Pat’s Points: Pitt Looking to Bounce Back and Press Forward

It’s no secret that Pitt isn’t happy coming off back-to-back losses to open the season (because Wofford doesn’t really count at this point except for a win in the standings).

It’s been a dreadful start to the season for Pitt, with a bad loss to Cincinnati and an even worse loss to West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl, and Narduzzi does recognize that if nothing else.

“Again, tough Saturday night again,” Narduzzi said Monday at his weekly press conference. “We played two good football teams the last two weekends. Didn’t come out with a victory. Didn’t play as good as we need to. Didn’t play as clean as we need to.

So, with conference play now on the doorstep, what happens next?

Pittsburgh Panthers tight end Gavin Bartholomew (86) September 9, 2023 David Hague/PSN

Keep Pressing Forward 

Pitt is one-fourth of the way through its 2023 season, sitting at 1-2 with No. 17 North Carolina kickoff ACC play this weekend, and Pat Narduzzi feels like it’s still early.

When it comes to the numerous problems that have plagued the offense this season, whether that’s quarterback play, pass protection, drops, play-calling, whatever, it’s about pressing forward.

“Hey, life is not perfect,” Narduzzi said. “We’ve all got issues on the outside and on the inside. You’ve got family issues — it ain’t perfect. Nothing is going to be perfect. Everybody would like to have a perfect world. It’s not perfect. That’s why they call us coaches and we’ve got to go fix it and try to make it as perfect as we can, and it’s never going to be perfect.

You know, it’s never going to be, but we’ve just got to make things as — we’ve got to make things better, period, and that’s our job as coaches, and it starts with me and the offensive coordinator and every assistant coach on that staff, making things easier — you’ve got to throw completions, make plays.”

Pitt can certainly press forward, but it cannot just run back what it has been doing. Because what it has been doing, at least offensively, hasn’t been nearly enough to beat teams like Cincinnati and West Virginia.

Narduzzi was spirited in practice Tuesday, getting very loud and very involved in drills designed to make the quarterbacks throw under duress. He’s pressing — running, in this case — forward.

Pittsburgh Panthers quarterback Phil Jurkovec (5) September 9, 2023 David Hague/PSN

Time for a BounceBack

Pitt hasn’t been under .500 since a 45-3 loss to Notre Dame in October of 2020, but the loss to WVU has Pitt facing a hole.

At 1-2, with North Carolina coming to town this weekend, there isn’t much room for error. And UNC is a very tough opponent to bounce back against, too. But that’s not an excuse in the world of college football.

“You know, nothing is easy,” Narduzzi said. “I think we do a good job of, first of all, not throwing guys under the bus and saying it’s all your fault. I think that’s the first thing because I think once you start pointing fingers, fingers get pointed, then you’ve got major issues, and that’s when you lose your locker room, you lose your faith and belief and trust in what’s going on.”

There have been a lot of issues across the offensive side of the football, and Narduzzi has told anyone who will listen that Phil Jurkovec isn’t the only problem on offense. He isn’t (but he is the main one). But Narduzzi isn’t going to abandon the principles he uses to guide his team. He’s going to double down.

“We talk about steps to a championship, how do we win a championship, and there’s certain steps we talk about,” Narduzzi said. “One of the key ones in there is to never lose faith in what you’re doing. Believe in the system and stick to your fundamentals and what we do as a program.

“You don’t change and go, well, we’ve got to stop doing that. You don’t bail and change a defense when the defense is not going good. You stick with what you do, and it will get better. That’s what you do.”

The road doesn’t get any easier ahead. If Pitt is able to split two games against UNC and Virginia Tech, it will enter the bye week at 2-3. And Louisville and Wake Forest ease Pitt into matchups against No. 9 Notre Dame, No. 4 Florida State and No. 18 Duke over the last five weeks.

Pittsburgh Panthers linebacker Shayne Simon (32) September 9, 2023 David Hague/PSN

Where is the Pass Rush? 

Pitt has just nine sacks through three games this season. And while that isn’t bad per se, it’s well off the usual pace for Pitt defensive lines.

Narduzzi said that can chalked up a bit to not having much offensive support, not having the chance to tee off on opposing offenses that are in obvious passing situations, and a bit to the defense just not getting a ton of production to this point.

“Obviously if it’s a tight game, and forget this game, but just being in tight games, if they’re running the ball and having success — we always talk about one-dimensional,” Narduzzi said. “The last two weeks we’ve not made a team one-dimensional. I guess you could say they were one-dimensional. But you wish we would have smothered them, and they had 90 yards rushing in a perfect world, and they would have had to throw it.

“But we didn’t — we let them just kind of get to those 4th-and-1 situations and the quarterback sneaks and stuff.”

But Narduzzi also pointed to the situation against WVU specifically. Pitt had two sacks, one each from Shayne Simon and Solomon DeShields (two linebackers), but WVU only dropped back 15 times — with 11 actual pass attempts.

“Ten? So, that’s 20% sacks,” Narduzzi said. “So, 20% of the time they’re sacking the quarterback. That’s not terrible. But if they’re two-dimensional, then you’ve got problems. If you make a team one-dimensional — how many times did you see us go out in a nickel on a third down and long? You couldn’t.

“You see more and more people going for it on fourth down, which means a third and medium, third and long becomes a run down because they know they’ve got an extra down wherever they are on the field.

“We call that sequencing downs, and then it becomes another — now where third-and-seven used to be 100 percent pass or 90 percent pass, now it’s 50/50, and nobody wants to stick another DB out there to stop the run. So, you kind of are stuck a little bit and you’re not into some great pass rush defenses.”

Narduzzi said those are all things that Pitt will have to worry about this weekend because North Carolina does the exact same thing. Pitt did a decent job containing UNC quarterback Drake Maye last season in the first half, but once Calijah Kancey left the game and the pass rush died off, Maye took over.

That cannot happen again if Pitt wants to send the Tar Heels home with a loss Saturday night.