It hasn’t been a good year for offensive coordinators in Pittsburgh this season — or in Pennsylvania as a whole.
Penn State fired offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich with a few games left in the season, the Pittsburgh Steelers fired offensive coordinator Matt Canada with seven games left in the season — as the team sits in the seventh and final playoff spot in the AFC.
Pitt hasn’t — and won’t — made any coaching changes in-season, but the season is a few days from coming to an end — right around 3:30ish on Saturday afternoon. And there’s an expectation that Pat Narduzzi will make some changes to the offensive staff.
Pitt plays Saturday afternoon in Durham, N.C. and will be back in Pittsburgh sometime Saturday night. The focus will shift immediately to recruiting for the Pitt staff, but it seems likely that Pitt will have some new faces on the coaching staff when Signing Day rolls around in just under a month.
“First thing we’ll get into is recruiting, so we’re going to hit the road,” Pat Narduzzi said Monday at his weekly press conference. “Postseason evaluation, little by little we’ll get to that, but the first thing is the Signing Day is up in December, and we’ll work towards that. But as coaches, we’re evaluating every day, and that never stops.”
Where does that leave evaluating the coaching staff? The transfer portal opens for non-graduates on Dec. 4, National Signing Day for the class of 2024 is on Dec. 20 and Pitt would do well to have sorted out whatever it decides to do before the portal officially opens.
When it comes to actually looking at the likes of Frank Cignetti Jr., Dave Borbely, Andre Powell, Tim Salem and Tiquan Underwood, and really how every coach on the staff performed this season, Narduzzi is taking a “What have you done for me lately?” approach.
“Well, I think you’re always looking at the body, but you’re looking at the present,” Narduzzi said. “To me, the present is the best indicator, so you’ve got to look at what we did right now, and I think — again, what you did with what you have. I think that’s always what you look at.”
It’s been a tough season. Pitt is going to finish either 3-9 or 4-8, and it will be by far the worst season of the Narduzzi era in Pittsburgh. But there’s one area that has held back the team more than any other.
Pitt is 112th in points per game (20.3) and 111th in total offense (318.8) in college football, and both of those stats are up after the best offensive output in weeks. The passing offense is a disaster, with a handful of quarterbacks trying to run the offense, and the run game is non-existent — or it was before Rodney Hammond Jr. finally exploded against Boston College.
“We obviously as coaches have to put them in a better position to make plays,” Narduzzi said after an embarrassing loss to Syracuse in New York City. “We didn’t put them in a position to make plays.”
The Pitt coaching staff has certainly not put its players in the best positions for success this season, and that sustained ineptitude will result in changes. It remains to be seen just how sweeping those changes will be — or when exactly those changes will occur — but the offseason will not wait for Pitt to take it slowly. And it’s not just coaching that will be evaluated either.
The transfer portal opens quickly, and Pitt will need to have some tough conversations with its players. For as much as the Panthers will dip into the portal to supplement and improve the roster, retention will be important, too. And it won’t wait.
“First thing we do is Monday through Thursday, we’ll sit down with every player on our team,” Narduzzi said. “I’m not sure I’ll sit down with every one of them. I’ll sit down with most of them, as many as I can, but our coaches will sit down by position with each one of their players, and again, it’s a good time for player evaluation to find out where they are, what they’re thinking, and what we can do better.”
A win Saturday won’t alleviate any concerns brought on by a poor season, but it’s all that Pitt can do at this point in the season. The season was a failure, by all preseason expectations, but there’s pride on the line.
“I think the end of the game, end of the season with a win, finishing with two wins certainly — we certainly don’t have the record or set the standard of what we want to do, but it’s how you finish,” Narduzzi said. “It’s not really how you start or how you were midway through, but I think how you finish I think is important. That’s how we want to finish.”
It will be a very busy offseason for Pitt, across all phases, and it will start immediately upon the conclusion of the Duke game. It will be Narduzzi’s most important offseason yet.
To say this is the most important off-season of Narduzzi’s tenure is the understatement of the century.
Narduzzzzzzzi
He needs to watch the Pitt’s game tape’s for this season before he moves forward on coaches performances 😂😂😂😂😂😂👅
Narduzzi should have several sit downs with Mark Whipple and just listen to him about offensive football. Then ask some ????? . Then maybe he can smarten up enough , he won’t hire any more guys like the one he has now.
This administration got to be the most incompetent individuals in college football to think there we be change keeping Nardazzi what a sad program. This program lacks discipline it’s so embarrassing. And unfortunately for Pitt that starts at the top. And to say the problem was just on offense is delusional. This delusion and politics will only continue to hurt this program.