Pitt Football
’I’m Not Worried:’ Pat Narduzzi Never Considered Cancelling Spring Game Despite Tampering Threats
College football coaches from around the country, including Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi, have been facing unique challenges since the dawn of the transfer portal and NIL, including the decision to continue spring games.
More and more coaches have cut the cord on springs games, for a variety of reasons, but a rising concern stems from outside programs potentially viewing spring games and then in turn targeting top players during the spring portal window with NIL money as an additional factor.
Texas, USC, Ohio State and N.C. State have all called off theirs spring game, along with Nebraska with head coach Matt Rhule serving as a driver in the new thinking surrounding spring games. Rhule cited other programs offering players in the spring portal sparking the decision to cancel the Cornhuskers’ spring game.
“I dealt with a lot of people offering our players a lot of opportunities after that,” Rhule said in late January. ” To go out and bring in a bunch of players, and then showcase them for all the other schools to watch, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The word ‘tampering’ doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just absolute, free, open, common market. I don’t necessarily want to open up to the outside world. I don’t want these guys all being able to watch our guys and say, ‘Wow, he looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.’
Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi during spring practice. March 11, 2025 / Ed Thompson. PSN
When the question was raised on Thursday following spring practice, Narduzzi said cancelling Pitt’s spring game was never a thought.
“No, we’re not doing that,” Narduzzi on if he considered cancelling to spring game. “It’s college football, it’s an opportunity for our guys to go out and play in front of people. To me, that’s a whole other opportunity to go show what you have. We’re going to have a spring game.
“I think it’s going to be fun. Our guys have fun. We do the draft. We’ll do the draft, split it up and let our guys go play. We have a lot of guys we want to see for that 15th practice. To me, that 15th day to be able to go out and have fun, play a real game. They’re having fun today and they had fun Tuesday. They’ll have fun hopefully by practice 10 and 11. By practice 12 and 13, they’re ready for a game. To have another practice, they’d be disappointed, too.”
Pitt is scheduled to host its 2025 spring game on Saturday, April 12 at 1 p.m. at Acrisure Stadium.
Despite what Rhule and other coaches are looking to avoid when it comes to other college teams tracking their spring games, Narduzzi is not phased by it.
“I’m not worried about the portal and guys getting recruited and all that,” Narduzzi said. “They know who our guys are. They know who they are. They’re going to have video. They got PFF.”
Following Pitt’s spring game in 2024, several players entered the portal during the spring game, including defensive end Dayon Hayes (Colorado), linebacker Solomon DeShields, quarterback Christian Veilleux, defensive end Antonio Camon and a few others.
Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi during the 2024 spring game. April 13, 2024 / David Hague. PSN.
Some of those decisions came due to lack of playing time, but there are always concerns about potential tampering, something that Narduzzi is all too familiar with after he believed USC tampered with the transfer recruitment of star receiver and Biletnikoff Award winner Jordan Addison in 2022.
Even a few years into the NIL era and transfer portal, Narduzzi still says there is nothing that can be done about tampering.
“Absolutely nothing. It’s embarrassing,” he voiced. “My fear is with all the booster and NIL involvement that we have throughout the country, it took a long time to get that kind of under control. I’d say there’s still some teams that were still finding ways to get kids paid, but at least they had to hide. Maybe some of these coaches around the country were nervous about it being done. They let the cat out of the bag now and now they got to get it back eventually, hopefully. I don’t know where that’ll go. The great thing is with revenue sharing and the house settlement on April 7, that’ll hopefully maybe manage some things. It’ll take some time to get things done.”
April 7 marks an important date for the House v. NCAA ruling. If the settlement is approved, there will be roughly $2.75 billion in damages paid to thousands of college athletes over 10 years. Also, athletic departments will be allowed the share up to $20.5 million in revenue with athletes.
