PITTSBURGH — Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke said on Thursday that she still has confidence in head football coach Pat Narduzzi, his players and staff, despite the team’s 2-3 start to the 2018 season.
“We’re five games in,” Lyke said. “We’ve got a lot of confidence in our players, our student-athletes, that are working over there, our coaching staff. I think we’ve lost two games to really strong programs. Then, we lost a game that was close at North Carolina. That was a tough one. But, you know, we’ve got a lot of season left to go and I’ve got a lot of confidence in our coaches and our student-athletes.”
Lyke intimated that she was aware of the negative response from Pitt’s fanbase, donors and alumni, but that she is glad that high expectations remain for her programs.
“We all have expectations that we want to win,” Lyke said. “People want to win and be as competitive as possible, even when you don’t win. … We want to work in an environment where there’s great expectations. I know our coaches are working as hard as they can to meet those expectations.”
GOING BACK TO GOLD
Lyke also acknowledged that the royal blue and athletic gold color scheme of the studio portends a greater change for the rest of the athletic department, which is widely anticipated to occur before the 2019-20 school year.
“We have been studying that, obviously, since I got here,” Lyke said. “The way the uniform process works, and our relationship with Nike is exceptional, but you order things so far in advance, so you have to plan it out.
“That will be something for us to talk in the near future about.”
