cornerbacks struggled was because the physical play that the refs allowed from the Virginia Tech wide receivers.

Time after time, the refs allowed the wideouts to get seperation from the cornerbacks by iniating serious contact. The cornerbacks are small to begin with and the refs allowed the gigantic Va Tech wideouts to push off, which made it virtually impossible to cover them.

(Photo credit: David Hague)

Let me be clear, I’m not one to blame refs and this isn’t a total excuse for the poor play in secondary but given the way the game was being called, Pitt’s secondary had very little chance.

**I watched game last night in the stands from section 134 and was directly behind the Pitt bench. I’ll say this, I’ve NEVER seen a coach that was more annoyed, took issue, and just generally pissed off with the refs than Pat Narduzzi was last night.

I lost track of the number of times that Narduzzi confronted a referee. After the first quarter, it seemed as though after every TV timeout, he’d go hunt down a ref to argue about something.

(Photo credit: David Hague)

He was clearly upset with calls that he didn’t feel were going both ways. He also was clearly upset with multiple 3rd down pass interference calls against his defense that extended drives and ultimately led to Va. Tech points. Strength coach Dave Andrews had to get between him and the ref following an offsides call that negated a Pitt interception.

I have no problem with Narduzzi doing this because he saw what plenty of people at Heinz Field saw which was a disgraceful job if officiating by college refs.