Pitt Has a Legitimate Quarterback in Nate Yarnell

Nate Yarnell wasn’t perfect against Boston College or Duke, and he only won one of his two starts this season, but it’s clear that Pitt has something in its young quarterback.

Is that enough to stop Pitt from scouring the transfer portal for a transfer quarterback for the third straight season? I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s even officially beaten Christian Veilleux out yet — although, his play is certainly encouraging. I do know that Yarnell at the very least deserves the chance to compete for the starting spot next season.

Pitt, under no circumstances, should bring in a transfer quarterback and promise him the starting spot.

Pat Narduzzi — at the very least — is looking at Yarnell as the potential starter of the future as his two game cameo to end the 2023 season.

“No question about it,” Narduzzi said Saturday after the loss. “He’s a guy who can win a lot of football games for us. He’s smart, takes coaching, he’s tough and he made some good plays out there and made his mistakes, too. So, we have a lot of faith in him.”

Yarnell completed 25-of-35 pass attempts (71.4%) for 265 yards with two touchdowns and an interception against Duke. It was another strong performance, one in which he stood in the pocket and progressed through his reads to spray passes all over the fields and used his mobility to make plays off-platform.

He probably should’ve just gotten rid of the ball on the series before Caleb Junko’s 15-punt from the end zone resulted in a Duke touchdown, and even though he was credited with an interception, it was a wonky play. Still. Room for improvement, of course.

“I think we had a receiver run into an official and kind of messed things up at the end there,” Narduzzi said. “But we took four sacks, and we’ll look into that to see what he did. He protected the ball for the most part, and he threw one in the end zone, and again, missed opportunities down there. So, we’ll look at that and see, but I thought Nate played well. I like what I see out of him. And he can get better. Third start ever, and I think he’s just going to keep getting better.”

Pittsburgh Panthers quarterback Nate Yarnell (19) November 16, 2023 David Hague/PSN

Yarnell, to his credit, said that he never should’ve thrown the ball that was intended for Kenny Johnson — who was impeded by the official and never had a chance to make a play on the football. Yarnell took the blame, said it should’ve been a different read and that was that.

It was well-handled, and well-responded to, by a quarterback making just his third career start against a pretty solid Duke defense. 19 points per game isn’t going to cut it going forward. 24 points isn’t either. But in two starts (and clean-up duty in two more games), he’s completed 41-of-62 pass attempts (66.1%) for 595 yards with four touchdowns and an interception — and a rushing touchdown.

In just the two starts, he’s completed 36-of-54 pass attempts (66.7%) for 472 yards with four touchdowns (one rushing) and one interception. That’ll work. That’s a massive improvement.

Yarnell isn’t worried about what the future may hold when it comes to whether or not he’s earned the starting gig at this point. That’s up to the coaching staff, he said, but he is going to continue to work to be the best quarterback and leader he can be for this football team. Pitt means a lot to Yarnell.

“They gave me an opportunity to play Power Five football,” Yarnell said Saturday after the loss. “I played six games in high school, I played at Lake Travis, but I didn’t have a ton of tape. I knew that I was a really good quarterback and coach Narduzzi went off the six games and gave me an opportunity, and I’ll be forever grateful for that.”

Yarnell, Veilleux and Ty Dieffenbach are slated to return to Pitt next season, with Phil Jurkovec exhausting his eligibility and three-star Julian Dugger arriving. It remains to be seen what will happen when it comes to the transfer portal, both incoming and outgoing, but Yarnell sees how Pitt has established a culture built around family. It’s his job as the quarterback, he said, to build up on that cutlture even further.

“Just getting the opportunity to play for Pitt, I couldn’t be more grateful stepping on that field,” Yarnell said. “I was extremely disappointed that we lost today, I just wanna win super bad for Pitt, and I just couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity.”

He said there’s a lot to be looked at, obviously, but he’s going to attack the film with his coaches and teammates and prepare to be the best Pitt quarterback he can be. Yarnell isn’t guaranteed to be the starter going forward, but he’s going to continue to prepare for it the best he’s able.

It remains to be seen how Yarnell will continue to develop, but he was clearly the best quarterback at Pitt this season. Now it’s up to the Pitt coaching staff, whoever that may include, to continue that development.