Developing a ‘unique’ day

Planning to draw fans to Heinz Field

Heather Lyke has some specific ideas in mind for putting Pitt football fans in the stands at Heinz Field. Themes for certain games, a better tailgating experience, even a James Conner bobblehead giveaway set for this season.

But most of all, she thinks there’s a very obvious reason attendance should be trending up: Because the Panthers are, too, under third-year coach Pat Narduzzi.

“Every person who absolutely adores him, loves him and loves the vision and direction of our program, come to the games,” Lyke implored Tuesday morning in an interview that touched on everything from football and basketball to facilities upgrades for Pitt’s other 16 sports.

Gimmicks have their place, and marquee matchups with Penn State, West Virginia or some of Pitt’s top ACC rivals inherently draw crowds, but Lyke sounds like an athletic director three months on the job with the utmost confidence in her most important employee.

Narduzzi has led Pitt to back-to-back 8-5 seasons with a bowl game in each of his first two years, including 2016 victories against Penn State and eventual national champion Clemson. And yet, average attendance in 2016 was 46,076, middle of the ACC pack despite 69,983 jamming in for the renewal of the Penn State rivalry.

Pitt hasn’t averaged more than 50,000 since 2010, and Lyke didn’t mince words with her assessment that a raucous game-day atmosphere trickles down to not only the players’ energy, but also the recruiting process.

“The biggest challenge in recruiting is that opportunity to have that true, awesome, incredible — the experience we had when Penn State was here, right?” said Lyke, who was athletic director at Eastern Michigan then. “Consistent support of the program in that regard is important.”

Lyke has yet to have a “formal” discussion with Nittany Lions athletic director Sandy Barbour about the future of that series, but said Pitt “would love to continue with any type of ongoing football games against Penn State if possible.”

While that resolution remains up in the air, one that’s not is where Pitt football will try to put its fans for the foreseeable future. Lyke quickly scuttled any possibility that she and her team are working toward an oncampus stadium for the Panthers, who have played at Heinz Field since Pitt Stadium was torn down in 1999 (excluding Three Rivers Stadium in 2000).

“I don’t see that as an initial priority right now from a facilities standpoint,” she said, adding that the concern has been brought to her attention, no different from her predecessors.

It’s the continuation of college football on the North Shore that has Lyke’s focus. She would prefer Pitt’s future schedules not include home-and-home series with schools not in the power-five conferences, though she didn’t take as hard a line on that as the man she succeeded — Scott Barnes. He was opposed to road games such as the one Pitt will play in 2018 at Central Florida of the American Athletic Conference.

Lyke also believes Football Championship Subdivision teams still have a place at Heinz Field, but only if it’s the season opener. Pitt has kicked off the year with an FCS opponent three seasons in a row and will do so again in a few months against Youngstown State.

Whether it’s Penn State, Florida State or Youngstown State, Lyke wants Pitt games to feel like a can’tmiss event.

“We’ve got to be creative and innovative in what we do … and do some things that are distinctly Pittsburgh,” Lyke said. “I don’t know if we’ll have it solved for this fall, but how do you distinguish Pitt football, and going to a Pitt football game, different from any other school in the country? What’s unique about it?”

While the athletic department attempts to figure that out, Narduzzi and his staff will keep plugging away on what matters most. That would be the product on the field and the results in the win-loss column. Lyke has dealt with both ends of the spectrum, spending many years at Ohio State, arguably the top program in Football Bowl Subdivision, and coming to Pitt from Eastern Michigan, arguably the worst when she arrived there.

The way she sees it, her new school is a lot closer to the top of the food chain than the bottom, and the resources are there to climb even higher.

“Coach Narduzzi’s vision and energy and what we’ve done the past two seasons has been extraordinary, but I don’t think it’s the ceiling at all,” she said. “I think we should have the opportunity to compete in the College Football Playoff. I mean, that’s what we all want to see, right? I don’t think we’re that far off.”

Neither is James Conner bobblehead night.