PITTSBURGH — Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi is close to signing a seven-year contract extension, according to a report by Pete Thamel of Yahoo! Sports.
Thamel reports that Narduzzi is “working toward” a seven-year contract with a raise and an increase in his salary pool.
Pittsburgh Sports Now has not been able to independently confirm the Yahoo! report. A Pitt spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Pitt just finished a 5-7 season, its worst in three years under Narduzzi. He went 8-5 in each of his first two seasons as head coach of the Panthers.
Pittsburgh Sports Now had previously reported that Narduzzi and athletic director Heather Lyke were not seeing eye-to-eye on several topics, among them pay increases for his assistant coaches.
Are Narduzzi, Lyke Seeing Eye-to-Eye?
Pitt lost offensive coordinators to higher-profile jobs in consecutive off-seasons, with Jim Chaney going to Georgia after 2015 and Matt Canada becoming one of the nation’s highest-paid assistants at LSU after the 2016 season.
Like all Division I schools, Pitt will be permitted to hire a 10th assistant coach this January for the first time.
Lyke is in her first year with Pitt after coming over from Eastern Michigan to replace Scott Barnes. She did not hire Narduzzi, but he was part of the university task force that chose her as athletic director and they share Northeast Ohio roots.
Narduzzi last signed a two-year contract extension in 2015 that was scheduled to keep him at Pitt through 2021. Narduzzi earned $1.83 million in salary in 2016 according to USA Today.
UPDATE 8:13 p.m: When reached, a Pitt spokesperson declined to comment on the report.
