Ludwig: New Pitt Quarterback Eli Holstein is a Lottery Ticket

Pitt is in a somewhat precarious position after last season’s disaster.

Pat Narduzzi found himself in a bind, so much so that he went against his norm by bringing in a 30-year-old offensive coordinator to run his offense. He fired three offensive staffers on Friday, two of whom were on his original staff (the last two original staffers), and it’s all been necessary.

It’s been necessary to overcorrect the mistake made by the hiring of former offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr., which can now officially be looked upon as a failure. That decision, which came in the wake of the best season in four-plus decades, put Narduzzi in this bind. It failed. He cannot afford another failure.

Eli Holstein, by himself, will not make or break Narduzzi. But he’s a lottery ticket that comes without any sort of actual risk. If we’re looking at it from the gambling standpoint, he’s a risk-free bet that has the potential to hit big.

Is he the best quarterback of all time? Who knows. He hasn’t played a single snap of college football. Maybe he’s the worst quarterback of all time. He’s probably going to end up somewhere in the middle, but he has a lot of tools and the lofty pedigree to make the low-risk investment well worth it.

If he’s even just a decent quarterback, it will be a win. And with four seasons to grow under new offensive coordinator Kade Bell, basically an entire collegiate career, it’s almost as if Pitt landed a four-star quarterback who used a redshirt last season. He’s still the same quarterback who earned offers from just about every major program in the country on the way to top prospect status.

Holstein was rated as one of the top quarterbacks in the class of 2023. He flipped his commitment from Texas A&M to Alabama during his recruiting process, choosing the Tide over the likes of Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Miami, Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State, but he never played a down at Bama.

He served as a scout team quarterback during his lone season in Tuscaloosa, but even just working the scout team against the Bama offense was a valuable experience. And he’s not far removed from a standout prep career at Zachary High School in Louisiana.

Holstein was ultra-efficient in 2022 as a senior at Zachary, completing 159-of-244 pass attempts (65%) for 2,153 yards with 22 touchdowns and three interceptions — adding 64 carries for 505 yards (7.9 yards per attempt) and nine touchdowns.

And he was even better as a junior, throwing for 3,264 yards, rushing for 515 more and scoring 43 total touchdowns on the way to a perfect 15-0 season — capped by a Louisiana state title.

Holstein is still a work in progress, and his offseason development with Bell and eventual quarterback competition with Nate Yarnell and Christian Veilleux will be the story of the offseason.

Even if Holstein doesn’t earn the starting spot in Week 1 against Kent State next fall, and it’s not impossible that he will after spending an offseason learning the new system in Pittsburgh, he will have three seasons of eligibility remaining entering the 2025 season. The big, strong quarterback (who earned a 133 SPARQ score, which is a series of tests designed to measure an athlete’s athleticism) has the potential to be the quarterback of the present and the future.

Holstein is the perfect quarterback for Bell and the Pitt coaching staff to develop over the next couple of seasons. If he’s able to immediately emerge as the starting quarterback next season, that’s even better. But if it takes two or even three seasons to develop, Pitt would still have a multi-season starter at the most important position on the field.

And Pitt will be in a far less precarious situation if Holstein is able to develop into the quarterback many expected he would be when he committed to Alabama in 2022.

Now it comes down to just how quickly Holstein will be able to develop and learn the offense in Pittsburgh.