Camp Day 1 was all talk of discipline
Narduzzi was somewhat noncommittal.
“His status is status quo,” Narduzzi said after practice. “He’s got some things he’s taking care of, from a university standpoint, and he’ll be in and out basically this week and the next. Maybe the next.”
Asked later if Whitehead, who will miss the first three games of the season for “violation of team policy,” will be backin action Wednesday for practice No. 2 on the South Side, Narduzzi had no clear answer.
“I believe so, yeah,” he said. “I don’t know what his class schedule is, so I don’t know. I don’t know his schedule.”
Some who follow the program have wondered why Bookser, arrested in May for DUI and reckless driving among other charges in Oakland, is suspended just for the season opener against YoungstownState as opposed to the three games Whitehead and Wirginis will miss. Rori Blair, set to enter his senior season at defensive end, was kicked off the team entirely.
Narduzzi indicated that discussions about whom and how to discipline take place at the football headquarters behind closed doors, and that he didn’t want to speak much about personnel matters regardinghis team.
“First thing, this will be a disciplined program. We’re going to go by details,” Narduzzi said. “I’m a coach’s kid growing up, and if I was one minute late, I ain’t going out for the next month. That’s just the way it is. We’re gonna be disciplined, and as soon as you lose your discipline, you lose your credibility as a football coach and as a program. We’re gonna have discipline.
“It’s gonna be little things, and it’s gonna vary from time to time. That’s all an accumulation of three months’ worth of stuff that comes out in one day. But those are all personal things that are talked about up in that office. You got my statement [Friday] and we’ll kind of keep it right at that, to be honest with you.”
But he didn’t keep it at that. In general, he reiterated the language in his statement that he’s disappointed in those players’ actions that will keep them off the field early on. Two of those games, at Penn State and home against Oklahoma State, are chances for Pitt to score major upsets before entering ACC play.
“Where our kids are, what they’re doing, who they’re hanging out with and the decisions they make are so important,” Narduzzi said. “We preach it all the time. Just like at home with my four kids, if there’s something I’m not happy with, I’m disappointed there, and I get disappointed here. It’s just that I’ve got 105 of ’em here. I’ve got a lot of children, and there’s gonnabe issues at times.
“And you guys don’t hear about ’ em all. There’s other ones. There’s discipline, that’s what we do. We’re gonna be a disciplined program, and that’s why we’ll be itin the fourth quarters too.”
Narduzzi added he would like to see everyone on the field, but his credibility is dependent on consistency. To that end, former receiver Tyler Boyd and then-sophomore Blair were suspended for the 2015 season opener — Narduzzi’s Pitt debut — after DUI charges that summer. Now, Bookser meets the samefate.
But what of Whitehead and Wirginis, two upperclassmen who had never been publicly punished? Whitehead was in uniform but kept on the sideline in October 2016 against Marshall, with Narduzzi offering little clarity after the game. Wirginis, meanwhile, has never missed a game in his three-year career.
Is this a pattern-of-behavior issue or a one-time incident?
“Little bit of both,” he said. “Maybe one of them’s a one-time deal, maybe one was a few different things. I mean, it is what it is.”
Entering Year 3 at Pitt, Narduzzi did concede it disappoints him more to have to take these measures with juniors and seniors.
“It does,” he said. “It does. They’re older guys, and you’d hope they’d make smarter decisions than some of the younger guys.”